The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1933-01-13

use" OF Denmark.
| brought further loss to Copenhagen's
shipping, but the city found q way
out in its Free Port.
| The Free Port.
1t requires considerable explaining,
even in this least formal of all Euro
pean capitals. to procure permission to
pass the sentries, who guard every en-
trance, even the railroad tracks, into
the Free Port.
| Once inside, the visitor stands
amazed at the compact conglomeration
of docks, derricks, grain elevators,
| gaunt cranes, ships, enormous ware
houses, and putting little engines sour
rying about amid incredible mounds
of goods.
| Here is an array of American har-
vesters, piles of plows, harrows. farm
tools, odorous resin timber, mountains
of coal, wheat, and corn, soybeans
from Manchuria, sunfower-seed cake
| from Russia, cotton-seed meal from
] our South, and heaps of auto parts
| of a familiar American make. These
are assembled within the Free Port.
| In the best of times thousand tons
of these parts arrived weekly from New
York; Copenhagen plant was assem-
bling one car every six minutes, day
after day.
| "Five basins here, sir; 12S acres OF
land, 50 acres of water; three miles
of piers, 40 electric cranes, seven
steam cranes, seven coal elevators"
reels off your guide, which is the pO-
lite Free Port euphemism for the
Waterman who guards against snug
| Cling.
| "Those elevators and pneumatic
| tubes can unload 1000 or 1900 tons
in an eight-hour day, from that side,
while that ship on the other side Is
discharging a 100 tons of wheat an
| hour"
| There are 40 warehouses here, q
| grain silo that dominates them all,
floating crane that can toy with so
| TONS
| The Free Port is complete COM
| munity. 1t has its own power plant
banking branches, police, postal, and
| telegraph stations, restaurants, tele-
phone booths, display rooms, and trad
ing sheds. The rest rooms that look
like clubhouses are waiting rooms for
workmen awaiting Jobs.
| Trans and liners are disgorging
| goods and grains and machinery from
| England, the Americas, even from Aus
| tralia, while others loading cargoes
consigned to all the great Baltic ports.
] Trains Of laden freight cars, pygmy
size to the American eye, halt for in
spection at the iron gates; then steam
| away on direct hauls to Central Eu-
rope, even to Sweden, by way Of the
short ferry crossing to Malmo.
Citadel and Park.
Emerging from the busting, modern
| Free Port, one comes upon the state
| ly, mellow Citadel, remnant of the for
tifications King Frederick III built in
the sixties of 1000.
Around it is the mosaic OF lagOons
and gardens that compose COpen-
hagen's beautiful park, slOping toward
the famous Langelinie Uong Line)
that bends gracefully from the Free
Port to the city's own harbOr to the
south.
Seward lies the Sound, with ocean
liners and pleasure yachts, ferries and
| freight boats, and in the distance the
shores of Sweden. The Dane should
be cosmopolitan; he can scarcely take
a walk or scan the view from his wide
apartment window without seeing the
flags of many nations and the shores
| of another land. Landwise long line
| of tomobiles-American, French,
| German, and an occasional Italian car
| among them-punctuated by hordes OF
bicycles, glide over the level road with
scarcely perceptible rises where it
crosses the viaducts that knit the
| patches of land.
If one stops in a downtown Copen-
hagen hotel he will surely be awak-
ened Sundays by the outpouring Of ma
tive and noisy citizens seeking the
outdoors and the sun. Week days the
| Dane goes to work quietly, sedately
| pedaling a bicycle, which, after all, Is
] not boisterous vehicle; but Sundays
one will be awakened by the shouts Of
boys and girls cycling to the country,
hiking to picnics. or going in groups
to railway stations for the cheap ex-
cursions on that day. The city sees
to 1t that even the poor children get
/ an outing
Still, there are enough left behind to
crowd spacious Langelinie. One won
ders, at first. that there are not more
games. Where are the tennis courts
| (there are few. the baseball dia-
monds, the cricket fields. or the Danish
equivalents therof? Then the visitor
recalls he is in country where the
climate for most of the year, as in
| Sweden, compels gymnastics rather
| than outdoor sports. The ruddy-
checked youth, tall, stalwart. erect
whoever saw a stoop-shouldered Dane7
and the absence of any apparent
"slenderizing" ambition, even among
| the Danish ''f1appers," attest the eff
ficacy of the gymnasiums that are q
part Of every school curriculum.
The salt air, the quest of outdoors,
hiking, pedaling cycle wheels instead
of shifting gears, one realizes. &C
counts for the disconcerting frequency
and richness of the meals. One APP
! preciates the truth Of the Copenhage1
| journalists inadyertent bon mot, Den
mark is famous for the high culture
| of its broad population"