The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1892-11-13
LETTER FROM HON. e. F. WARE.
From the Insurance Magazine.
VrvJcu Arpc,,cf 81 1890

ENiCE, aug uSb 81, 1C0Ss
l have made a discovery. / have
found out why Italy ruled the world. 1t
was because Italy was they say the most
beautiful place on earth to live. l have
been over it from Como to Naples, and
across 1t. Ny trip has been long en-
chantment. Italy bad what we call, out
west, natural advantages. People
came here with their money and enter
prise, and so Italy became densely pop
! ulated. 1t was like beautiful girl sue
ceedlng because she is beautiful.
l have found out the reason why
Italians come to America, work hard,
endure privations. live poor and return
to Italy. 1t is because their heads are
level. ANY man who can live on the
shores of the Mediterranean, and don't
live there is fool. / cannot live here in
Italy because l have lived In
Kansas, and the spell of the prairies is
upon me, which cannot throw off. If
l could, | would go to the island of
Capri, and, from the dismantled palace
of Tiberius, lock out on Nesuvius and
the bay, and the island to which old
Brutus, after the murder of Caesar, fled,
to reyel quietly in the summer palace OF
the son of Lucullus.
A man who has lived in Kansas is a
judge of climate, terrestrial beauty, and
natural advantages" A Kansas man
who sees Naples feels prepared for death.
but wants postponement fhe heat OF
the sun in Italy does not change l2o de-
grees in 125 days, as it does on Paint
creek. Ii there is place where man
can live on climate, it is Italy.
Well, as | was going on to say, when
in the course of ancient time things got
started west, and immigration filled up
Italy, Rome was in the direct path and
enjoyed Wichita boom. The George
/ Crawfords and Marsh Murdocks of that
day knew what to do, and they did 1t.
And so, Rome was great, and Italy
was great. The only FOOLS name
that has been handed down to us is that
of Remus-Remus did not know a good
thing when he saw it. No Kansas man
would have derided the layout. 1t was
patent that Rome was a good location.
Remus tried to hurt the town. The
natural advantages of Rome were great
much greater than most towns, but
will not here stop to enumerate them.
The men of the time were also great,
and were equal to the emergency.
Invent out and hunted up the old
Cloaca Maxima, or main sewer, built by
the successor of Romulus when the city
was young and new. The drain is still
doing business at the old stand. IL was
built about eight feet wide and twenty
feet deep in the clear, made OF large,
we'll jointed cut stone, and big enough
for Paris or New York. Indeed. it has
never been cleaned out, since 1T was
built, but once, and that was 100 years
ago. 1t was scientifically and honestly
built. The great public fountain OF
Treye in Rome seems almost a river
as much water as the normal kaw-lt
runs through underground stone
aqueducts. 1t has played necessarily
for 1910 years.
employed in Rome an archeologist
as a guide Flavian Golf. He came
high, but l had to have him. He is an
author, gentleman and an authority.
He interested me greatly. He knew
everything and how to tell it. For in-
stance, as we stepped into the grand
Cathedral OF st. Peters, he pointed and
said:
"That is the baptismal font You see
it is large and cut out of one piece OF
beautiful polished stone, porphyry per-
haps; well, that is the sarcophagus Of
Traian. The old baptismal font Is over
in that further archway; it Is the one
from which Constantine was baptized
after he was dead. Constantine would
never be baptized as long as he lived;
when dead they baptized him at
Nicomedia. The present font was the
last resting place of one OF the greatest
of Roman emperors." Then again:
''Those beautiful columns over there, of
Egyptian alabaster, were taken from the
golden house of Nero-Nero's golden
house covered thirteen acres; 200 other
columns came from the baths OF
Caracalla. That verd antique came
from the place Of Diocle-
sian. That bronze canopy was re-
cast from the statues that ornamented
the tomb of Hadrian, which tomb.
after being held by rObber barons as a
stronghold for centuries, is now called
the font of st. Angelic and commands
the Tiber. The font is named from the
little brass angel that surmounts the top,
where formerly stood the colossal bronze
statue of the Emperor Hadrian-" and
SO on, and so on.
was not only interested, but / was
filled up with the greatness of the old
Romans. They were really great l
was very much of skeptic until l got
on to the ground, saw the rnins, meas
ured them, walked through them, and
sized them up.
Twas down in the dungeons of the
Mammertine. where Catiiine was con-
fined, also Jugurtha, Verclngetorlx, ST.
Paul and st. Peter. The dungeon is as
good and strong as when Servius Tullus
put it there in the early days of Rome.
They had built strong and well; they
were great men and believed In an
earthly future.
The excavations in Rome have resulted
in the digging up of a great number OF
statues; so many that the government,
which is conducting the digging, does
not know what to do with them. The
museums are all filed with the art treas
ures, the warehouses are filled and
storerooms are piled full of uncatalogued
and inaccessible tons of them; and still
they are being dug up. Italy has mu-
seums of antiquities everywhere and is
building all the time. Everywhere in
italy are seen the busts of the
ancient men and women. The
statues and portrait busts seem to be
dug up and fished out of every
where. l have seen thousands of them.
The ladies look like the best OF today.
The men look like the men of the United
Statesmen like English or French or
German, but like the American. Among
the ladies every style of hair-iressng is
seen that can be found among the ladies
of today. There has been nothing new.
I called nv wife's attention specially TO
.'Langtry bang 1000 years old. So
with the men. The Emperor Hadrian
wore his hair with William Walter