History and Tradition

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 153, 24 March 1939, Page 6 (Supplement)

History and Tradition

MUCH of the fascination of England to comers from a young Dominion lies m its ancient history and tradition—buildings older than even the. Maori tenure of New Zealand, customs hallowed by centuries of observation, places where walk the ghosts of the people who lived and died there in the making of the great and romantic story of England’s past.

Right in the heart of London are batlfs where the Romans bathed, with the same mosaic tiles outlasting time, inns where the famous men of English literature drank and were merry, heaths where highwaymen galloped or graced the gallows, a thousand other such footprints of bygone folk. The grey Tower is nearly as old as London itself, and London dates back as far as English history. Throughout the country castle and abbey, some still standing and in use, some dilapidated and fallen, recall the days of England's youth. Beside the highways, strange monoliths, and the mounds that' are the graves of the ancient people, and the quaint figures that they carved out of the chalk hillsides, remain in memory of them, and picnickers pick up the knapped flint arrowheads crudely chipped by the vanished people of the past. From the mud of the river estuaries at low tide have been lifted the timbers of Viking ships, perfectly preserved through the lapse of the centuries. Cave and swamp have given up the bones of mammoth and dragon, the grotesque creatures of prehistoric times, that roamed the world before man was ever seen on earth.