Rockingham post-dispatch. [volume] (Rockingham, N.C.) 1917-1965, 1921-01-20
ANTWERP: A LATTER-DAY
ATHENS

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 admira-
ton by its phenomenal power to
"COme back" Crushed by wars, in
QUESTIONS, economic bans and persecu-
tons of its people, Antwerp always
has risen again.
Figures tell the story. Population
ia 1868, 125,000; twenty years later,-
only $1,000. From 1900 to 1850 the
population almost doubled. To its
10000 in 1904, hundred thousand
more were added before the Germans
came in October, 1914. The 1850
vessels that passed in and out of its
fine harbor in 1905 marked an in
crease Of more than so per cent since
1888.
Not that Antwerp Is a perennial
boom town. 1t Is at least Is centur-
les old And during that time it's
story Is one Of struggle against re-
peated tragedies. When the Germans
invaded the city its noble cathedral
tower looked down on just one more,
though Infinitely more cruel, blow Of
the sort it had been receiving since
the riddle ages. Napoleon (some say
CHI y W compared this tower to
NJ nlin lace. Its delicate chiseling
forms network of stone embroidery
against the sky that can be seen from
the surrounding fiat country, and from
the winding Scheldt, long before any
other building in Antwerp is visible.
BY 1000, five hundred ships often
came and went from Antwerp's har-
Dor in a day and two thousand wagon
loads Of merchandise usually entered
| its gates. A thousand foreign bust
| ness houses were represented there
It's own merchant princes dwelt in al
most regal splendor.
Amid this material wealth noble
works Of art were created. In the
| city'S museum were specimens of its
glorious school-paintings by Var
Dyck, the Teniers, Memling, Na$ays
Jordaens, Jan van Eyck and Rub, lis
though the last named was better
represented in the cathedral by hi'
masterpiece, "The Descent From thu
Cross" and two other noted works
In the Museo Plantin were relic
of that Ebert Hubbard of the middl
ages, ChriStophe Plantin, whose pres
product was no less distinctive whe
hereto pamphlets were struck OF
than when deyout religious work
were printed and embossed.
During the religious disturbances O
the mid-siXteenth century the cathe
dral, then considered second only t
st. Peters at Rome, was pillaged b.
the IconocIasts. Its images and pic
lures, its magnificent vases, its &C a
tars and its great organ, considere
the finest Of its time, were burned o
broken by the torch-bearing Wndals
Whitewashed walls reminded tweI
tieth-century tourists of these depre
dations.
Other churches were ravaged q
that time. But what Antwerp suffer
ed then was mild compared to tn
horrors Of 1.-THE Spanish Fury" in 1916
when that latter day Nero, the duk
of Alva, and his Council of Blood
began reign Of terror which say
. agery scarcely could surpass. Tyin
wealthy citizens to horses tails, h
would drag them miles to trial"
Antwerp suffered grievously frol
this debauch of hangingS, quarterings
beheadings and butcheries. In tire
days 5000 of her men, women an
children were slain, burned or drown
NJ; hundreds Of the fine marble home
destroyed, and the equivalent of mi
lions Of dollars worth of propert,
wrecked
1t was seven years later that tn
doughty citizens of Antwerp mad
short shrlft of the duke of AnjOu
plotting against Flemish liberty. Whe
the duke and his men Overcame tn
Flemish guard of drawbridge, an
5000 of the dukes troops rushed i
to take the city, workmen fought fur
ously with their oven shOvels. and eli
liens grabbed arquebuses and chewe
coins into shape TO load them.
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