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Carts loaded with heavy bales and barrels moving along steep tracks, linen weavers and ribbon makers carrying their heavy panniers, the raucous bustle of street life, and busy men throwing water on thousands of yards of linen thread whitening under the sun along the wide banks of the Wupper River-such a hive of industry must indeed have been an 'enchanting El Dorado for everyone interested in the sight of a busy, blessed, and contented people'. 1 Yet when the traveller and state functionary Justus Gruner wrote these lines in the year 1802, the industrious 1