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RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH -GERMANY, 69
In cafe of a fiege, the diftance betwixt the town and fuburbs would give the befiegers
great advantages ; but it is very unlikely that fuch a circumftance fhould ever happen.
The ‘Turks have been the only peeple in modern times, who could carry their wars to
the gates of the capital, a thing which the King of Pruffia did not dare attempt, after the
mott fuccefsful battle. At prefent the ftrength of the Imperial houfe is fo fuperior to
that of the Porte, that I believe the prefent court keeps up the fortifications, only with
the view of keeping the city itfelf in fubjection. Another reafon indeed, may be affigned,
which is the ruin that would fall upon feveral families, who fubfift entirely by letting
their houfes, if the value of them was to fink one half, which it would certainly do, if
the empty {pace before the city was to be built upon. As things now are, there are
feveral habitations worth from 2 to 300,000 guilders, or from 20 to 30,000 pounds * per
annum, which conftitutes the whole fortune of their pofleffors. Any man who is out of
debt, and has a houfe in this city, is accounted arich man. The houfe of the book-
feller Trattnem is an object of 30,000 guilders (or 3000]. a year) tohim. ‘The advan-
tages that would accrue, in point of health and convenience, by carrying the city on to
the fuburbs, and by that means thinning the choaked up habitations, would not make
amends for what thofe who have houfes muft unavoidably fuffer by the change.
Within thefe few days I have begun my ufual circle in and about the city, in order to
- be able to form to mylelf an idea of its feparate parts. It takes up almoft two hours to
go from the end of the fuburb of Wieden to the end of the fuburb of Leopold, which
is larger than the town, and parted from it only by a {mall arm of the Danube. ‘The
going from the fuburb Roflaw to the end of the fuburb Landftraffe, took me up about
another half hour. Vienna certainly ftands upon much more ground than Paris does.
It has twenty-fix fuburbs; but many parts of them are not built upon, and about a third
of them is occupied by three or four hundred gardens, not above three or four of which
are worth feeing. The fuburbs beft inhabited are the Roflaw, the Jofephftadt, St. Ulrich,
Mariahilp, a part of the Wieden, and the Leopoldftadt. The largeft of them all, after
the Leopoldftadt, is the Wieden, the inhabitants of which have a great refemblance to
thofe of the fuburb St. Marcel at Paris.
There are fcarce eight buildings in the whole town which can be called beautiful or
magnificent. The moft diftinguifhed of thefe are the palace of Lichtenftein, the Em-
peror’s library, and the chancery.
The Emperor’s palace is an old black building, that has neither beauty nor ftatelinefs.
It is a great mafs of {tone, which was built feven {tories high, in order to contain as
many inhabitants as poflible. ‘There are hardly three {quares, or places here which
make any figure at all. The greateft thoroughtare is from the Emperor’s palace over
the Coal-markct, the Graben, the Stockameifenplafs, and through the Carnthnerftraff-
In all thefe places, particularly in the narrow and irregular Stockameifenpla/s, the tho-
roughfare is as great, and the motion as lively, as in any ftreet of London or Paris.
The ftream of this great concourfe reaches as far as Leopoldfgate, and throughout the
whole of the high ftreet of the fuburb of Leopold. ‘There are not more than eight
buildings worth looking at in the fuburbs; and the tafte of the buildings about the gar-
dens, and the fummer-houfes, is miferable.
According to the common report of thofe from whom one has a right to expeét ac-
curate accounts of their native country, the population of Vienna amounts to at leaft a
million. Bufching, in his georaphy, will hardly allow it to pafs two hundred thoufand.
In my opinion the public and the*geographer are equally miftaken. In the laft year,
which was not remarkably fatal, according to the bills of mortality, the number of the
* Surely a miftake. The guilder is 18. od.
dead
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