Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1895 — The Town of Heidelberg. [ARTICLE]

The Town of Heidelberg.

Heidelberg is in natural location a curious y situated place. The town is built at the point where the Neckar River, shortly before it empties into the Rhine, emerges from a winding defile in the mountains. The river abuts so close to the mountain edge there is scarcely room for a town, so that the houses have been stretched out along one principal street. This is the so-called Hauptstrasse, or Main street, which is, of course, neither wonderful nor beautiful. It is simply a winding roadway, where one may observe various phases of German village life. The shops are nearly all located here, where not only the natives trade, but where are found all those various novelties and souvenirs which are distinctly of the place, and which tourists are so addicted to carrying home with them. The other lead ing street, and the one most frequented by foreigners, is the socalled Anlage, a broad, earth path beneath a double line of trees, adjoining at one end a small park. This is the aristocratic quarter, where nearly all the hotels are situated. In common with all German towns and cities the soldier life on this street and elsewhere is very much in evidence. A regiment, with its stirring music, goes marching through the town once or twice ,a day to keep alive the martial spirit of the people, and to impress them with the power of the Government It would seem that there might be in Germany one or two particularly pretty little towns, such as this is, perhaps excluded from the military jurisdiction, where those people might resort who are not so fond of the army. The German Government, however, trusts so little in the innate goodness and reliability of the individual that such a dburse has never commended itself to It.