ELSTER, a spa and inland watering-place of Germany, in the kingdom of Saxony, on the Weisse Elster, close to the Bohemian frontier on the railway Plauen-Eger, and 20 m. S. of the former. It has some industries of lace-making and weaving, and a population of about 2000, in addition to visitors. The mineral springs, saline-chalybeate, specific in cases of nervous disorders and feminine ailments, have been lately supplemented by baths of various kinds, and these, together with the natural attractions of the place as a climatic health resort, have combined to make it a fashionable watering-place during the summer season. The number of visitors amounts annually to about 10,000.
See Flechsig, Bad Elster (Leipzig, 1884).
ELSWICK, a ward of the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, in the western part of the borough, bordering the river Tyne. The name is well known in connexion with the great ordnance and naval works of Sir W.G. Armstrong, Mitchell & Co. Elswick Park, attached to the old mansion of the same name, is now a public recreation ground.
EL TEB, a halting-place in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan near the coast of the Red Sea, 9 m. S.W. of the port of Trinkitat on the road to Tokar. At El Teb, on the 4th of February 1884, a heterogeneous force under General Valentine Baker, marching to the relief of the Egyptian garrison of Tokar, was completely routed by the Mahdists (see [Egypt]: Military Operations).
ELTON, CHARLES ISAAC (1839-1900), English lawyer and antiquary, was born at Southampton on the 6th of December 1839. Educated at Cheltenham and Balliol College, Oxford, he was elected a fellow of Queen’s College in 1862. He was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn in 1865. His remarkable knowledge of old real property law and custom helped him to an extensive conveyancing practice and he took silk in 1885. He sat in the House of Commons for West Somerset in 1884-1885 and from 1886 to 1892. In 1869 he succeeded to his uncle’s property of Whitestaunton, near Chard, in Somerset. During the later years of his life he retired to a great extent from legal practice, and devoted much of his time to literary work. He died at Whitestaunton on the 23rd of April 1900. Elton’s principal works were The Tenures of Kent (1867); Treatise on Commons and Waste Lands (1868); Law of Copyholds (1874); Origins of English History (1882); Custom and Tenant Right (1882).
ELTVILLE (Elfeld), a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, on the right bank of the Rhine, 5 m. S.W. from Wiesbaden, on the railway Frankfort-on-Main-Cologne, and with a branch to Schlangenbad. Pop. 3700. It has a Roman Catholic and a Protestant church, ruins of a feudal castle, a Latin school, and a monument to Gutenberg. It has a considerable trade in the wines of the district and two manufactories of sparkling wines. Eltville (originally Adeldvile, Lat. Altavilla) is first mentioned in a record of the year 882. It was given by the emperor Otto I. to the archbishops of Mainz, who often resided here. It received town rights in 1331 and was a place of importance during the middle ages. In 1465 Gutenberg set up his press at Eltville, under the patronage of Archbishop Adolphus of Nassau, shortly afterwards handing over its use to the brothers Heinrich and Nikolaus Bechtermünz. Several costly early examples of printed books issued by this press survive, the earliest being the Vocabularium Latino-Teutonicum, first printed in 1467.