Mexico weekly ledger., 1920-10-14
ANTWERP: A LATTER-DAY
ATHENS

Antwerp, where the United States
athletes performed so notably In the
1920 Olympic games, was Europe's
Hamburg of the sixteenth century
and the Athens of the seventeenth.
This city compels American admlra-
ton by its phenomenal power to
come back" Crushed by wars, in
QUESTIONS, economic bans and persecu-
lions of Its people, Antwerp always
has risen again.
Figures tell the story. Population
in 1868, 125,0O0; twenty years later.
only 5000. From 1900 to 1850 the
population almost doubled. To its
$4,000 in 1904, a hundred thousand
more were added before the Germans
came In October, 1914. The IL, 100
vessels that passed In and out of its
line harbOr in 1905 marked an in
crease of more than SO per cent since
1883.
Not that Antwerp Is a perennial
loom town. 1t Is at least IS centur-
les old. And during that time Its
story Is one of struggle against re-
peated tragedies. When the Germans
invaded the city its noble cathedral
tower looked down Oh just one more,
though Infinitely more cruel, blow of
the sort It had been receiving since
the middle ages. Napoleon (some say
Charles W compared this tower TO
Mechlin lace. Its delicate chlseIing
forms a network of stone embroidery
against the sky that can be seen from
the surrounding fiat country, and from
the winding Scheldt, long before any
other building in Antwerp is visible.
BY 1900, five hundred ships often
came and went from Antwerp's har-
bor / IN a day and two thousand wagon
loads of merchandise usually entered
It's gates. a thousand foreign bust
Tess houses were represented there.
It's W merchant princes dwelt in al
most regal s%plendor.
Amid this material wealth noble
works of art were created. In the
city's museum were specimens Of its
glorious school-paintings by Van
Dyck, the Teniers, Memling. Massys
JordaenS, Jan van Eyck and Rubrns,
though the last named was better
represented in the cathedral by his
masterpiece, THE Descent From the
Cross" and two other noted works.
In the MuSeo Plantin were relics
Of that Ebert Hubbard Of the middle
ages, ChristOphe Plnntin. whose press
product was no less distinctive when
he. etc pamphlets were struck off
thau when devout religious works
were printed and embossed.
During the religious disturbances of
the mid sixteenth century the cathe,
dral, then considered second only tn
st. Peters at Rome. was piIlaged by
the IconoClasts. Its images and pie.
lures, its magnificent vases, its GO al.
tars and its great organ, considered
the finest Of it's time, were burned or
broken by the torch-bearing vandals.
Whitewashed walls reminded TWEEN.
tieth-century tourists of these depre-
dations.
Other churches we're ravaged AZ
that time. But what Antwerp suffer.
ed then was mild compared to the
horrors of "the Spanish Fury" In 1876
when that latter day Nero, the duke
of Alva. and his Council of Blood.
began a reign Of terror which saw,
agery scarcely could surpass. Tyinl
wealthy citizens to horses tails, he
would drag them miles to trial"
Antwerp suffered grievously from
this dehauch of hangings, quarterings
: b~eheadings and butcheries. In three
days 5000 Of her men, women ant
children were slain, burned or drown
nd hundreds of the fine marble home!
y destroyed, and the equivalent Of mil
! lions of dollars worth of property
: wrecked.
! 1t was v years later that tn,
" doughty citizens of Antwerp mad,
d short shrift of the duke of Anjou'
" plotting against Flemish liberty. Whel
u the duke and his men overcame TIL
y Flemish guard Of a d~rawbridge, ant
+ 1000 of the dukes troops rushed II
y to take the city, workmen fought furI
y busly with their oven shovels, and eli
= liens grabbed a%rquebuses and chewe
coins into shape TO load them.
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