The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-09-15
|TASKSHALFCOMPLETED
SOME NOTABLE EXAMPLES OF HUMAN PRocRAsTINATIoN.
The Long Unfinished rsWasnington Monument-Westminster
 Abbey.

I
 ever has been since the Tower or Bapei | was left unromplcted, and so IL VII, pe' | no doubt. to the end of time. Tn our asn,, nui
 " to begin, things w we worlS Iorset today the | Great Unfinished stares us In the lace sorne big thing waing its compleuon.. There is the WasnineuoHf froae the low | flats hack of the White House. Evel! one is familiar with its present appear.
 ance. but few people T Tememp,er ntn ,ook ho This tribute of a grateful nation to the Eao fsio | ther of his Country was begun m ,i uoic and has never bAen completed, accoroins 10 the original designs. Propapiy IL nev CT will be. H was hard worK to get 1t as near completion. as 1t IS; when tne monument was started all the rulers ot the world sent blocks of marble to De placed in the interior of the ornate, col sumnated structure, which was to sur round the lower part Jf the great smart.
 The work of building d went aon,,y on ssnSnsd l entirely. It wa5 not until lso tnat "orSS .,S was resumed upon the monument ana
 not until 1884 that the. shaft vas was con, .no | monument according to the origlnai oe, | signs seems to have been abandoned, and
 there 1t stands. towering aloIt 900 Ieet | pboye the unfinished world.
 The Grant monument. as designed by Mir Duncan, had imposing approacnes.
 NHh great fights of stairs leading down
 to the river and many ,accessories or which 1t is now bare. As 1t Is, the mon ument has an unfinished look, and | glance at the original designs will show | how far from completion this memorial to the great general is. and is probably | deetjned to rsmaln. Among older struc-
 lures in New York there is Trinity
 wealthy enough to be completed in every
 detail. Yet in many instances 1t is in- l complete. As you pass dowl Broadway
 look up at the niehss A ab9xe .te,,d the man m
 saints and martyrs, but empty since the hand of the stone masion finished them l Out in the bay the statue Of Liberty | stands on a pedestal, 1t is true, but 1t Is
 an unfinished one Wooden stairs still
 lead up to the entrance to the interior.
 and the lower part of the pedestal is l frankly, not to key obtrusely, incomplete The pedestal as designed by Richard M Hunt and the pedestal es 1t looks today
 are two different things. As the erection accomplished in 1886, 1t looks as if Bar | 1T oldis colossal creation had passed into
 the category of the Great Unfinished.
 eaTtf tt4Rs o2 4'1ds od cT Fort tor wood into tar
 races rising one above the other from the
 shore at high-water mark to the base of
 the pedestal. The island will he sur
 rounded by a stone bulkhead; from which
 piers should project for the boats, which | should take visitors to and from tho
 island. From the landing places flights
 leading ty easy stages to the base of l the monument. The meats and the lnte- | rior of the earthwork were to be filled
 and the terraces to follow somewhat the | line of the ramparts. Rit the wooden
 steps that were pat up at the beginning | still afflict the eye and torture the leg. | When money enough had been subscribed | for -fhe pedestal. there was none leet for
 laying out the grounds and approaches | in a dignified manner.
 | Then there Is the North River Tunnel
 That is one of the greatest tunnels ever ever | On 1t there was no one who did not be- iieve that long before this freight and
 passenger trains would be whisking be | tween the Jersey shore and Manhattan
 under the rtvsr's bed. From both sides | of inc river the work was pushed out | under the stream, and night and day
 dug their way towards each other from
 Hohoken and from New York. The pa. pers in the late '7ns and in 1880 and 1881
 were full of news of the progress of the
 tunnel. When the chief promoter of the
 enterprise died, work on the tunnel was | stopped. and for eighteen years now lit
 tie or nothing has been done on the work. able distances from either shore out ur- | der the rivers bed, have long since been abandoned. the shore works nearly all
 removed and the enterprise, which lnes.iw seem s membered. Far down under the mighty
 river the water has percolated through, filling the dark galleries of another item
 in the inventory or the worlds unnhsheo
 These are only few of the great un- completed things-m0St Of them r1ght Tn our own city. Scattering over the coun- try there are many more buildings mon uments, and engineering works Wnlcn
 have never been completed and never VIII be. Every one knows the story or the apparently endless task of finishing the capitol at Albany, and the capitoi at
 Washington is said to be still incom- pleted in some of it's interior decorations; And so. turn where we will, the world
 Who will take up again the channel tunnel at Dover which was to connect England and France? o of o, these sea w45ss 15ss they were blessed by princes. peers ana commoners, and were suddenly ana per emptorially brought to an end by Joseph Chamberlain of Birmingham. A striking example of the unfinished Is anorded
 by a row of columns which rear their heads on Carlton Hill, Edinburgh. Iney represent the beginning Of m9oei EI I the Parthenon. and. they are talking n Scotland now of rumor that Alns En E
 ward will urge the completion or the structure. = the battle of Waterloo was fresh in men minds and Britains gratitude TOT ner ne
 liverance was still bubbling ana seethins'
 1t was proposed by a commltte or Scotch- men to erect on Carlton Hill, oyerlook1ns Edinburgh, a duplicate of the Fartnenon in memroy of the British soldiers wno fell upon the field which closed the mighty epic of Napoleon. George lV wis ited the Scottish capital and the first thirteen columns were set up at cost 0i s, GOO apiece, and begun again. IL would take $200,0,0 more to complete the sSruc- ture, and show to the world that scot land is still ready to pay for Waterioo. But that amount of money never mas been forthcoming and probably never will be, in spite of the rumor about the intention of King Edward, in Wmcn the wish is probably father to the tnought.
 England was exceedingly grateful TOO over Waterloo. and when Wellington oieu; declared him a public funeral ana lao him away in St. Paufs Cathedral 10 the noise of the mourning of a mighty nd- ton" But they never finished ms tpnio, pe The equestrian statue which was to nave surmounted the tomb, stands heaoIess m the crypt of the cathedral, propped up with some old lumber and tied about Wlth ropes-if it was ever made-and tne pSu- estal which was to support the statue was never completed. The House of Lords surprised itself into a discussion or me subject a year ago, and all that coula pc said officially was that the money aPPr,o- priated for the tomb ran short ana the work had been arrested 1n .1oo 1ts OoG pGeSSs wss appropriated for this tomb nfty years ago. Nobody seems to care now wnetneF IL Is ever completed or not. After laQse oL half century patriotism is not eaSLiy transmitted into money. The iron ouke, kt,,, however, no doubt sleeps very sounulS without his equestrian statue percheu above him.
 London is in a much more half-made state than New York anyway, ana eNl- dences of incompleteness met one on ey
 cry hand although your true BrIton is never tired of talking about E,iuSn ;n thoroughness. An empty pedestal m
 Trafalgar Square stands proeialnlng
 daily to wondering world that Engtano
 has no hero to stand with Nelson tor, II nd l