The Newtown bee., 1905-02-17

Winchester, in Hampshire, some
 what more than sixty miles south
 west of London, is city of great an
 tiquity. It was an old Celtic town al
 the time of tho Roman invasion anc
 our Saxon ancestors took possession ir
 495, when the Latin conquerors hac
 withdrawn to defend Italy against the
 northern barbarians. A decided eff
 fort of the imagination is necessary to see in the quiet town of less than 20, 900 the former rival of London. Yet
 it was the capital of the kingdom un- der Alfred the Saxon, Canute the
 Dane, and William the Norman, and retained great ecclesiastical dignity down to the Reformation.
 The Cathedral is the longest in Eng land, 56O feet, or about one-ninth of a mile. It was begun soon after the site of Saxon church of the seventh century, and completed when Colum- bus was about to sail westward It embraces every style of English archi- lecture in use during those four cen turies. The tower appears peculiarly stunted to one who has lately feasted his eyes on the graceful Salisbury splre, but the west front, built by the great bishop William of Wykeham, is one of the glories of England.
 In the beautiful Norman nave Jane Austen, the novelist, is buried and in the south transept, 1zaak Walton. How fitting that the famous angler should repOSe on the bank of the Itchen which he loved. The presby- tery, prolongation of the choir, is inclosed at the sides by beautiful stone screens upon which rest six wooden chests containing the bones of Egbert, first king of the English, Canute, Will liam Rufus, and still other kings. The a1tar-piece, Raising of Lazarus, is by Benjamin West, America's celebrated Quaker painter. At the age of four he cut off. pussy's tail to make paint brush.
 Richard Lionheart and several other monarchs were crowned in the cathe- dral and here Bloody Mary and Philip of Spain were married. A chair in which the Queen is supposed to have sat through the ceremony is preserved in one of the chapels.
 At little distance from the cathe- dral is Winchester school, founded by William of Wykeham. During the five centuries of it's history it has been famous among the public schools of the kingdom. About 400 boys are in attendance. Two of the three quad- rangles are surrounded by pic turesque old school buildings. The cricket fields are beautiful ly situated on the river. Only visitors familiar with the sixtieth Psalm understand why the old lava tory is known to the boys as "Moab" and the place where the shoes are blacked as "Edom."
 The boys cherish the memory of the illustrious founder. Winchester ca thedral, like that of Salisbury, suffer- ed much at the hands of the frenzied Puritans, but an officer of Cromwell who was one of Wykeham's "boys' would allow. no one to touch the fine chantry chapel in the nave ::containing the tomb of the revered bishop.
 The very popular route from London to Scotland by way of North Wales is not cathedral route. Oxford has a cathedral, the smallest in England, but the University overshadows everything else. Not until we reach Chester, a few miles south of Liverpool, do we find ourselves again in a cathedral town.
 The usual tourist route from the Shakespeare country to Chester is through Shrewsbury, near which place Falstaff. fought long hour by Shrews- bury clock" There are two routes from this point to Chester, forty miles away. One passes through Wrexham, in Wales, containing the tomb of ''Eli" Yale, founder of Yale college. The quaint epitaph begins:
 Born in America, in Europe bred,
 In Africa travelled, in Asia wed Where long he liv'd and thriv'd, in London |
 Dead. Much good, some i'll he did. so hope alls even And that his soul through mercy's gone to
 heaven"
 Chester, the most quaint and media- of English towns, is plea antly situated on the Dee in sight of the Welsh mountains. During the four centuries of Roman occupancy of Britain, it was the headquarters of the famous XXth Legion, and was afterward possessed in turn by the Welsh, the Saxons, and the Danes The last-named maintained it for a year against King Alfred, and upon the coming of William the Conqueror it was the last English city to yield. In the Great Civil War, the citizens held out agains the Puritans for two years, but were at last starved into surrender.
 The Walls, nearly two miles in cir. cult, form an oblong, near the center of which the four principal Streets of |