Barmen

Barmen, a busy town in the district of Düsseldorf, Rhenish Prussia, extending in the beautiful valley of the Wupper for about 4 miles from close to Elberfeld almost to Langenfeld. It consists of a group of villages and three chief parts now connected together—Upper, Middle, and Lower Barmen—which united form the town of Barmen. Nowhere in Germany is so much manufacturing industry accumulated in a single spot. Barmen is the principal seat of the ribbon-manufacture on the Continent. Its fabrics go to all parts of the world. It produces linen, woollen, cotton, silk, and half-silk ribbons, cloth of various kinds, stay-laces, and thread. It has also considerable manufactures of soap, candles, metal wares, buttons, machinery, and pianofortes. There are, besides, in the valley, numerous bleach-fields and Turkey-red dye-works. Its workmen number 20,000, and the annual value of its manufactures is as much as £6,000,000. Barmen is a great missionary centre, and possesses the mission-house and seminary of foreign missions belonging to the Rhenish Missionary Society. Most of its inhabitants (in 1871, 74,947; in 1890, 116,144) are Protestants—only 15,000 being Catholics.