Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/850

826 1em  ELBERFELD, a manufacturing town of Rhenish Prussia in the government of Diisseldorf, situated in the narrow valley of the Wupper, about 19 miles E. of the town of Diisseldorf on the Berg and Mark railway. Though for the most part of modern erection, it has a large number of irregular and narrow streets, and altogether presents rather an unprepossessing appearance ; the very river, polluted as it is with the refuse of dye-works and factories, rather increasing the unseemliness. The newer quarters, however, must be excepted from this description, and many of the public buildings are large and handsome. Of these the most important are the town-house, in the modern llomanesque style, the provincial court, the exchange, the post office, the orphanage, the lunatic asylum, St Joseph s hospital, the infirmary, the Female Society s hospital, the railway company s offices, the gymnasium, and the technical school. The educational institutions include 27 popular schools where no fees are paid, and the whole system of relief for the poor is so well arranged that it has excited imitation in several towns in Germany. A great variety of textile fabrics in cotton, wool, and silk are mamifar-tiired on an extensive scale ; and besides dye-works and chemical works of proportionate importance, there may be mentioned button-factories, lace-factories, a brewery, a foundry, and soap-works. The town is the seat of a considerable number of industrial, philanthropic, intellectual, and religious institutions, among which the most noticeable ara the public library, the museum, and the Berg Bible Society. The inhabitants are mainly Protestants, with a strong tendency towards pietism ; but the Pioman Catholics number upwards of 14,000, and the Jewish community has recently erected a new synagogue. The Elberf elder Zeitung and several other newspapers are published in the town. In 1840 the population was 31,514; in 1864, G3,300 ; and in 1875, 80,599.

Plan of Elberfeld. 1 Post Office, I- Townhouse. a. Evangel. Luth. Church. 4. Evangel. Reformed Church. i. Barracks. f. Catholic Church. 7. Hospital. 8. Gasworks. 9. Poorhouse. 10. Old Market.

1em 1em  ELBEUF, a town of France in the department of Seine Infdrieure, 13 miles S. of Rouen, on the left bank of the Seine, with a station on the railway between Oissel and Serquigny. It has three parish churches, a Protestant place of worship, a town-house with a natural history museum, a public library, a hospital, an industrial society, an archaeological society, and a chamber of arts and sciences. The churches of St Etienne and St Jean are both of some antiquity, and preserve stained glass of the 15th and IGth centuries. The town is one of the principal seats of the woollen manufacture in France : more than half of the inhabitants are directly maintained by the staple industry, and numbers more by the auxiliary crafts. As a river-port it has a brisk trade in the produce of the surrounding district as well as in the raw materials of its manufactures. A suspension bridge communicates with St Aubin, and steam-boats ply regularly to Rouen. The population, which was only about 4600 in the end of last century, amounted in 1831 to 10,258, and in 1872 to 22,563. If the quasi- suburban towns of Caudebec-les-Elbeuf, Saint-Pierre-lcs- Elbeuf, and St Aubin-jouxte-Boulleng be included, this great industrial congeries will comprise upwards of 39,000 inhabitants.

1em  ELBING, a seaport town of Prussia, at the head of a circle in the government of Dantzig, 36 miles E.S.E. of the city of that name, on the Elbing, a small river which flows into the Frische Haff about four miles from the town, and is united with the Nogat or eastern arm of the Vistula by means of the Kraffohl canal. The old town was formerly surrounded by fortifications, but of these only a few fragments remain. There are seven Evangelical, one Roman Catholic, and two Mennonite churches, a synagogue, a gymnasium founded in 153G, with a public library of 