The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-08-09

whitewashed. only there is no. dust
They don't have dust here. Under the
floor are the raves, and slabs let into
the tagging bear the names, and the
shoes of the audience wear them out.
The walls are very thick and when a
stone rots away they chisel it out and
put in another one. They are at work
about all the time patching the old thing
up. Concentration tables are stuck in
here and there all around. and il there
is melancholy place outside OF Demo
cratic caucus liz Kansas it Is in this
place, and it is typical cathedral, too.
There are .'fine old oak carvings" in
places, made bv the old monks centuries
ago, which Colonel Darnell could beat
with case knife.
Imagine a cut Of face, in wood, on
grin. with a tongue hanging out down
onto the neck. An American would
think old Sitting Bull did it. The whole
thing is a rerrsble disappointment.
The Chester cathedral Is not to be COM
pared in beauty or utility to the Metho
dist church at Topeka. You may ask
why is the old stone barn kept up. Well
Ii is according to the views
of the people, They are sensible, nice,
polite people They love old things be-
cause the old things are old. The
English people are kind people. they
are kind to old people and old horses,
and old dogs and old cats, and old trees,
and old churches. They know what
good buildings are and when they build
a new one they build good one, but
they do hate to cut down an old tree or
tear down an old house.
Near the Chester cathedral are the
standing ruins of the old pgiory of st.
John, destroyed during the upEeavei of
the reformation. 1t is small patch OF
rains as big as Eidon loves drug store
Instead OF tearing it down and using
the rock and ground of which they
have need IN the little cramped city,
they put $4,000 from fence around it.
They even treat their cheese the same
way. l haven't struck any except it
was venerable. The only thing that
England don't treat well Is old Ireland.
We paid the vefger shilling each to
show Us around the cathedral and he
told us of the different kings who had
been there, and pointed out the inscrip-
tons, and told us how they brought foot
warmers when at devotions, for they
had neither stove nor fireplace to warm
ly cracked up inside the cathedral as the
tagging in front of the Citizens bank,
and worse-aud the walls are as dark,
smoky and rusty inside and out as
foundry in the Kansas City bottoms. |
would have felt badly sold had it not
been that other Americans seemed to be
delighted and so | smothered it over and
let it go, but the people-the people in
Chester-they were to me delightful
they were as pleasant and kindly looking
people as a person would wish to see. 1t
was worth a good deal more to see them
than their old sandstone rock pile, al
though cit is pronounced by many emil
nent artist to be the finest specimen of
old gothic church architecture in Eng
land"
Well, so it is with the other cathedrals.
They are all old, gloomy, water worn,
black and dismal. Westminster Abbey,
which I examined fully and attended
church service in, by good luck, is only
a large Chester ca.hedral-dark, dingy,
dismal-held together with iron rods to
hold it together with iron rods to keep
it from tumbling down; piece of archi-.
tectural patch work-built in pieces, and
when its organ begins to play your YER
tebral column goes to playing base ball
with your ribs and you feel as if you
were breathing buckshot. At the SER
vice the preacher, some eminent divine,
worked us for contributions to the mis-
sion in Darkest England" l came in
on the first round of the plate. The
lady in front of me had on a bracelet in
the shape of a strap, seven inches long
with a gold buckle, six rows of diamonds
the whole length of the strap. Her hus-
band evidently did not own stock in the
Santa Fe.
Well, Westminster Abbey, in impos-
ing size and appearance and grandeur,
bears the same relation TO the Mormon
temple in Salt Lake City that the Wilder
house to the interstate. It's only the as
ociations-Charley GoodIander can beat
Abbey if they will author
ize him to try. / don't want to say any
thing against our ancestors, but the
Mormons can beat the Norinans | may
say here that ] won't say anything
hereafter against the Salvation Army
since have been in London-the army
is all right. The cathedrals don't fill the
bill Z. F. WARE.