Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-04-26
Wakeman Draws a Pretty Picture of
the Homes and Customs of the
Cumbrian PeaSantry.
THEIRS Is NEUTRAL GROUND.
ScstI Love Them for Their Csledonian
Blood, and lrishmen for Their
Celtic Parentage.
PEEPS INTO TIE HASSIyE HOUSES.
curOsti.s Of Dialect and the Ceremonies Of Marriages
and BurAlk


Scotch glory IN lne strains ana crags u
their highlands and islands; the Irish have
a pathetic and mournful pride in their
ancient Celtic and later ecclesiastic monu-
ments, and an exultant pridein their Giants
CausewaYs, their lone peaks of Donegal
and Connemara, and their matches Killar-
ney, while the English fondly fancy that,
outside the Lake district, among the peaks
and valleys of North Wales, are scenic
beauties of surprising splendor.
But the English Lake district is, as 1t
were, natures feast for common enjoyment.
1t is the one spot in the three Kingdoms
where gentle genii of the place are powerful
enough TO annihilate tine race bitterness of
centuries. Indeed, it is the sweet and PEN
sive lullaby-nest of all Britain.
Its geography, ethnology and Chronology
may have much to do with this. The region,
from a race standpoint, is almost neutral
ground. 1t is in the Northwestern, and all
things considered, the most remote portion
OF England. Its area comprises the North
ern, sea-detached part of Lancashire and all
of the important shires of Westmoreland
and Cumberland. Three sides, its North
ern, Western and Southern, are shut in by
the Irish Sea and estuarieS, while natural
barrier on the Eastern side is formed by the
Pennine range of hills, which furnishes
Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberla
their wild and savage 'ells and moors.
Have Never Been Disturbed.
Peopled originally bv Cambro-Celts, their
descendants clung to a region almost inac-
cessible in the past, and thus sustained,
from the barbaric stone age TO the golden
of arf few al hrun Mt
sad impIngements from Roman, Danish
and early English invasion. All influences
for change were consequently gradual and
gentle, and never markedly unequal from
the English on the east and south, the Irish
on the west, and the Caledonians on the
north.
During three extended visits to the region,
in which most of NV time was passed among
the peasautry, there have been found very
many dissimilarities between these people
and the peasant class in any other portion Of
England. Though the student OF books may
fail to find this apparent in the literary re-
mains of the hosts OF prose writers and poets
who drew almost their sole inspiration from
the lake country; and though there may re-
main no evidence that these curious distnc-
tions attracted the everyday attention of the
men and women of genius, who so long lived
where these contrasts were constantly APP
parent, the interesting fact still remains
that Cumbrian men and women. as all the
inhabitants North Lancashire, Cumber-
land and Westmoreland are generally
called, are almost as different from other
lowlv English folk, in traditions, supersti-
tions, manners, customs, and particularly
in yernacular as are those of Wales, who
go periodically treasure every YestIge of
their ancient hymric life and tongue. The
Scotch are most kindly disposed to their
Cumbrian brethren across the Solway, for
they know that in their veins flows an ad-
mixture OF Caledonian blood. The Irish
across the narrow channel are drawn to
them, as to the Welsh, because the Cum
brians have with the Irish and Welsh a
common Celtic parentage. The region is
English through centuries of domination
and gradual absorption of English nation
ality.
The Families of Statesmen.
If chronological reasons, though but half
consciously recognized, render the English
Lake District common ground of delight for
all British nationalities the distinctive
status and character of its peasaniry GER
tainlv give it an added charm to the traveller
VINO has interest in men as we'll as in
mountains and rocks. The larger propor-
tiOn of the rural population, or dalesmen,
ore the families of statesmen" or men
owning and farming their own tiny pieces
OF land. These have come down to them
intact from baronial times. In those old
davs the border incursions from Scotland
taxed to the utmost the wits and resources
of the northern baronS. To provide and
retain required forces for their often sore
needs, the system of parceIng out the land,
in lee, and enfranchising the villein retain
ers to whom they were given, was resorted
10.
Mors f,rfupota +bon tl,o roo. o1,n.,..- e
the Scottish Highlands, whom the 6ecav of
the clan system 5arbarously drove from
their homes and soil, the decay of
feudalism left these Cumbrian statesmen"
the actual posseSsors OF the soil.
Many of their little ''estates' have
being gradually swallowed up by the nobil-
ity, and by rich men who have become
mighty Iaaoholders in the lake region. But
there are thousands remaining who to-day
occupy the very same parcels o. ground, de-
fued by the identical metes and bounds,
possessed by their villein ancestors of hum
dreds of years ago.
Houses Dug Into the Mountains.
These have stood still" They have sus-
tanned little encroachment. l have found
"statesmens, houses in remote glens, all the
way from the Solway to Morecambe Bay,
where can be traced the entire series OF evo-
lutions In habitatiOns from a cell quarried
out Of the mountain side TO the hali-modern
heavily built, rOck-thatched Cumbrian cot
tage. Along the Solway Firth, at Bowness,
l can point out hal score of these SO old
that carvings and affairs dug from the nearly
170O-vears old Roman wall of Severus, are
built into frepiaces and outside wallis. OF
these Galesmens' cottages Wordsworth, him
self born among them, says: "Hence
buildings, which in their very form call to
mind the processes OF nature, do thus,
clothed in part with q vegetable garb, APP
pear to be received into the bosom of the
livirg principle of things, it acts and ex-
lists among the woods and felos."
Precisely as in Wordsworth's time, out
side the Cumbrian cottages you will find the
shade Of sycamores and'a tall fir through
which the winds sing when other trees are
leahess;" little orchard; ample herb
bed near rill or springspout with its
ceaseless wimple; a comely garden; COM
Portable stone out-buildiDgs for grain and
for winter housing of the cows and the tiny
but hardy Cumbrian sheep; and always the
shed for the hives OF bees which dlstill from
the mountain heath the darkest but ever
the sweetest honey in the world.
Interiors of the Castles.
Their interiors are no less characteristic.
Standing In the door of any one, your eyes
may again trace, III the antiques of utensils
and furnishings, complete museum of
rustic household evolution from the stone
age 10 our own age OF Brummapem and
brass; for you will find the oueru. old as
Arysn lie, the ancient Celtic neither or
drinking cup, the rudest and earliest make
of spinning wheel with delft of the first
English kilns varied BY many faulty bits of
"WedgeWood," brought here from Stafford.