THE SOLIDITY OF ENGLAND.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7945, 22 January 1906, Page 7

THE SOLIDITY OF ENGLAND.

Now tbis is the deep impressive ness of it, writes J. Jtl. M. Abbott, of Australia, in "An Uutlander in England." Where wo put upa paling fence, the Eugliah erect a stotio wall ■—a real stone wall, mind, not a thing of bricks and plastor. And along the ton of it;, instead of a singlo burled wire, thoy stretch a line of spear-hoad9, radiating outwards. Where we drive a row of piles along a water frontage, and make a timber wharf which is quite good fcnnugh for anything, they plant down huge blocks of granite brought from hundreds of miles away. Where we sling a spidery steel bridge across a rivor, in a few mouths, tbey spend years and a mint of money in building a massive series of arches that, look ai though they would last until the river dried up. Where their railways oross gullies they put enough masonry to inako a house, instead of contenting themselves with a row of sleepers aud two afceel girders (They have enough money to afford to consider the scenery, even in little obscure gullies). When we build a railway up to a city we usually stop on the cheap land at the -outskirts, but they buy up a roadway through densely packed house property at enormous cost, and have their terminus in the middle of the city. Where in a club or a hotel we content ourselves with tiles,, paint, and wflll-oaper, they must nave marble and alabaster. Whore we would have enclosed a piece of land with a Bi.x ; wire fence, thinking ourselves uncommonly smart if we squared off the roughness of the posts and painted them white—which we seldom do, they put un a stone wall. In short where we use steel galvanised iron, wire and paint, tbey use granite and marble and wrought metals. These are the matters that flret open ones eyes to the fact that England has a good banking account. It is not so much the ostentatiousness and show that impresses one as the solidity and abidingness of everything.