The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1897-04-24
An ExnIanatton From George Wilson.

An Explanation From George WILSON.
Editor InteIligcncer.
1t is related that the good Caliph
| Haroun Al RaschId wrote 4 cOmmuni-
cation for the Bagdad Daily Herald,
which was set up with a great mistake
in it, and he ordered that the compost
tor who set it up abe burned ut the
stake and his accursed cInders cast
into the sea-" n sentence which no
person who writes for newspapers
thinks at all too severe.
When | took up Il copy of the last
INTELLIGENCEE and read: 1.-The
Anglo-Saxon Treaty." where | had
written ''Tho Anglo Cleveland Treaty."
L could not help sympathizing with the
good Caliph OF Bagdad. would pass
it over but for the fact that the use of
the word ssAnglo-Snxou' is an exam
pie that | do not wish to set to the
youth of the country. \ late scholarly
writer in a Boston paper has protested
against its use and declared that 1t was
more than n thousand years since the
last A~nglo-SaNon was gathered to his
fathers. / am more radical than he;
| doubt if there eve WAS such Il thing
as an AnglO-SaXon, or such II people
as Anglo SaNons. MIR. QuarleS, who
studied the s~o-called Anglo-SaXon Ian
guage with a good deal of care, once
expressed doubts to me whether there
was ever such Il language as ''Anglo-
Saxon" And other scholars have
said the M The name OF the
Anglii who went from the Danish pen
insula to England M from the
Scandinavian word Eng, n meadow,
prairie, steppes, &c. The whole word
Anglm meant the cattle breeding men
OF The steppes, meadows or prairies of
Northern Europe, and Siberia, per-
haps. The word Saxon has for its last
syllable the same word AS Dutch
women or German wohnen, to dwell.
The frs. syllable, Sax, means Il rock,
or the mountains. The SaXones were
the jewellers in the rocks, the noun
taincers. That is the original mean
ing of the word. The Anglii and the
Saxons, who came to England long
ago, brought these names with them,
but what mountains the SaXons lived
III on the continent we do not know.
l believe that the ~supposition that the
Saxons got their name from Il sword
called a sax is Il mistake. The last
syllable shows that the first meant a
locality. When the Anglii and the
Saxons in England were blended they
be called Anglo-SaxOns, but
there were also Frisians, Jutes, and
men of other tribes in the blend with
the Anglii, and the resulting race could
with equal propriety be called Anglo
or SaXO-Jutes, or Friso-SaXons.
Whenever there is occasion TO use the
word Anglo Saxon l generally put it in
quotation marks, or otherwise show
that it is o my expression and has
my approval.
Calling ourselves and the English of
England ''Anglo-SaXOnsn is some
lines a mark of a lack of information,
md sometimes II confidence game.
The American Puritans are SAID to
come from Lincolnshire. The
Virginians were from NOrthumbria,
and were of pure Scandinavian or
Northern stock. The next lot, or Val
.ey Virginians, were, many of them,
or Irish or Scotch, of the
stock that came from the east of the
in what Is now Russia. The
North CarolinIanS were about the same
Is the latter, as were also the Mary
anders of Welsh descent. But the
is growing in England that the
left behind after the migration
rom England to America and Austria
ia are descendants of the Roman
and the Italian and other south
I'm population that followed the
roman armies and settled IN England.
they are very different from the rest
ess Northern stock That came to
GEO. WILSON.