Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1918-09-06
VIEWED THROUGH
YANKEE EYES
Continued from page Il

every word over hundred feet away.
Some acoustics, that - the modern
theater doesn't compare with it. In
the library we saw the most interest
ing collection of literature you could
imagine-most of it was in Latin, the
old church Latin-it all went to clari-
fly the old history books when they say
that the church was the institution
that did most to preserve the culture
of the olden times, even when every
thing else was in decay and civil
ization was about to rot and be lost.
the old Monks hung onto their books
all in handwriting-and re-educated
the world. l was always dubious
about it when l read that these old
celebated, celebrated Monks would
spend a lifetime in copying bibles and
literature of every sort and that their
work was almost as neat as printing,
but here we actually saw whole bibles
handwritten and every page was done
as perfectly as though printed, in
gold and other colored preparations,
with elaborate art work on each page
l doubt if the books have a price.
The remainder of the afternoon we
sat around in Hyde Park, fine old
park it is, too, with a little body of
water in the center Of it = a place
where tired London seems to come
and think it over.
The trains are all crowded with
somebody going somewhere. The cars
are very uncomfortable, and travel
! ing third5elass, one cannot book a
sleeper, so we sat up all night-eight
of US altogether - one poor young
lady, who kept her eyes buried in a
book all the time; five British flying
cadets who had just completed their
course, they were Scotch, young, and
good Jolly crowd. Gee, what a
night! You couldn't stretch thing
but your mouth, and there was some
beautiful yawning from seven of us
but l never caught the woman yawn-
ing once. At $3.50 in the morning we
piled out in dignified Edinburgh. 1t
was good time to see the place, be-
cause it really is an old, dignifed viii
lage with hardly any industries but
printing and education; so the seren-
ity of the place was out of the ordi-
nary. We finally found Y. NJ. C. A.
and slept until 1s and then went out
and saw Edinburgh castle. We
thought the Tower of London some
place, but this castle had it all over
it. Built on the edge of a sheer per-
pendicular rock and surrounded on all
sides by moat that was more like
a lake (now dry), it looked absolutely
as safe as heaven. An Edinburgh
business man guided US through the
place on a Y. M. G. A. tour, and it
took him two hours to tell about a
tenth of what he knew about the his
toric old place. Any one who was
to take the castle, had to, afte~ cross
ing the moat, penetrate seven big
barracades to gain an entrance. Huge
drop gates were built into solid walls
of stone, called the Portcullis Gate
way. If they took this, then they had
to take seven others. The castle was
never taken by force, stratagem anC
starvation were the only weapons that
could swing the deal. At the head d
the castle and overlooking the towr
is the old Mons Meg, probably the
first effective piece of artillery TO be
used, and the thing that finally upset
the old method of warfare in whicf
people could get behind a wall anC
defend themselves against almost any
odds. The living rooms inside tht
castle gave a mighty good idea Of
how people used to live St. Marga-
ret Ga good old Scottish queen whl
gained so much renown that Rome
finally canonized herr, once lived il
one of the rooms. It was a disma
little affair with only little hole fol-
a window, and if a person had any
sort of bed in there there would MOI
be room enough left for a steamer
trunk. l guess the women used tx
have only one dress-probably com
bination night dress and street gowr
at least Margaret wouldn't have
had room for even an extra pair d
shoes.
Another interesting room was the
old banquet hall.
Somebody wants this typewriter
now. so I'll quit and finish this some
other day this week. There is on,
thing more l want to tell you: W.
are requested to let you know ou
army serial number. There will prob
ably never happen that my records
will be lost, but if they should, yol
would be able to trace or communi
cate with Washington more clearl,
about everything with this complet
data: Donald L. Dudley, 27490, 479tl
Aero Squadron, Aviation Section Sig
nal Corps.
Well, SO long, and best luck.