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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 19, 1906)
:w-,Xfr- -"' 5 - Wr- -x '! JV -k-- t :!' ft p &. ! for i ,V S BT.i fKi!j. 5 f i'V.J RT ? mi "i ! 8 1,1.) '!. II I, i i .' .- v fe.. mki: W' - VWMM 2 vlii'l' jV.:jk& doors are in England raised and ripened !. under giass. Tne strawDemes are or enormous size ana the gooseberries are as large as pigeon eggs; . Within the house are spacious rooms, hung with pictures, of the nobility that have occupied the estate and of members of the royal family who 'Jiave visited there. The library contains several thousand books accumulated through many gen erations. Not far from the house stands the manor church supported by tithes, the owner of the estate usu ally selecting the minister. In many places the "living," as it Is-called, has ceased to be of great yalue. The inheritance tax is quite a heavy burden upon the owners of these estates and many of the land holders are so impoverished that they are obliged to rent their estates In order to raise the money to meet the tax. Mr. Moretoii Frewen, who contributed many ar ticles to the silver literature In 1896 and whose wife is of American birth, took us down to his place, Brede, which is within sight of the battle field of Hastings. It is a fine old house wih a splendid view and the oak doors and woodwork, although five or six hundred years old, are as good as new. On the way to Brede we stopped for luncheon at Knole, another famous country place, owned by the West family. The present occupant, Lord Sackville West, was once Ambassador to America. It is a historic place, and has seven courts, fifty-two stairways and three hundred and sixty-five windows. The earliest record shows that the Earl of Albemarle gave the estate to his daughter when she was married to the Earl of Pembroke. Afterward, it came Into the posses sion of Lord Say and Sele and he conveyed it to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who at his death, bequeathed It to the See of Canterbury. Cramner occupied the place in the sixteenth century and conveyed It to Henry the Eighth. (Cramner will be remembered as one of the three bishops who were burnt at the stake.) It was once In the possession of Queen Mary and afterward of Queen Elizabeth, wJio conveyed it to Dudley, her favorite Earl. The house Is a veritable museum and art gallery, and contains hundreds of pictures, many of them ot kings and others prominent in English 'history. 6ne of the rooms was fitted up by James First for himself when he paid a visit to Knole and the room is kept as it was. The bed is said to have cost forty thousand dollars and the cur tains and bed cover are embroidered with gold and silver. The mattresses are of white satin and the walls are hung with Flemish tapestry rep resenting scenes from the history of Nebuchad nezzar. The great hall used as a dining room is seventy five feet long and half as wide. At one end is a raised floor where the table of the. Lord of the Manor stood; below him sat the retainers and lower members of the household. A list of one Si1f?S and iwenty-six names is preserved, that in7gQ ?G ??mZ those wh0 regularly took their meals in the hall in 1624. In this hall there is a large collection of silver and pewter vossels handed down from generation to generation. The grounds and gardens, I need hardly add are in keeping with the interior of the castle We saw ttThMit? F.rettiest PecImU of thekilTf obLSS Unl8t B ar.fc that has come under r ami Zl SS rape yJnes are Srown in large pots were thlrn uPn noop-like trellise. When we bStyiS'sif ripned added BueBtefPTirHnd,S ,at ?rouehton Castle as the !?f anS BroughtdnCastleisnearBanbnrv fr , by Crpmwell I and "hls chtete in f Jt"L frantea stone aml th0 "of coyTred W? bCTu Lf and a good roof .t atl.ls tJugthS The Commoner. years old. In some of the rooms fine oak pan neling has been painted over and in other rooms handsome stone walls had been disfigured with plaster, but the present occupant is restoring these. As in many of the larger and older coun try places Broughton has a little chapel of its own where the family assembled for Divine service. The castle is surrounded hy a shaded lawn, ornamented by hedge, evergreens, fiower be,ds and rose-covered arbors, and around all these runs the moat fed from neighboring streams. The memory of feudal times is preserved by the tow ers, drawbridge and massive gates. English history is illuminated by these ancient country seats and much in English home life is explained that would otherwise be difficult to understand. Warwick Castle is near Lemington and but a few miles from Broughton. It is probably the most visited of all the castles of England and is still In the family of the Earl of Warwick, the King maker. It is built upon the banks of the Avon and has a deep dark dungeon and lofty tow ers and all the accessories of an ancient fortress. The great hall la filled with armor and heirlooms. The house contains a valuable collection of paint ings by old masters and the furniture of the sleep ing rooms Is as remarkable for its design as for its ,. antiquity. A few weeks ago a pageant, illustrating the history of the castle, was given on the banks of the stream and attended by some twenty thou sand visitors. So much for the great estates of England. They are still maintained and the system is sill de fended by many English statesmen as the one best calculated to preserve the family and the present social structure. There does not seem to be as much opposition here as an American would suppose to this system under which priority of birth carries with it so great an advantage over those born afterward. The younger children reared to expect little except in case of the death 'of those older seem to- accept the situation' as a matter of course and tenants descended from gen erations of tenants seem to acquiesce without pro test in a tenure which deprives them of the pros pect of ownership. While one cair appreciate the beauty of the manors and admit that they could not be maintained under any other system than that which gives them entire to one member of the family and prevents alienation, still an Ameri can finds his admiration for American institutions increasing while he