The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1920-09-10
BLUE EARTH PARTY Is NOW
TRAVELLING ABROAD
SIGHTS WORTH SEEING
Scotland Is the Land Without
Insects, and Summers Long
And Pleasant
Iii
w. II. DENISON

try to give you brief description of
our. trip to date. Before leaving the
states we were told by many people
OF the difficulties we were sure to
encounter here, such as crowded ho-
tells, high rates, the indisposition of
people TO help you and even to short
change you, but am glad to say we
have found none Of these things to be
true. Hotel accommodations have been
good rates reasonable and people
everywhere ready to help you In
to short change" US that / know Of,
but must confess we would pc easy
money for anyone as we just get ac-
customed 70 the money of one country
when we go to another.
Sights Around London.
Our first four days In England were
spent taking In the sights around
London, which included the Tower OF
London, St. Paul Cathedral, Westmin-
ster Abbey. House of Parliament,
buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle,
Hampton Court Palace and many
other places of less Importance. To
give a description of these wonderful
old structures would require great
deal of space, but to say the least
they are very interesting. The state
apartments of Windsor Castle is
sight long to BIO remembered.
The fret thing that attracted my
attention IN London was the height of
the buildings, which are invariably
four and five stories and none ex-
ceeding six, and another thing was the
absence OF pleasure automobiles. I
believe there are more such cars in
and Scotland combined. To be sure
there are a great many taxi cabs. es-
pecially In London and Paris, and
perhaps one half the dray work is
done by auto trucks, but pleasure cars
are novelty.
That Beautiful Trip:
From London we went to Edin-
burgh, here we were shown the cas-
tie, cathedral and many other inter-
esting things. of which l will mention
the monument OF Sir Walter Scott,
and Bobby Burns. We took from here
the Highland trip across the Trossachs
and takes one full day. 1t includes
two rail, two stage and two boat
trips, travelling nearly the entire
length Of the beautiful Loch Lomond.
1t Is hard to beat the scenery around
this Loeb. After q short stay in
Glasgow we started back toward Lon
don, stopping ut Warwick to see
Shakespeare's place at Stratford on
Avon and also at Oxford, viewing
many OF the colleges there which |
must say did not come up to our ex-
pectations. Most of the buildings
look very old and shabby as does also
the interior equipment.
The Farming Countries.
The farming countries Of England
and Scotland are very beautiful, bah
quite rolling, especially Scotland,
which is very rough in the northern
part. Scotland appears to me to be
an ideal stock country, plenty Of rain
seasons long 1.-TWO or three months
longer than ours) mild winters, cool
summers and no insects to bother.
The farms here seem to be quite well
stocked and equipped. much better
than In some other parts of Europe.
Crops are good except fruit which Ia
almost complete failure.
Labor conditions here are about the
same as at home. Strikes seem to
be the order of the day, but the lab
orer here does not receive more than
two thirds what he does In the states,
while the cost Of living Is nearly the
same.
Next Stop at Paris.
After leaving London our next stop
was at Paris, which Is still gay city
In spite Of the war. We spent sew
eral days around here and will men
ton a few of the most Interesting
things we saw. First the palaces and
beautiful grounds at Versailles which
are indeed wonderful. The palaces
anything of it's kind that we have seen
in Europe. The paintings and furn-
ishings are simply magnificent. Eiffel
Tower, Notre Dame and the Invalides
were also very interesting. Paris has
many beautiful boulevards and parks.
and perhaps more artistic buildings
than any other city in Europe.
On the Battle Grounds.
The most interesting part of our
trip SO far was "a three days tour Of
the battle front. Interesting but by
those ruined cities and towns and the
devastated farms and forests to say
nothing of the graves and bodies Of
those brave and courageous men,
who gave their lives for cause Of
which we are reaping the benefit, are,
believe, the most appalling sights
which man Of modern times ever be-
held. Anyone having seen these sights
and does not feel that soldiers are
entitled to everything within reason,
in my opinion is not good American
ClllZcu nv lOnSuc VI pch Cel uc5
cribe those terrible places so will not
attempt 1t, but will try to give you
some idea Of few things we saw.
After viewing the ruined city of
RHEIMS (which is truly ruined city,
for out Of two thousand houses only
thirteen remained unhar1med) we went
to the battlefields known, as the
Champagne front This is the only
battlefield we saw which has nc N
cleaned up more or less, and was Id
It was the only one in France.
We spent several hours walking
over 1t.
Many Unexpected Shells.
Here you can see unexploded
shells Of every size and description,
some uncovered and others only part
w. One has to be careful where he
steps as several tourists have been
killed here already. Here is where
the Russian prisoners were used to
dig those immense tunnels, the extent
of them is not known, as they have
never been, entirely explored. but 1t
is known there are miles and miles
of them. Here the German soldiers
lived from the fell of 1914 until 1t vas
taken by the French In the spring Of
1918.
In this hell hole was also located
the German hospital. which at the
time 1t was taken contained about
eight hundred wounded soldiers. In
order to make sure that these tun-