MODERN VANDALS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 9 July 1925, Page 7

MODERN VANDALS.

DAMAGE DONE IN RURAL ENGLAND. Miles of moorland roads in Devon and Cornwall have been mended with blocks of granite wrenched from the walls of hut circles or uprooted from those stone avenues which lead to the burial-places of forgotten chiefs. '1 his sort of tiling has been going on for generations, declares T.C.B. in the Daily Mail, and no longer ago than last summer the owner of Spitctiwiek Manor was forced to protest against the spoliation of prehistoric remains near Dartmeet, the lovely spot where the East and West Dart’s meet. But dreadful damage has been done, and it i- sti most "difficult to persuade the average roadman that the marvellous relics of the past have a better use than to be turned into road metal. ■, Unhappily, it is not only on the moors that vandalism of this kind has been in progress. The older part s of the village of Avebury, six miles west of Marlborough, are largely built of stones taken from what was once the greatest Druidical temple in the British Isles. So utterly has this wonderful work been destroyed that it is difficult even to trace out the plan of the original circles and avenues. The spoliation went on for centuries, and did not cease until, in 1882, the Act for the Protection of Ancient Monuments passed the House of Commons. Stonehenge happily remains to us almost untouched, but this is only because of the happy chance that it stands on comparatively barren soil and has never had human dwellings near it. Antiquarians wring their hands at the vandalism of the Turks who for ages used the Pyramids as stone quarries, but it is doubtful whether the Turks' behaviour in this respect was any worse than that of the people who pulled down the stones of the Roman Wall to build uyres and pig-sties. In spite of legislation, in spite of modern education, the ill-work still goes on, and the tripper when he gets a chance, tears down or defaces monuments of the greatest value and interest. Not long ago a fine marble medallion was found to have been wrenched away from the ruins of Sir Francis Bacon’s home near St. Albans, while relic-hunting ruffians have badly damaged the wonderful old church at Thundridge in Hertfordshire. One of the most astonishing cases of the kind occurred in the United States. In Washington County, Pennsylvania, stood the so-called Painted Rocks, consisting of great stones on which some forgotten race had carved figures of men and animais, including —this is the amazing part of it — : one of the kangaroo. There were' also curious hieroglyphics which have never been translated. The owner of the land, annoyed apparently. by the number of visitors attracted to view these relics, put in a charge of dynamite and blew the whole thing sky-high. And. in spite of the intense indignation with which his conduct was viewed, there was no law under which he could be punished.