THE CAMPANILK. 85 



seven wounded. Whoever chooses niaj^ make what he sees fit 

 of the circumstance that this day was the Festival of St. Mark. 

 But the bells, which had rung, up there, eveiy day for 600 

 years and were ready at any moment to plunge through the 

 floor of the stricken belfry, failed not to ring on that day, too. 

 And they stopped ringing on the 14th of July, 1902, for the 

 first time since the}' were hung, so long ago. At the point 

 where the bolt struck, the fatal crack began, the "crack of 

 doom," as I feel justified in calling it. Now, put together 

 ten centuries — moilar, inferior, though the best that could be 

 had — a bolt of lightning, that must have made the tall stnic- 

 ture quiver to its very midriff — and, worst of all, neglect. 

 Surely, we have here enough to bring down any pile of mas- 

 onry whose height is six times the side of its base. 



But, furthermore, it is fact, attested by eye witnesses and 

 proved by what any man may see for himself, that the tower 

 " squatted," bulged, sank in upon itself. An American gen- 

 tleman, who looked upon the catastrophe with a seeing eye, 

 declares that the angel which was the finial subsided fifteen feet 

 before it toppled. Your picture, which is photography, and, 

 therefore, certified copy, shows a heap of ruins confined within 

 comparatively small space. A volley of masoniy "spirted" 

 and stove in a corner of the Libraiy of St. Mark. Stove in, as 

 the sailor says, or broke a hole through without overthrowing. 



That is to say — the tower did not thrash over as the tree 

 trunk does when the axe has gashed it one single stroke too 

 far. Jieyond all reasonable doubt or question, had the founda- 

 tion been in fault, the shaft would so have thrashed over, slain 

 many men and worked a ruin which, by the blessing of Provi- 

 dence, it is needless now to try and estimate. But when the 

 grave expert came up from tapping those unrotted poplar piles 

 and those sound oak sleepers that lay across them, he said to 

 those having authority : " Gentlemen, our forefathers are 

 wholly justified. Their work is there as it was the day they 

 put it there. But from causes for which they are not responsi- 

 ble the building itself is in a parlous state. It must be looked 



