“ The museum was erected with part of the munificent bequest made to the city by Dominic Grassi in 1881. As a musical centre Leipzig is known all over the world for its excellent conservatorium, founded in 1843 by Mendelssohn. The series of concerts given annually in the Gewandhaus is also of world-wide reputation, and the operatic stage of Leipzig is deservedly ranked among the finest in Germany. There are numerous vocal and orchestral societies, some of which have brought their art to a very high pitch of perfection. ”

“ Commerce, Fairs.—The outstanding importance of Leipzig as a commercial town is mainly derived from its three great fairs, which annually attract an enormous concourse of merchants from all parts of Europe, and from Persia, Armenia and other Asiatic countries. The most important fairs are held at Easter and Michaelmas, and are said to have been founded as markets about 1170. The smaller New Year’s fair was established in 1458. Under the fostering care of the margraves of Meissen, and then of the electors of Saxony they attained great popularity. ”

“ On the north side of the inner town and on the promenade are the handsome exchange with library, and the reformed church, a pleasing edifice in late Gothic.
Leipzig has some interesting monuments; the Siegesdenkmal, commemorative of the wars of 1866 and 1870, on the market square, statues of Goethe, Leibnitz, Gellert, J. Sebastian Bach, Robert Schumann, Hahnemann, the homeopathist, and Bismarck. There are also many memorials of the battle of Leipzig, including an obelisk on the Randstädter-Steinweg, on the site of the bridge which was prematurely blown up, when Prince Poniatowski was drowned ”

“ The market square, lying almost in its centre, is of great interest. Upon it the four main business streets, the Grimmaische-, the Peters-, the Hain- and the Katharinen-strassen, converge, and its north side is occupied by the beautiful old Rathaus, a Gothic edifice built by the burgomaster Hieronymus Lotter in 1556, and containing life-size portraits of the Saxon rulers. ”

“ In the same quarter stands the Grassi Museum (1893–1896) for industrial art and ethnology, and a short distance away are the palatial buildings of the Reichs and Deutsche Banks. Farther east and lying in the centre of the book-trade quarter stand close together the Buchhändlerhaus (booksellers’ exchange) , the great hall decorated with allegorical pictures by Sascha Schneider, and the Buchgewerbehaus, a museum of the book trade, both handsome red brick edifices in the German Renaissance style, erected in 1886–1890. ”

“ It consists of the old, or inner city, surrounded by a wide and pleasant promenade laid out on the site of the old fortifications, and of the very much more extensive inner and outer suburbs. Many thriving suburban villages, such as Reudnitz, Volkmarsdorf, Gohlis, Eutritzsch, Plagwitz and Lindenau, have been incorporated with the city, and with these accretions the population in 1905 amounted to 502,570. ”

“ Leipzig also contains about two hundred printing-works, some of great extent, and a corresponding number of type-foundries, binding-shops and other kindred industries.
The book trades give employment to over 15,000 persons, and since 1878 Leipzig has grown into an industrial town of the first rank. The iron and machinery trades employ 4500 persons ”

“ Other industries include the manufacture of artificial flowers, wax-cloth, chemicals, ethereal oils and essences, beer, mineral waters, tobacco and cigars, lace, india-rubber wares, rush-work and paper, the preparation of furs and numerous other branches. ”