“ They embrace an orphanage, a laboratory where medicines are prepared and distributed, a Bible press from which Bibles are issued at a cheap rate, and eight schools of various grades, attended in all by over 3000 pupils. The other principal institutions are the city gymnasium, the provincial lunatic asylum, the prison, the town hospital and infirmary, and the deaf and dumb institute. The salt-springs of Halle have been known from a very early period. Some rise within the town and others on an island in the Saale; and together their annual yield of salt is about 8500 tons. ”

“ The conflict of interests and jurisdictions led to the usual internecine strife during the middle ages. The panners (Pfänner) of the Tal, feudatories or officials, became a close hereditary aristocracy in perpetual rivalry with the gilds in the town; and both resisted the pretensions of the archbishops. At the beginning of the 12th century Halle had attained considerable importance, and in the 13th and 14th centuries as a member of the Hanseatic League it carried on successful wars with the archbishops of Magdeburg; and in 1435 it resisted an army of 30,000 men under the elector of Saxony. ”

“ Of secular buildings the most noticeable are the ruins of the castle of Moritzburg, formerly a citadel and the residence of the archbishops of Magdeburg, destroyed by fire in the Thirty Years’ War, with the exception of the left wing now used for military purposes, the university buildings, the theatre and the new railway station. ”