Maryland independent. [volume] (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1874-current, 1892-06-03
FROM ICELAND TO MISSOURI.
& Chapter of History just Being Com
pleted.


pleted.
As ~the child is father TO the man."
the barbarian is the father Of ciyiliza-
ton; and as we know man best and
can only understand him fully when we
have known him from his childhood, we
can only understand fully the civiliza-
ton of people by acquainting our
selves with it from its beginnings 10 bar
barism. The history of Missouri and
Illinois, of Tennessee and Texas, as
States, hardly extends beyond the
memory of living men, but il this his
tory is to be Ineligible, the history Of
The peopie who made the States, whose
lives and customs impressed themselves
on their generation in constitutions,
laws and institutions, must he known
from their race infancy. 1t is fortunate
that the people of Illinois and Missouri.
of TEN eisee aud Texas, began writing
history in their childhood as soon as
they learned to read. They have be-
hind them nearly thousand years Of
history made ind written by them
selves.
When we are at loss to account for
anything in American history, we gem
orally go back to the history Of the
British Islands to seek an explanation,
and we seldom fail to find 1t there.
This will be true for many centuries, no
matter how many millions Of immi-
grants we receive from Continental
Europe. For the history of the British
Islands is the history of all the great
divisions of the Caucasian race which
now compose the population of the
United States. There met, as here,
Celt, Latin and Teuton; each modify
ing and educating the other, as in the
United States.
As the original British Colt yielded
to the Latin, as the Latin dynasty fell
before the Gothic of Hengist and Horse,
asthe Gothic gayesplsae to y s. is ' as
Conqueror, Latiuized Goth followed
by a horde of Latinized Celts and
Goths, the history of England came to
have In it synopsis of the history of
three great divisions of the Caucasian
race Gothic or Teutonic, Celtic and
Latin.
1t will not often happen, therefore,
that we will look in vain to the his
tory of the British Isles to find explana-
tion of ANYTHING that is not clear in the
history of a~y part Of the Uni ed States.
III any custom of ours cannot be ex-
planned from Gothic precedents, it may
be from Celtic or from Latin. and we
find all these together in this history of
the British Islands
Rut Of fha u,oak
English history as it concerns US, there
is "a hiatus Udlde defendus' "a most
lamentable gan, due to the fact that for
several centuries after they had oppor-
tunltles to learn to write the people of
North England were too busy fighting
to do so. Nearly everything we know
about England in that period is about
South England, and great deal in
American history to-day would be unin-
telligible but for the fact that there
was great Gothic literary center fur
Their north, almost under the pole. in the
bleak island of Iceland. The settlers
of North England and of Iceland were
almost identical in the language and
customs. In tle tenth century the peo-
pie of Northumberland, of the Scotch
borders and of Iceland could have I'M
derstood each othOr with little difficulty
without an interpreter. In the Ice
landic version of the parable of the
houses builded on rock. it is said that
lie who heareih tho word and doeth it
is "lihjd Heim ,Citrum manni sen,
byggetht up Si>, has yfr Stein'-is
like the witty fwise) man who biggeth
Scotch for buildethD his house over
(yyer) stone. Every word is still En-
glish, with only changes in pronuucia-
ton from speaking in the front or back
of the mouth.
To understand our trial by jury, onr
circuit and quarterly courts, oui' systems
of fines and punishments, even cur
feuds in the mountain districts. we must
go hack to Iceland, where we can see our.
selves, if not in race childhood, vet in
the period when the childhood Of bar.
barism is just verging into the manhood
of civilization. Though we NAV thus
go back a thousand years in point of
time, we may not be going back at all
in point of fact. A Nevada mining camp
will repeat before our eyes almost every
phenomenon of the order and disorder
of Iceland ten centuries ago-eyen to
the Berserker fury" which was No.,
ing more tha1 the famil;---- ~ Ass-
phenomenon n. aEtsd :. low a. ar.
u { i.''''s~d IN New York or elssw here.