The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1941-04-03
Editorial Describing Recent Bombing Of
Manchester, Eng, Received In Cumberland

saw the river cleaning duly in the
glare and, swooping down, they
dropped their cargo of destruction
into the heart of the blaze.
"They looked and saw the Cathed-
raj standing on the river bank, and
racing toward it they saw nothing
but smoke and the fierce hunger of
the fire.
Manchester was a city of fame
and thunder. The great fires burnt
like torches, and the old places went
roaring up to the sky in torment of
heat and smoke Steel and brick,
stone and timber crashed down to the
very foundations of the city. The
streets were like rivers of fire, the
buildings were lighter than they had
been for months.
"A great light came over the city
and fled hand in hand with death
through the little alley-ways and by
ways, up stone staircases and over
black-slated roofs, into church and
theatre alike, into hotels and ware
houses, into shops and into homes.
Everywhere A Great Noise"
"And everywhere was a great noise
such as Manchester had never heard
before. And everywhere were pain and
misery and wanton destruction.
"All day Monday the city licked it's
wounds and fought its fires. All day
the people stood on the outer rim of
the city and stared with grey eyes at
the horror of the day, at the scorched
walls and shattered windows, at the
broken masonry and blasted brick
work. And with the night again they
came.
Manchester is slowly getting on to
its bruised and battered feet again.
But there are lot of changes. There
is much of Manchester that will never
be the same, that has been destroyed
for all time, that will never be resur-
rected.
perhaps it is as well, for it really
was terrible inconvenient city and
out of date in its planning. But we,
the people of Manchester, can get SEN
timental over a few hundred smoke
blackened bricks and a score of very
dirty windows We are hard-headed
lot in the main. Thank God for that
now! But our hearts are as warm as
the next mans, and we loved the grim
ugliness which was our city.
against the sky rise the gaunt
walls and broken gables of the city's
oldest firms. In the hollow by the river
the broken Cathedral raises black
Gothic arms to Heaven in a gesture
of mute suffering. Some of the streets
have been cleared and reopened, and
down these flows the busy life of the
city, going grimly on its way, looking
and mending, assessing and condemn
ing, but round the corner is dead
street, with piles of rubble and crumb-
ling walls, where gaping hole calls
mutely to gaping hole and the water
from the house drips in desolation
down the shattered front of the Royal
Exchange.
Essence Still There
"But the trains are still running, the
Manchester folk are still there. UNI
brellas are out and standing stoutly
up to rough usage. Business men are
hopping about among the rubble, polk
ing with their ferrules and tapping in
quisitively with their handles. No
body seems to be swinging them,
though. Still here is the essence of
Manchester, the trans and the pale,
determined men and women.
"The grey sky can cloak many
things. 1t is only when the pail lifts
and the sun slips through that it be-
comes terribly obvious that one can
see the sky through the roofs that are
no more, and daylight through the
walls that were once so dark.
"And so they came to Manchester
and robbed us and left us. Left us our
Manchester courage and our Manches-
ter doggedness, left us our umbrella
and our smoke and SCOT. Left US, Man.
chester people, little paler, perhaps
little more determined, but still es-
sentially the same.
To-day we go into the city with our
new problems and our new hopes; to-
night we will come home on our usual
tram, with our umbrella neatly folded,
our paper, and our CHEEKY chatter
with the conductor.
ave still have these things. We are
still MaOchaCtar0