Abraham Lincoln, Wendell Phillips, John Brown, and
General Grant; of John Sherman, Grover Cleveland, and William
McKinley, and you an up-to-date history of the young American Republic,
acknowledged by every country to have the greatest future of all
nations. So, if one reads with understanding the inscriptions on the
monuments of Gough, O'Connell, and Parnell, he will get the story of the
struggles of the Irish. Enter London Tower, "the most historical spot in
England," and recount the bloody tragedies of the English people since
the time of William the Conqueror, 1066 A.D. Here we have a "series of
equestrian figures in full equipment, as well as many figures on foot,
affording a faithful picture, in approximate chronological order, of
English war-array from the time of Edward I, 1272, down to that of James
II, 1688." In glass cases, and in forms of trophies on the walls, we
find arms and armor of the old Romans, of the early Greeks, and Britons,
and of the Anglo-Saxons. Maces and axes, long and cross bows and leaden
missile weapons and shields, highly adorned with metal figures, all tend
to make more vivid the word-pictures of the historian. Of the small
burial-ground in this Tower, Macaulay writes: "In truth there is
no sadder spot on earth than this little cemetery. Death is there
associated, not, as in Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, with genius and
virtue, with public veneration, and with imperishable renown; not, as
in our humblest churches and church-yards, with every thing that is most
endearing in social and domestic charities; but with whatever is
darkest in human nature and in human destiny, with the savage triumph of
implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice
of friends, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted
fame." We note a few names chiseled here: Sir Thomas More, beheaded
1535; Anne Boleyn, beheaded in this tower, 1536; Thomas Cromwell,
beheaded, 1540; Margaret Pole, beheaded here, 1541; Queen Catharine
Howard, beheaded, 1542; Lady Jane Grey and her husband, beheaded here,
1544; Sir Thomas Overbudy, poisoned in this tower, 1613. Since travel is
a study of history at the spot where the event took place, let us cross
the rough and famed English Channel to visit one of the many noted spots
of France. We select the site of the Hotel de Ville or the town-hall of
Paris. "The construction of the old hall was begun in 1533, and was over
seventy years in its comp