Morning journal and courier., 1892-07-16
70 thousand years labor for perfection

TWO thousand years labor for perfection
therefn
This would be good argument were IL
true. But 1t is not. There is not q Brit
isb, or for that matter q European. stone
road in existence that was not originally At
once constructed 90 absolute completion.
whenever begun and however long IL NAV
have been maintained. And, with Euro-
pean governmental and social conditions
inconcsivably hard upon peasant popula-
tons, wherever these roads exist the con-
dition of the people is incompArAbly more
happy and prosperous than where they do
not; while land values have invariably
been increased from one hundred TO one
thousand per cent
Not so many years ago Austria built
nearly two thousand miles of stene high
way up and down from end TO end of Ga
licia, or Austrian Poland. Previous TO
that time, materially, q no more wretched,
God-forsaken land existed on the face of
the earth. What was the results In less
than ten years time these roads did more
for the six million people of Austrian Po.
land in material and social advancement
than all the churches, all the books, all the
newspapers, all the battles, su the rail
ways and all the governments had ever
accomplished for them from the days of
Mieezyslaw and Boleslas to the day these
roads were done.
Cannot some of the expensive and high
art frills of that great Columbian exposi-
tion at Chicago be trimmed little, and
thus make room for a road exhibit-not in
inaccessible dabs and bits in q dozen diff
ferent departments, but in one generous
and comprehensive Department. The mil
lions of visitors, including city and subur-
ban folk everywhere whose health and
pleaeure largely depend on good roads, as
well as farmers whose betterment and COM
fort would be intellectually augmented by
perfect roads, might thus carry away with
them a knowledge and purpose which
would not only add billions to our nation
al wealth, but make, in good time, our
broad land bloom and blossom fairer than
the sweetest garden spots in all this old
and worn out Europe.
With such thoughts as these / came,
with the carts and csrtmen, along the
brow of the hills skirting the noble valley
of the Exc, to ancient Exeter, which looks
far away to the warm green sea that beats
upon the red cliffs of Devon.
1t was in ancient days an old British
town, built long before Cesar, and called
Caer Isc, or the city on the river. Anti
quarians observe that, like most Celtic
trading towns, it was built for safety some
little distance from the sea, and just be-
yond where the river Exc ceases to be nav
igable. Discovered coins of the Greek
dynasty in Syria and Egypt prove that
Phnnicisn merchants must have come
here many years before Christ TO trade for
Cornish and Dartmoor tin. Then the Ro-
mans marched in and made it a great sta
tion. Lastly the Saxons fortified the town
on the Exc, and traded here with the
Cornish Britons across the lamar.
Tho Era the frnUfier than for tha
Dsmnonisns, but Athelstan came and
drove them pellmel into Cornwall and re-
built the walls of Exeter. The Cornish
Britons, cooped up among the rocks of
Cornwall, soon had their avengers. The
Danes came crowding up the Exc with
their black sails ard black banners and
wintered in Exeter in SIG, rejoicing in
Saxon beeves and ale. The old red tower,
still seen in the Rougemont ruins of to-
day, was always getting beaten about by
stones from military engines and chipped
by crossbow bolts. William the Conquer
or besieged it, wishing to seize Giths,
mother of Harold, and her daughter, but
they escaped safely to Bruges, while Per-
kin warbeck, as Richard W, when Joined
by the Cornishmen of Bodmin, besieged
the place but unsuccessfully, and was
finally hanged at Tyburn-
And so on and on runs the grim story
that has left Just enough scar and hard
pess on the lovely, leafy old city to sdd a
mellow charm TO all you may see and
know Fifty thousand folk do not live to-
gether in a more winsome spot in Eng
land. The embowered Devon hills which
surround it, the glorious valleys which
reach their greens and blooms TO its very
doors. the grand sweep OF the Exc vale to
the sea, the city's noble old antiques. its
beautiful streets, half in the shadows of q
remore architectural past and half in the
sunshine of modern elegance and adorn-
ment, give everything upon which you
look a sweet and winsome face.
1t all blends in that fine sunset glow
which scme of these old cathedral towns
take on SO fittingly- The pleasant seeming
smiles back to you from polished panes,
from snow white old arches, from bright
red roofs and brighter red banks of roses,
from marvelously clean stone steps area
ways, from bits of ancient things, from
door-knobs and brasses glittering like bur.
nished gold, from the snuggest and trim
NEST of shop windows; indeed, from all
things that csn tell substantial, well kept
age without the semblance of a wrinkle or
a frown upon it.
You feel this sense of radisting hearth
ness and amplitude again in Exeter around
the market places on these pleasant mar
ket days. All the country folk gathered
here are well gsrmented, comfortable and
CHEEKY. They all look as though they had
stepped out of the "merrie old England
of the books, now go hard to find outside
the covers of those boaks. Pride glows in
their faces for old Devon and Exeter, itt
capital, and in themselves. They do say
Dickens found his Fat Boy" of Dingley
Dell, among them. And well he might
for they are fat and fine and stsnch, one
and all. Rosy, overlapping jowls and big
paunches, suggestive of plum puddings
and the famous "clotted cream" of Devon
are everywhere among them.
You are thus In love with Exeter Ions
before you have many times wandered up
and down Queen and High streets, ssun
tered through the arcade of Chapel street
peering into the old half timbered struc
lures that cluster in stately fashion around
the wide cathedral close, and have at las
come among the silences within the gres
cathedal walls. A pedant can alone tel
another the exactitudes and measurement,
of such mossy, massive, marvellous edi
fee. Coming one by one to England,
splendid cathedrals, you will at least sure
ly remember of them all those impressions
upon your mind and heart which seemed
most powerfully characteristic of each.
In the sense of architectural distinc
tiveness Exeter cathedral will remain in
your memory remarkably distinguished
from all other English csthedrals. Theil
plans invariably comprise huge centra
tower and smaller towers at the west end
Here are towers crowning the trsnsept
This does away with the usual four cum
bersome arches srchitecturslly separatin,
nave and choir, and permits the grandes
uninterrupted view of vault and vista o
the entire nave and choir to be found IL
England.
Two other structural peculiarities ar
seen in this cathedral. The choir and tn
nave are of equal length, and Throughout
~ ~ 81 &,