The St. Mary banner. (Franklin, Parish of St. Mary, La.) 1889-1931, 1916-10-21

stands today as it has stood
- two centuries in the grasp OF
R5tain. Never ceasing in her vigl
,..oo Rritajn's thin red line of soldiers
~ held this weIi-nish impregnable
tortress year in and year out. Wars
have come and wars have gone. but nc
.over for century has even threat
.oed the looming, forbidding rock.
They say the central powers of Eu-
,one offer to give the frowning rock
/ hack to Spain if Spain will cast her
it with them But before the gift
NAV be made by the Austro-Gerlnans it
mist first be won. You have to catch
,our rabbit. you know, before you can
skin 1t.
And in the meantime Great Britain
teens her never-ending watch over the
oortal of the Mediterranean.
Every moment. day and night, in
tines Of peace. as we'll as in times Of
xar, for upward Of 100 years. a line of
British sentinels has stood on the shore
Ode Of the rock watching ont over Il
narrow strip Of low lying neutral
! xound toward the shore of Spain to
guard against surprise. And every
moment, for over 100 years, sentry
has stood upon the highest pinnacle of
the rock and gazed out over the sea.
Generations of sentnels have lived and
died and been replaced. by others:
vars have come and gone; no attack
I has ever been made or even threat
eoed against the rock, but the eternal
vigilance has never relaxed. not fer
one minute in the last 100 years.
The sleepless vigilance through the
century may well be taken as typical
M the bulldog temper of the British
people. They have sailed this rock
down with their blood and bones. They
have given too many lives for it to
ever give 1t up now so long as a Brit
I'D soldier lives to fight for it. And so
mis- precipice Of rock, looming out of
ihe sea, looking out across the strait
- the shore Of Africa, the mysterious.
leeps on broodng there in grim ST.
ence with it's thousands of guns
noffed. always ready. ever watching
40 waiting through the centuries.
u Honeycombed With Tunnels.
britain has held the Rock of Gibral-
~ for 200 years and has fortified
= = strongly that it has been known
~ century as 'impregnable Gil
anltar." To capture it an attacking
tesce would literally have to pound the
w rock to dust. Gibraltar is honey
e1aOed with tunnels and the muzzIes
: me greatest guns in the world
slls1ls from thousand openings in
"a race of the rock, like pins stuck
apaper. What would those guns be
y1e to fleet or land force that got
! 80 enough to throw shells against
~ rock:
q very wei! to state, as some mill
~ men have said these past two
- that modern guns which can
- more than the 20 miles across
harrow gap that divides Europe |
! - Africa could render the place IN
snlDie' but no power yet has seen fit
~ It ont. The odds are too great |
tne prize too inconsiderable for
- price.
FruitIess Siege Of Four Years.
!. lae last time an attempt was made |
sake Gibraltar was 100 years ago.
,'sace and Spain together undertook
apture Gibraltar from the British.
y 80 the rock. hidden in the tunnels
-. ~. shts In hill. were 5000 British
attacking them were 81 900
"a BEST trained fighters In the
80 and feet of Al ships. For four
"a me Siege went on. 1t was ore
~ greatest sieges in all history
seFe were many deeds Of daring,
a ne $1,000 had never a chance
u. 600 safely hidden In their
a cells. just the muzzles of their
= hot.
was century ago. Ever since
ne human moles garrisoned there
~ IN boring and burrowfng deep
the rock, storing food and am
zs.on IN great chambered galleries,
oeiow the sea level; mounting
suns and making the rock as
unc0nquerable as possible. They
ever idle, those human moles.
are always making the place
l1aer.