The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1891-02-14
ghe Sntelliaentet.
ofIIeel Noa. 10 and sI Rourteentllstre0t.
NAKRMAN'S TRAVELS.
tcwwtchl. 1911
BY EDGAR L. wAEENAN.
At tho Grave Of byron.
Special COnopOHdenos OF ne Ianuigsaer.

l
HUcKNALL ToRKARp, ENGLAND, Jal
%, 1sOl.-In railway carriage betwee
Bayreuth and Nuremburg, 1 once hear
a little Bayarian schoolgirl ask trav
eIed Philadeiphian where the great an
good Benjamin franklin was buriet
Gracious and prompt as We American
alwaysare in supplying eaete European
with information, he promptly ar
swered that Franklin's ashes reposed Il
Westminster Abbey.
This American man was undoubtedl.
born within half a mile Of franklin
tomb in his own city, and may hay
passed within few feet Of the neanly
kept, unhonored grave neatly every da.
OF his own home life. Englishmen MAJ
cherish the heritage to Britain Of By
ron's immortal genius; but Byroni
grave ia no more o shrine to them thar
was Frasklin's to his townsman.
This may seem incredible TO intelli
gent Americans. The gradually acquir
ed recognition OF it's truth was astound
ing to me. AS probably to millions o
others who, at some period OF life, have
adoringly pored over the pages OF Byron
it was a forgiVable dream OF youth and
early manhood TO some day come to the
scenes he knew; walk the very ground
=. trOd in England; dream in the same
monk.wraithed Cloisters Of Newstead
and then, at his grave, through the In.
Unite spirit-reach Of loving memory,
brooding by consecrated soil, endeavol
to fnthom for my own consciousness
with Just measurement OF bis career and
genius, the wretched mystery OF his sad
and unhappy life.
Indeed, for the past Eve years. in ffe.
quently passing through, or during pc.
RODS OF travel, in England, this wish and
impulse have been uppermost In my
mud anu whatever else engaged atten.
ton for the time being my stereotyped
inquiry Of all classes Of Englishmen has
been, "Wbere Is the grave OF Byron?"
Though had come to know, in a geo.
graphical sense, l found 1t was with
sinlilar vagueness any other body knew
at all and 60 few knew even this poor
bit about where Byron lay, that the re.
petition OF the question and replies came
to possess a melancholy sort Of fascina.
ZION. Over 1000 answered, "At West.
Minister" half that number, Eat New
stead Abbey" Many believed his re-
mains rested in Greece. An astopish.
ingly large number were sorely puzzled
at the query and confessed complete IL.
norance. 0fcourse, any English guide
book would answer the question. But
guide.books are for strangers, not resi-.
dents. And to whatever stranger may
have accidentally seen the two or three
line statement that-the tomb OF Byron
might be found at the little church Of
Hucknall, in Hucknall Torkard, Not
tingnamshire, there came q sense OF re-
pellant iRdetiniteness; as though the
guide-book maker we're not quite GER
tain OF the matter himself. Even II the
statement were accepted as a true one,
where then might one hunt for the IN.
known hamlet with 80 mystilying
name as Hucknall Torksrd2
While wandering in Robin Hoods
land unconsciously passed many times
within few miles OF the spot where re-
poses the ashes Of Byron. But there is
no one in that region to call the stang.
er's attention TO the fact. He would
hardly discover 1t at Eewstead Abbey,
three miles distant, once the poets
and home. Nobody at Arnold,
four miles away, even among the owners
Of the looms and spindles, can tell you
how to find HuCknall Torkard, or why
should wish to find 1t. The
CoiIiery town itself is perhaps eight
miles north OF Nottingham. But one
might ask a thousand OF that citY's hun
bred thousand people without ASCERTAIN.
ing Just where to And the place; and liz
quire OF a good many more than that
before discovering that the town
anything but Golfers and coal.
After had finally made sure HuCk.
nall Torkard was near Nottingham
and that perhaps come man "ot quality"
was buried there, as II was "iamously
unhealthy" was then twice sent over
wrong railway lines to find II. Then !
tramped. A two hours walk through
the drearies Of English half.mauuiactur.
ing villages, over the worst highway in
England, brought me, past dreary, moor.
like reaches and scraggy, unlovely
fields, TO an utterly cherries. collection
Of half cottages and shops. These were
low, Crampes, inadequate, unsightly.
The houses were pinChed eidewise, end
wise, up and down. The windows and
doors were pinched. Passagewsys,
wynds, closets, alleys and shops oil were
pinched and mean and small. Every.
thing exposed for sale seemed sparse,
little and shriveled. The faces OF the
old women, siatternly wives and hosts
OF dirty children rolling in doorways
and on psvements with pinched and
ragged.haired ours, were pinched more
sadly than all else in the poor, pinched
place.
It was one Of those many places in
Europe, and, lees credit to us, in our
own country, where coal bsrons huddle
and herd families at profit, after first
pro6ting to the extent OF human endur.
anCe from the use Of vast aggregate OF
dependent labor. 1t was Hucknall Tor.
kard, where 5000 miners dig 1000 yards
"below grass" for coal, at twenty-one
shillings week for half the weeks in
the year, and stsrve, with their families,
the other half. Every structure was Of
brick. Every object was besmeared With
the faint OF coal. Even the struggling
outlying streets, and the fiat, clayey
country, round, utterly hedgeless aud
treeless, seemed to have the filth and
Crime Of the locality ground into it. But
one object within the horizon disk gave
relief 10 the hard miserable feature Of
every visible thing in Hucknall Tor.