HAMBURG. 



HARPER, JAMES. 



333 



H 



HAMBURG, a free city of the North-Ger- 

 man Confederation. Area, 156 square miles; 

 population in 1867, 305,196. The " budget " for 

 1869 estimates the receipts at 5,059,400 thalers, 

 and the expenditures at 5,357,400 thalers; de- 

 ficit 298,000 thalers. The public debt, on 

 December 31, 1867, amounted to 31,275,000 

 thalers. Total imports by land and sea in 1868, 

 818,040,000 marks banco (one mark banco equal 

 to 34 cents; one thaler equal to 69 cents). 

 The exports of Hamburg cannot be ascertained, 

 as, since 1857, no statement of exports has 

 been demanded. The movement of transmarine 

 shipping, in 1868, was as follows: entered, 

 5,297 vessels, together of 1,021,777 lasts; 

 cleared, 5,287 vessels, together of 1,019,229 

 lasts (1 last 4,000 pounds). The merchant navy 

 consisted, at the end of the year 1868, of 467 

 ocean-going vessels, together of 122,608 lasts. 

 The number of emigrants from the port of 

 Hamburg amounted to 50,050 in 1868, to 

 42,889 in 1867, and to 44,780 in 1866.* 



HAEPER, JAMES, an American publisher, 

 for more than fifty years the head of the 

 publishing-house of Harper and Brothers, born 

 at Newtown, L. I., April 13, 1795; died in 

 New York City, March 27, 1869. He was the 

 son of Joseph Harper, a farmer of Newtown, 

 and his earlier years were passed upon his 

 father's farm, and in attendance upon the pub- 

 lic school of the village. At the age of sixteen 

 he and his younger brother John were ap- 

 prenticed to different printers in New York. 

 The two boys were strictly temperate, indus- 

 trious, and faithful, and, by increasing their 

 small wages by overwork, were able to save a 

 little sum, sufficient, when John had completed 

 his apprenticeship in 1817, to enable them, 

 with a few hundred dollars of assistance from 

 their father, to establish a small printing-office 

 'in Dover street, N. Y. Their firm name was 

 J. and J. Harper. In August, 1817, they de- 

 livered to Evert Duyckinck then a leading 

 bookseller of the city 2,000 copies of Seneca's 

 " Morals," the first book they printed ; in De- 

 cember, 2,500 copies of Mair's "Introduction 

 to Latin," to the same publisher. In April, 

 1818, they sold to Mr. Duyckinck 500 copies 

 of Locke's " Essay upon the Human Under- 

 standing," the first book upon which their im- 

 print was placed. They proceeded cautiously, 

 and when contemplating the publication of a 

 book, especially if it was a reprint, sent to the 

 leading houses in the trade to ascertain the 

 number of copies each would take. Their 

 work being well done, and their judgment in 

 regard to the books demanded by the public 

 proving excellent, they soon took rank as a 

 leading and successful publishing-house. They 



* For statistics of emigration of the years 1846 to 1867, 

 see AMERICAN ANNUAL CYCLOPEDIA for 1868. 



published, among other serial works, " Harper's 

 Family Library," which eventually extended 

 to nearly 200 volumes. In 1825 two younger 

 brothers, Joseph Wesley and Fletcher, having 

 been admitted to the firm after having served 

 their time as apprentices, the name of the 

 house was changed to Harper and Brothers, 

 and they removed to Nos. 81 and 82 Cliff 

 Street. As the years drew on, the fame and 

 business of the firm grew and increased, until 

 they were acknowledged to be the largest 

 publishers in the country. They had gradu- 

 ally added to their accommodations in Cliff 

 Street, till they owned and occupied nine con- 

 tiguous buildings, none of them fire-proof. 

 On the 10th of December, 1853, this vast 

 establishment was reduced to a mass of rub- 

 bish by a sweeping fire, and with but slight 

 insurance. The loss was about a million dol- 

 lars ; but the great executive ability of James 

 Harper and his brothers never showed to bet- 

 ter advantage than on this occasion. Tem- 

 porary quarters were immediately engaged; 

 the Magazine, the entire edition of which for 

 January had been nearly completed and was 

 all consumed, was reproduced with but slight 

 delay, and the business went on upon hired 

 presses and with hands unskilled in their 

 routine, for a time ; but, before the rubbish 

 could be cleared away, the plans for the new 

 buildings, thoroughly fire-proof, were ready, 

 and they were built and stocked without de- 

 lay. In all these losses and the hurry and 

 confusion which followed, James Harper never 

 lost his equanimity or complete self-possession. 

 Always early at his post, he was ever cheerful, 

 genial, and courteous ; ready with a kind word, 

 a pleasant jest, a quick repartee, or judicious 

 counsel. He was attached to his business, and, 

 though he consented reluctantly to serve the 

 city as mayor in 1844-'46, he could never after- 

 ward be drawn into political life or office, 

 "preferring," as he said, quietly "to stick to 

 a business that he understood." He was 

 greatly in request as a presiding officer, a 

 position which he filled with dignity and 

 ability. From his early boyhood he had been 

 rigidly temperate, and he was identified with 

 many of the temperance movements of the 

 time. He was a strictly religious man, a prom- 

 inent and leading member of the Methodist 

 Episcopal Church, and active in all benevolent 

 enterprises. His fine health gave him the ap- 

 pearance of being much younger than he really 

 was, and when he was last at his place of busi- 

 ness, two days before his death, his powerful 

 frame and his ruddy and healthful expression 

 indicated that he had yet a full quarter of a 

 century of life before him. On that afternoon, 

 while driving in the upper part of the city, the 

 pole of his carriage broke, his horses became 



