The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-01-30

The Tower of London which was written 75 years ago, explicitly mentioned | that there were three ravens there, ana II | is practically certain that these ancient
 music lovers are the same ones. OBVIOUS | ly evil spirits, they mostly hang around | the old place of execution where so many | folk of high and lowly station lost thelr l heads and they are officially fed on | Jumps of meat, twice day. Unofflcially l they feed themselves, whenever the op- l portunity occurs, by bouncing on one or | the numerous tower pigeons and straight way devouring it.
 | We are getting away. however. from | the band at the tower which possesses, l among it's other claims to special notice, 1 d drum ior who is probably the most remarkable one in the world Sergeant 1 Drummer G. Enguell, to give him his of ficial designation, is one of the many millions of Britons who are doing their
 bit for their King and country His pay as drum major of the band of the Art ists' Rifles" is the princely sum of P and 10 pence a week, or about s 9 in American money, and in exchange for that he has surrendered the goodly sti- pend of $10000 a year which he drew as highly responsible official in the railway clearing house, government department which deals with the affairs of all the railway lines in the country
 Sergeant Drummer 'Enguell, who is straight as the preverbial ramrod and aged, proba bly,, about 40. has led the band of the Artists for something like 10 years, and being an accomplished mu- sician, is about as far removed from the ordinary drum major" with his bearskin hat and ornate baton, the band he leads is from the quartets of it. inerant musicians from the Fatherland which play on American street corners. Before the war, as a member of a vol unteer regiment, he did his drum ma jor
 ing outside his office hours" but when Armageddon burst forth he enlisted as a member of the regular army, and, with the exception of a few months at the beginning, has been quartered at the tower ever since.
 The Artists" whose First and Second battalions have been at the front for many months, are one of the two regi- mentS now quartered at the tower, the other one being the Welsh Guards. The Artists Rifles" which was one of the many volunteer regiments raised when Napoleon was threatening England with
 invasion, takes it's name from the fact that it's membership was at first limited to members of the artistic profession, Sir John Millais Brock, the sculptor. and many other famous men of the brush and scalpel having worn it's uniform in times past.
 Standing alongside the two old ravens Steadily engaged in their clumsy pirouet- ting) I listened while the band of the Artists, led by it's aristocratc drum major, marched up and down the tower parade ground, a few afternoons ago. and played 'Ye Banks and Braes of Bon nie Doone." Played it just as lustily as if there were 1000 people to hear instead of nobody but us three and the venerable towers which have seen so many strange lv e4.a T J tory.
 An acquaintance with imagination who is a member of the Artists" had bade me come and have a look at the tower
 in war time, promising interesting sights.
 'The Tower of London in war time what thoughts are conjured up by that phrase. How many war times" has this grim old stronghold seen since the first of it's many ramifications was built by the Thames by order of William the Con- queror? Legend says that one of Caesars camps had occupied the very spot. but the conquerors time is far enough back to start with. Here the kings and queens of England lived in regal state, sometimes, as in the case of Lady Jane Grey. to come to the tower in splendor one day, and less than a fortnight later to be brought back there again as a doomed prisoner, guarded by soldiers armed to the teeth, and brought
 in through the traitors gate up the slimy steps that lead down to the waters edge, and lodged in the beauchamp or the bloody tower to await trial fol- lowed by the executioner and the block
 Here the ''enemies of the realm suf- fered the rack and the thumbscrew and frequently starved to death in the grim dungeons in the bowels of the White Tower. Many were the fighting men who went out from the tower to fight in France and Spain and the How coun- tries, and many were the sleges which the tower withstood, and to which, in some cases, it capitulated) in the long, gone days when no crown rested too se- curely on the head of it's wearer But 1t is not the purpose of the writer to re- hash wellknown history, nor to describe what so many thousands of American visitors have seen for themselves at the Tower of London: rather to endeavor to picture for you the old place as I saw it under the guidance of my martial friend at the beginning of this year of world war, 1916.
 Rather one should say to tell as much about the tower today as would have the