Norwich bulletin., 1921-06-16
IN THE DAYS NEWS
ALEXANDRIA

Certain cities have traits that per- sist. Recent rioting in Alexandria, Egy- pt, seems only a latter day echo of the tempestous city where Caesar was mobbed, where Caracalla once slaugh- tered all youths old enough to bear arms, and the pagan beauty, Hypatia, fell victim to enraged rioters"
 With this introduction a bulletin of the National Geographic Society points out that though Alexandria may be i popularly associated with the disturb i ances, it's influence is widely diffused | in more significant ways.
 ''The Londoner as he eats his break | | fast eggs, the New Yorker as he strolis | along drought the great Central Park, the Philadelphian who some times rebels at the rigid checker board street plan, the worshiper in a Christian church of any denomination all owe something to the city which in Cleopatra's time, was the comn1er cial mistress of the Mediterfanean.
 ITO explain: Until the war handi-
 capped Mediterranean shipping Alex
 andria sent So,00O, 900 eggs a year toI London. It contributed one of it's fa- nous twin shafts of red granite to Gen. tral Park, New York, in 1881, the 0th- CT one having been removed to Lon- don three years earlier.
 Il "Dimocrates of Rhodes, friend of the
 Macedonian Conqueror who founded
 and gave his name to Alexandria,
 laid out the streets in gridiron regu-
 larity, thus setting a pattern which
 was copied the occidental world oyer.
 Finally Athanasius, known to church
 men as the Father of Orthodoxy, 1, fought in Alexandria his bitter theo-
 logical battle with the Arians and set
 fourth doctrines still embodied in the
 creeds of many denominations.
 Land at Alexandria today and you . may catch a boat-train to press on to
 Cairo, as far to the southeast as Wash lngton, D. c. is from Wilmington, Del eware. This practice of tourists, of
 ignoring city of 2,300 years of his- tory and present population of some
 O,00O, became so general that, in 1912
 hotel men urged that boat-trains be
 taken off.
 5 This neglect was not without reason One does not go to the land of the s pyramids to see a busy, modern port , city with solid business, shipping sug l ar, rice grain and, normally cotton
 But Alexandria has a charm. Arab r guides will fight for the chance to
 conduct the visitor to the City's one . important relic of its ancient glory the so-caled Pompey's Pillar. Standing n on Alexandria's highest hill this red
 granite shaft beckons the incoming fSAiAPo oo oOCS NllC OldIuC Ol Q in New York harbor.
 a ''The traveller who will defy the = guides and forsake the guidebooks vii " reap the reward of the adventurou. < when he happens upon a Greek pastry
 shop where 'Leben' is to be had. Thi. o custard, made from water buffalo mill is highly esteemed by gourmets. Levan o tine women attired in latest Paris fash f ions, lend an exotic touch to the cafes NO traces remain of the Pharo
 lighthouse, a wonder of the ancien VI world, nor the famous library of 700, i 900 volumes deposited therein by tn ii.' Ptolemies. The tradition of the AraI f destruction of this library is discred IT ited, but the story of Caliph Omar
 edict, giving the reason for the de struction will long be cited to illus
 trate a certain set of some humal minds. After listening to a plea tha - the books be preserved, Omar, so run ,p the story, replied that if the books con
 tained the Koran doctrines they wer n superflous: if they ae -eed they wer ,e heretical. Hence. he arg Jed they shoul y be destroyed in either case