([Morgenblatt für gebildete Leser No. 250, October 19, 1840] 
Bremen, September 

A plan is under consideration here which, if implemented, 
would be of the greatest consequence, and not only for Bremen. A 
respected young local merchant has recently returned from 
London where he informed himself exactly about the equipment 
of the steamer Archimedes which, as you know, has a newly 
invented method of propulsion by an Archimedean screw. He 
went on the ship’s trial run round the whole of Great Britain and 
Ireland, in which it greatly exceeded the speed of steamboats 

* See this volume, pp. 104-05.— Ed. 
DKF W. Paniel, Unverholene Beurtheilung.— Ed. 

Reports from Bremen 129 

equipped in the usual way, and he is now planning to apply 
the new invention to a newly designed steamship which is to 
provide a fast and regular service between New York and Bre- 
men. The empty ship, the so-called hull, will be built by our 
master shipbuilder at his own expense, while the cost of the 
machinery, etc., is to be raised by shares. Everybody senses the 
importance of such an enterprise; although some of our sailing 
vessels make the crossing from Baltimore to here in the inconceiv- 
ably short time of twenty-five days, their speed always depends 
on the wind which can treble the duration of such a voyage, and 
a steamboat, which in case of a favourable wind is also equipped 
for sailing, would undoubtedly need only eleven to eighteen days 
from a port in the United States to Bremen. Once a beginning is 
made with a steam packet-boat service between Germany and the 
American continent, the new equipment is bound to be developed 
quickly and have the greatest consequences for the linking of the 
_two countries. We will not have to wait long before we can reach 
New York from any part of Germany in a fortnight, see the 
sights of the United States in a fortnight, and be back home again 
in a fortnight. A couple of railways, a couple of steamships, and 
that’s that; since Kant eliminated the categories of space and time 
from the sensory impressions of the thinking mind, mankind 
has been striving with might and main to emancipate itself from 
these limitations materially too. 

An unprecedented animation prevailed in our theatre recently. 
Usually our stage is quite outside society; the subscribers pay their 
contributions and go there now and again when they have nothing 
better to do. Then Seydelmann came, and actors and public were 
filled with a fervour to which we are not accustomed in Bremen. 
One may complain as much as one likes about the decay of the 
spoken drama through the domination of opera, even Schiller and 
Goethe may find empty houses, while everybody rushes to hear 
the tootling of a Donizetti and Mercadante; but as long as the 
spoken drama can still achieve such triumphs through its most 
capable representative, our stage can still be cured of its languor. 
Besides some plays by Kotzebue and Raupach, we have seen 
Seydelmann as Shylock, Mephistopheles and Philipp (Don Carlos). 
It would be like pouring water into the sea if I were to enlarge 
upon his well-known interpretation of these roles. 

The recent manoeuvres of the Oldenburg-Hanseatic brigade 
conducted in the adjoining part of the Oldenburg region give us a 
poate in miniature of the camp at Heilbronn. During the sham 
ight for the capture of a village our troops are said to have 

behaved so courageously that the force of the cannon fire 
shattered all the window-panes. The people of Bremen are glad 
that they have a new amusement spot and go out in droves to 
watch the fun, while their sons and brothers move to the guard 
posts and spend the merriest nights of their lives there with wine 

and song.