So if our treasures must go we should rather send them to America than
to Germany. It is, however, distressing to see pictures taken from
the place where they have hung for centuries and sent to Christie's,
to see the dispersal of old libraries at Sotherby's, and the contents
of a house, amassed by generations of cultured and wealthy folk,
scattered to the four winds and bought up by the _nouveaux riches_.
[Illustration: Fixed Bench in the Hall, Crowhurst Place, Surrey]
There still remain in many old houses collections of armour that bears
the dints of many fights. Swords, helmets, shields, lances, and other
weapons of warfare often are seen hanging on the walls of an ancestral
hall. The buff coats of Cromwell's soldiers, tilting-helmets, guns and
pistols of many periods are all there, together with man-traps--the
cruel invention of a barbarous age.
[Illustration: Gothic Door-head, Goudhurst, Kent]
The historic hall of Littlecote bears on its walls many suits worn
during the Civil War by the Parliamentary troopers, and in countless
other halls you can see specimens of armour. In churches also much
armour has been stored. It was the custom to suspend over the tomb the
principal arms of the departed warrior, which had previously been
carried in the funeral procession.
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