travels, for to him the ad vantages that flow from individual ownership and the. division of estates at death seem infinitely greater than any that are to be derived frbm the English system. A hundred farmers stimulated by hope and secure in their holdings contribute more than one country gentleman and ninety-nine tenants possibly can to the strength and vigor of a state. After all, the large estates are insignificant in number when compared with the homes of the middle classes in the various cities and villages, but these are so much like the homes in America, both in appearance and in management, that it is not necessary to dwell upon them. The owners of these homes are potent in parliamentary elec tions as are also the laboring men, although the House of Lords represents the landed proprietors more than one-third of all the farm lands in Eng land being owned by members of that body. Y t?0? occasin to visit some of the shrines of Great Britain. Of course, no one place is so rich in historic memories as Westminster Abbey it being the burial place of most of the illustrious of England. One of the most frequented places out side of London Is Stratford-on-Avon, the birth place and burial place of Shakespeare. The house in which he was born is still standing and is well preserved considering the years that have passed verii' a.301? itB sIz and arrangement it is evi dent that Shakespeare's father was a man of some means. The house is now public property and serves as a museum where numerous Shakesper ian relics are exhibited. One oil painting of him made when he was still a young man would indi cate that even then he enjoyed some distinction among his fellows, although succeeding genera tions have appreciated him vastly more than his own. The grammar school which Shakespeare at tended is still to be seen and at the church thev SS t6 baP"sma ? nsed at his christening and the parish register In which his baptism and burial are entered. His grave Is in the flTor of the church and there is nothing to mark "the sLfl slab that covers it but' the familiar lines "poo? Mend, for Jesus' sake forbeare To digs the dutie enclosed heare Bleste be ye man yt spares thes stones And curst be he yt moves my bones" At Edinburgh we saw the home of John Knox VOLUME 6; NUMBER 40 and were impressed anew with the tremendous Influence 'Which he exerted upon the religious ml of Scotland, Seldom has it fallen t the t one man to so stamp his thought upon an people. In Edinburgh also s andT th ?K chapel, less known to tourists, in which the Gov enanters met and in which the struggle began bl tween them and the Church of England It it hard to believe that so short a time ago there was a bloody war between two branches of th Protestant church in which thousands suffered martyrdom or their religious convictions We visited Loch Katrine and Loch Lomnmi to which Scott has given a permanent plaTe n iterature and after fleeiag tem nt J a t into a dispute with any Highlander however ex travagant his praise of these beautiful lakes. And if I may digress for a moment, we also visited the lakes of Killarney of which Moore sang Thev also are beautiful enough to move a poet's heart and inspire a poet's pen, although to be truthful I must assert that Lake Tahoe which shines like Vu In ?e Crown of tne Sierras on the bound ary line between California and Nevada, need not fear comparison with any of the lakes of Scotland or Ireland. In one thing, however, we cannot compare with England, Scotland and Ireland, name- Z'JSZ !rmantled ruIn' Ifc is Pturesque and pleasing to the eye and yet who would exchango a plain cottage, occupied by a happy family, for the crumbling vine-clad walls of a tenuntless castle? , hS ?lasSw we went by automobile to Ayr, the birthplace of Burns. Thirty-three miles out and thirty-three miles back, and it rained nearly the entire way! We were sustained amid the discomforts of the trip by our interest in Scot land s rustic bard whose simple lays have en deared him to the universal heart, but our sym pathies went out to two kind friends, Mr. Mc- UK a mfmber of parliament, and Mr. Henry Wright, a Glasgow barrister, who accompanied us. ? ?n b;umble cottage in which 'Bums first saw the light and in which he lived when he made the acquaintance of those rollicking companions, Tarn O Shanter and Souter Johnny. Near by is the famous bridge over the "Bonny Doon of "nosl S. and braes" he sang, and not far away are the old bridge and the new one which his fancv clothed with life and brought together in animated SSS6?? AftGr ViSiUng tne places aQd looking upon the scenes enshrined in literature bv his verse one reads with even greater zest the home spun ballads of this Impulsive apostle of dernc racy.. I was glad to learn that increasing thou sands wend their way to his birthplace each year numeroaus amDg the Ame?Ican are very i ? 1JeT,e(1 for the conclusion of our tour of GladSnwl68 Hawarden Castle, the home of Gladstone. With our usual luck we reached Hawar- iZimMM?emy GIadSt0ne aftSShlB Stnr WMCh ca- intoStthee ?aX from Mrs. Gladstone's ancestors has lust nnPd E til Iaw prtAW new ownp? KndT Df Mr- Gladstone. The new owner is a sober, studious younc man who has already achieved distinction in coTiIm SSblto While we enjoyed a drive through the woodq and wontto cu? Sown T P ta wont to cut down trees for exercise our infest more than three score years for ifmJ bered that hfn m!! up ror ifc must be remem- his mnRf- nnrTolf Q T00m ls one of Disraeli, promLethtTifo1"" SfVl8im!B,t The ponent may possibfy be exnin nJiStInJuIsh?d P' plained ttm nZZJ: explained as Hercules ex- whdenifftti?7? hr llIm t0 the goddess which nSde himZmttal m Perfm the labrS in wWchMr r iSES? the Prary is a flre proof vault abtedocumite nSne kGpt hls papers and valu' JotaS?wfihe Wav.s so methodical that Mr. for hif worW bI?1graPner, found the materials house 1 7 7urfCnt rder' Not f 'rom the Gladstone S5nundlnf' erected a& a memorial to 'BeviSrn CntaInS hls rel,gIous library ot n Z u tnousand volumes. Thei family has built ttfstadSS avnQinIllg the 1Ibrary WcommoS We also visited the chapel near by where the Mtrtfc,.Utls.jL Mliltoluu. a--- iL,.?Ta&& '- - - . ..La.i .. . .. u f r--.7g.g.--r.T,J... -mirt ,-.. .. .... ' "'" . '-' 1 IMUil W"Wg IW -Tfcl "IT T TW-Jg( sf