The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-09-12
HAPPY ICELAND.
AN EARTHLY PARADISE WITH
IN THE FROZEN ZONE.
Where the Doors Are Never Looked
and Hospitality is National
Trait-Remote Ancestry
Form Of Government.

Its identity for more than q thousand
years, whose leuding families claim an
ancestry 80 remote that it is almost N.Y.
biological, and whose ninety thousand
people live under but forty-three articles
that form their whole jurisprudence. Its
history records but two thieves; crime is
almost unknown and armies and police
men are never seen. Seven out of ten of
the educated class speak, read and write
the Latin language Huently, and greater
proportion of the English language.
These people claim to be the freest on
earth in doing just as they please, pro-
viding they interfere with no one else.
They never lock their doors, have no
hotels, and provide ample hospitality for
all visitors in their homes. They glory
in the possession of the purest, bravest
blood in their veins that flows among
mankind to-day; and claim the richest
traditions of modern nations. They live
where there are forty one days In the
year of total darkness and like number
of perpetual sunlight. That nation is on
this earth, too, and inhabits the island
of Iceland.
Fr. Ludwig Won DoIcke is the SON of
an Icelandic stads- gentleman
of refinement, who wa, highly educated
in Sweden, and has travelled extensively,
and has come to this country to practice
his profession of electrologist. In the
course of talk recently he presented
the above striking facts concerning his
native land. The Doctor speaks English
fluently, having remained in the country
twenty-three months when he first came
here in 1914 as Commissioner to select
the lands in Dakota and joining British
Columbia territory, upon which colony
of six thousand Icelanders settled later.
He says that four thousand more are
coming very soon.
ga popular ignorance of Iceland
prevails" :" the doctor said, Sowing, /
think, largely to the misleading name OF
Iceland. The island, of about AZ, 900
square miles, is green and fertile in the
southern portion from May until October,
when deer and sheep Craze at large. In
winter the snow is abundant. The recent
millennium celebration has attracted
travellers TO Iceland lately. Agood line
of steamers sail from Copenhagen fort
nightly. The country is under the
protection of Denmark, but there the
connection ends. There are nine prov
inces, each of which elect twelve of the
oldest and wsest of its men to perform
duties somewhat analogous to State
Legislature here Th.re is also national
gathering similar to the House of Rep
resentatives and body like the Senate,
whichmeets once year. But there is little
governing and no law making to do.
Each man governs himself upon the
broadest principles of personal liberty in
everything. The, Icelanders. are de-
sceuded from the old Morse Vikings. the
free born families tracing their lineage
to Harold and his men, who, their rich
Morse mythology says, landed in GLIB.
Your history makes it in the eighth CEN
tury. The land is owned by few, and
those who work the estates are serfs, who
pay rental. Travelling is by pony or deer,
and in the mountains of Northern Ice
land mans foot has never trod. The Ice
laudic pony will take you as far as it is
safe for you to 60. The city of Redjavik
has about 10, 900 people, the greater por-
ton of the people living upon the es.
tates. There IS splendid hunting and
fishing, the wild game, similar to the
northern part of this country, being
nearly all white. Polar bears that come
down with the icebergs furnish popular
hunting.
THE Icela der is very proud of his
pure and courageous Norman blood. You
know that the French, English and Ger
man aristocracy, if possible, will claim
even trace of Norman blood, and there
is people that have nothing else.
s'I never heard of but two cases of
thieving. Cne was an Icelander who
had broken his arm and whose family in
the winter were suffering for food. He
stole several sheep and was finally de-
tected. He was at once put under medl-
cal care for his injury, provisions were
furnished his family, and in time he was
given work. That was his punishment.
The other case was a German who stole
seventeen sheep. He was in comfortable
circumstances, and the theft was malic.
ious. His punishment wat to sell all his
property, restore the value of his thefts
and leave the country, or be executed.
He left at once"
Disputes and trades are settled by
arbitration, the doctor says, and the de-
cis:on must be accepted by all con
cerned. Public disgrace attaches to any
slight misdecd, and no one can live
there and undergo the consequent NOR
tihcation. Besides agriculture, which
produces barley, rye and vegetables, the
great industry is sheep raising. The
exports ale largely eiderdown, picked
from wild birds. lava from the volcano
Mt. Hecla, which is pumice stone, and
sulphur, which is found in similar and
such varied states as salt.
"Vineland is the name of America
used by all the people except the few
who were educated abroad" continued
the doctor. cit is the old Morse name.
No people in the world are esteemed by
Icelanders so highly as Americans, and
this is why: The Icelanders know that
their b.ood is purer than any of the
European nations, where every man is
generally lord or peasant, as he is
born. But in America every boy and
gi is born a prince or princess. The
Icelander loves his own personal freedom
and prlncely birth. He thinks that the
man who has won both By the posses
sion of political conditions for which
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