WAR PRIZES RETURNED

Shannon News, 15 December 1925, Page 1

WAR PRIZES RETURNED

COURTESY AMONG NATIONS. THE BELL AND.THE CROWN. There have lately been some interesting: examples of international cour. tesy in returning' treasures esteemed by those who lost them. Another act of restitution ha 3 just taken place. During the Crimean War the British captured from Bomarsund, in thft Aland Islands, which then belonged to Russia, five bells, which they carried away, and ever since these have been exhibited as war trophies in the Tower of London, Avliere they were described as "from the fortress of Bomarsund." One of- the largest of the bells was taken from the Skarfans Church, near Bomarsund, and the people of that ' parish have never ceased to mourn ! t lie loss of the bell which used to call them to worship. Efforts have been . made from time to time to secure its return, but hitherto unsuccessfully. Now, however, in reply to a fresh request, the Briti.sh Government has agreed to return the bell to the parish from which it was taken, and it is being- given up to the Finnish authorities, to whom Bomarsund now belongs. Some British Precedents. Last year, by a similar act of courtesy, a golden crown, captured in IS6B by British troops from a King of Abyssinia, was returned as a mark of the friendship which happily now exists between the two countries. Still more recntly another kindly, act. of restitution was carried out by an English town. When the British troops under Wolfe captured Quebec they took from the gates of the city a shield bearing the French royal* arms, and this was presented to Has-* tings by General Murray,, a Hastings in an. There, for a century anda-half, the shield was kept in the town hall, but, to the delight of Quebec, it was recently returned to its', original home while" a replica presented by Quebec takes its place at Hastings. • These recent courtesies had a British precedent more than 80 - years ago. In 1840, when France asked it she might have Napoleon's remains for buTial in Paris, the British Government willingly gave up the body of our arch-enemy, the man who had tried with all his might to destroy us as a nation. .' ' ' Sweetening International Life. . Another body given up was that of Emanuel' Swedenborg, the great Swedish philosopher, who spent much of his life in London', and died there in- 1772,, being buried in the Swedish Church in St. George's-i'n-the-East. In 1908, at the request of the Swedish Government, the body was, given up and removed to Stockholm. This example was followed by Switzerland, which last year gave up the body of the great Polish novelist and patriot, Henrik Sienkiwicz, who had died at Vevey in exile. The body was carried to Warsaw for \ burial in St. John's Cathedral there. Denmark has also taken her parr, ■ii\ sweetening international - life by kindly acts of restitution, for she has lately returned to the Cathedral oi Abo, Finland, a chalice and paten looted from there by Danish soldiers in 1503.