The record-union., 1897-09-26
QUAINT OLD ANTWERP.
IF YOU SPEAK ENGLISH you
ARE ENGLISH.
Public Places, Ornaments and
Buildings That Attract the
Stranger-The Great Cathedral
"A High-C1ass Theater-Ant-
werp's Wharhng System.

If you speak English you get along
very we'll in Antwerp; il you speak
nothing but Dutch you still have no
trouble if you speak French that is
perhaps a little better than either. In
most Of the business houses and all the
the hotels there is some one who speaks
English. In the postofhce is an interp-
reter who smilingly answers thousand
questions day. When you try to pay
a fifteen-centime street car fare and
stumble over it, the conductor says,
'.3 cents, SIR" That is only in the
high priced cars, however; on most
lines the fare is 2 cents. When a milk
cart comes down the street in the morn
ing, drawn by three big dogs in har-
| ness one between the shafts and one
on each side, with an old woman in
wooden shoes walking beside, and you
forget yourself and ask her in English,
How do you sell your milk?" she
quickly answers, Six cents a quart. :"
| and then laughs to think of her pro-
fciency in the language of the foreign
barbarians.
| But you need not think to pass your
self off for an American here. If you
speak English, you are an Englishman.
| Americans have red skins and wear
feathers in their hair. We Antwerpers
know, for we have seen pictures Of
them. We have read about America.
! 1t is a far-off land, mostly woods. They
have the great wolf there called the
| boof'alo. We have seen the horns and
! skins. America is a far country; but
! you are English. This is among the
more ignorant people, of course. BuSI-
ness clen know the difference between
an Englishman and an American, but
most Of them have no idea of American
| distances. One man, who sells me
paper and pictures and guide books and
such things, and who speaks English
so well that I suspect he is a trans
/ planted Cockney, is delighted to hear
| that | am an American, and from New
| York, because he has a cousin near
New York He is in San Francisco.
! When ! told him that if he went from
Antwerp to New York he would be just
about half way to San Francisco, it is
plain that he does not believe it. If l
were to tell him that we have single
counties in America about the size of
Belgium it would not surprise him, be-
cause he would not understand it.
IN THE PLACE VERTE.
One of the best things about Antwerp
| is that it is all here together. You do
not have to ride two hours on top of
a bus to see a church, and then find
the door locked. The Place Verte, a
pretty little square half the size of
Union Square, with a fine statue of
Rubens in the CENTER is about two min
utes' walk from the river; and when
you are in the Place Verte you are in
the center of everything. Here is the
postoifice, on the upper side; on the
opposite side the end of a wing of the
Cathedral; all around are the leading
hotels. which are clean and comfortable
and moderate in their prices. This IS
the street car center, here are the best
cafes and the best stores. Here on
Wednesday and Saturday mornings is
the flower market, when the broad side
walks become mounds of beautiful
flowers, and when you can buy bou-
quet of exquisite roses for SOU Here
on two evenings every week the band
plays; here you can meet all your ac-
| quainrances, smoke your Belgian cl-
gars under the trees, and imagine your
| self a Dutch burgher of the seventeenth
century.
The Flace Verte is not in the center
of the city, but it is the center of the
city's life. Even the people of fashion
are still fond of it, though they profess
to have given it over to the lower or
| ders. You. can stand here by the Ru-
bens statue and almost throw stone
! to every point Of interest that
stranger cares to see barring the mu-
! scum and the geological garden. For
nv part, [ draw the line at geological
! gardens. One cannot be expected to
waste his energy and francs and admir-
alton on the same old Washed-Out lions
and tigers in every city in Europe.
Not hing short of a live mastodon or a
frislty ichthyosaurus shall entice me
into another zoo. After seeing the big
collections of fatigued beasts in Phil
adelphia and New York and London,
these country zoos are no temptation.
The European boy, like his father, is
! still fond of them, and every cIty OF any
pretension has its collection of animals.
There can hardly be enough Wlld
beasts to go around.
From the Place Verte it is only a
step through a narrow street TO the
omen square ON which the cathedral
fronts. This square is about the same
/
size as the place but there is no grass
| i'm If. it is paved with uneven cobble-
stones which are hard to walk upon.
It is a rare old place. however, sur
rounded by buildings that one might sit
down and study by the hour. on sat
urday mornings this square is the veg
| etable market, and the countryWomen
come in with their dog carts loaded
with fresh and fragant eatables.
In the center of the square, which is
called the Grand Place. is an immense
iron fountain representing Silvius Bra
bo throwing the giant Antigon's hand
into the Scheldt 1t is one of the city's
legends that the giant Antigon used to
levy a heavy tax upon every boat that
PASSED, and to cut off and throw into
tbe river the hand of every bOatman
who refused to pay. Who Silvius Brabo
was or how he overcanne the giant I am
unable to say. If he looked anything
like his effigy, he was very large and
very black. There are a great many
Of these legends connected with Ant
werp. and / read them under unusually
| favorable circumstances. They are all
printed in French, a language in which
nv knowledge of the moods and lenses
is obscured by a sort of London fog
When the writer says that a thing
might have been so or should have been
so. / am very likely to translate it that
it was so. That makes them more ex-
citing and leaves quite as much prob
ability as there was in the original.
GREAT CATHEDRAL OF'ANTWERP
Standing by the side of the fountain
-. =. a..r.n4 l. +Io Nrnfre Dana 90 +Inn-