The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-10-03
WHATPORTERS
Kansas Jurist Took Different
View of Europe.
Was Most Impressed by Rural
England.
SHOW HOW TO FARM.
Marveled at Well Kept Fields
and HedgerOws.
HOW HOW TO FARM.
Paris Proved a Disappointment
to Kansan.


| ana comes back with so many stories
all alike that the stay at homes are US
| uaIly disguised with the shelf worn
| goods they set on monotonous display.
But Justice Silas Porter, of the kan
SaS supreme court, who has Just re-
| turned from an European trip has a
story to tell worth while because it is
| different The judge saw the same old
| sights that the others had seen on the
4 deeply worn track of the tourists
across the face of the Old world, he
saw the same sun and he drank at the
same stream, but he also saw some
thing different and tells his story diff
terently. He looked in out of the way
places and studied human nature and
observed economic conditions.
England was the most interesting
country the judge visited while abroad
and he talks most about England, but
not about her min sterS, or her Drulu
affairs or her abbeys and battlefields,
but about her hedgerows and her farm
ing country and her fine stock.
Rural England is the most beautiful
country have ever seem declared the
judge The macadam roads, the hedge
rows, the meadows and the flowers
and the herds struck me as the grand
est sight Europe has to offer to the
traveller from the states. 1 was struck
with the superior grade of cattle and
horses and sheep 1 saw on the farms
of England, Scotland and Wales. They
have little land that they cannot
afford to bother with the inferior grades
of stock The thoroughness with which
the English farm strikes the American
with peculiar force.
All Europe suffered from the same
drouth this past summer that afflicted
the United States. Not in a half cen
fury had the hot weather laste9 so
long and the rains been so few over
there. But in spite of this drouth I
found the English countryside a garden
spot. I saw finer wheat there than 1
ever saw in Kansas or any of the states.
Go1r7 low
The wheat stood up straight and fine
like one of those pictures where they
advertise reapers and mowers The
heads of the wheat were larger and
saw.
London Is Bigger.
London? Oh, cannot tell you about
that city. They claim a population of
seven millions, but I estimated it at IA
Millions
The judge was impressed with the
fact that in London they have no sur
face street cars or tracks in the bust |
ness districts, but use two-story, two |
penny buses by the thousand instead. |
He saw little or no drunkenness in /
England or elsewhere in Europe ex-
cept in Scotland, but stated that there |
is a great amount of intoxicating Ii |
quors sold all over Europe.
On the continent the judge liked Hol- |
land best of all the countries he visited |
The great little Dutch republic has a
history ana a cndrm all us own Every
field in Holland has been ploughed by
bullets and every walled town and dixie
has story to tell about resistance to
tyranny and defense of the Lutheran
faith.
The Judge was disappointed in Paris.
The city as a whole, he thought, was
dirty and noisy but then the dirt was
due to the effects of the great flood
last year that destroyed the boule-
wards and made repaving and rebuild !:
ing necessary. OF course, the judge
cheerfully admitted that any OF
dozen especial sights and features of
the gay French capital was worth
trip to Europe to see, and he walked
with interest along the haunts of Du-
mas Musketeers and in the places
made famous by the bravest and clev-
crest people of the old world for many
centuries.
One thing the judge laid especial
stress upon was the fact that in Lon
don and other foreign cities where
autos were used by the thousand they
are not allowed to split the atmosphere
and make life miserable for every one
bv blowing their horns. The chauffeur
who blows his horn in London is ar
rested just the same as though he had
run over some one
While the judge was in Italy he
heard no talk of war or rumors of war
with Turkey, but he did hear on every
hand talk of war between France and
Germany, and would not have been
surprised to learn upon his arrival
home that war had been declared.
In Italy he was struck with the
large number of fields of Indian corn
on every hand. More corn fields in
the land of the Caesars than vine
yards.
Germany Is Prosperous.
The most prosperous looking coun- 1
try in which he visited was Germany !
There he saw little or no poverty on /
The surface and he did not know how
much the government interest in all
affairs had to do with this economic
question.
Of his side trips the passage of the t
simplon pass by the route taken by !
he great Napoleon was the most won
lerful The little corporal left a work
IN the Alps-that will stand for all
time The other fine trip was down Is
he Rhine from Coblenz to Mayence. I
The judge stated that no story nor
picture of that trip could describe its
grandeur It is one of the few, the t
very few, things in Europe that is up
o or ahead Of the advance notices
Summed up, the judges story has
more to do with the English hedge Y
-ows. the French wheat, the Italian J
,orn, the Holland windmills and the
German prosperity of the lower classes 7
han it has to do with the cathedrals, =
he paintings, the battlefields, the old /
'uins and other familiar descriptions $
hat the guides steer the Americans
10 against with inf1exible determina-
ion The judge looked past the Ro- a
nan roads for the wild flowers in the
ields, and out of the cathedral win e
lows to see the peasants and their t
,urdenss He fed the noise of Paris T
O see the wonderful fields of Brit 1
Amy and the Norman parks
In Italy the government controls the l.
ale of all tobacco and an inferior
.rade is pushed into the pipes and S
oiled in the cigarette wrappers of the C
,eople The government makes
'rof1t of 81 on every $1.19 worth of to-