mits.

Once a free imperial city, it had acquired some importance, and was a
member of that commercial alliance of early times known as the
"Hanseatic League," but its prosperity, from some cause, afterwards
declined, and passing into the hands of Prussia in 1815, Dortmund had
slumbered on in adolescent quiet, undisturbed by the march of
improvement, and unaffected by the changes that were everywhere
apparent in the great world without her boundaries.

This sober, easy-going method of existence seemed to be in perfect
accord with the habits and dispositions of the people. The honest old
burghers pursued the even tenor of their way, paying but little heed
to the whirl and excitement of the large cities, and plodding on with
machine-like regularity in their daily pleasures, and their slow but
sure acquirement of fortune. Children were born, much in the usual
manner of such events--grew into man and womanhood--were married, and
they--in their turn, raised families. Altogether, life in this old
town partook very much of the monotonous and uneventful existence of
a Van Winkle.

Such was Dortmund in 1845.

About this time, however, the wave of the advancing spirit of
business activity had traveled sufficiently westward to reach this
dreamy village, and a railroad was projected between Dortmund and the
City of Dusseldorf.

Dusseldorf, even at that time, was the great focus of railroad and
steamboat communication, and situated as it was, at the confluence of
the Dussel and Rhine rivers, much of the transit trade of the Rhine
was carried on by its merchants.

Here, then, was an opportunity afforded for such an added impetus to
trade, such a natural increase in fortune, that it would readily be
imagined that the entire community would have hailed with delight an
enterprize which promised such important results, and that new life
and energy would have been infused into the sluggish communities of
Dortmund.

Such was the case, to a very great extent, and a large majority of
the people hailed with delight a project which would place their town
in direct communication with the great cities of their own country
and with all the ports of foreign lands. But of this we shall speak
hereafter.

On the road which led from Dortmund to Hagen, about fifteen miles
distant, dwelt Henry Schulte, a quiet, reserved man, who had tilled
the soil for many years. Of a reserved and morose disposition, he
mingled but rarely with the people wh