Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-10-15
POLITICAL VOLCANO
THREATENS SICILY
"IreIand Of Italy" May Justi-
fy Name, Says Geographic
News Bulletin.

| Sicily, long ago referred to by some
Italian statesmen as 1.-The Ireland of
| Italy," may Justify that appeilation more
| fully as result of the reported seizure
| of landed estates by peasants. The
| islands appearance on the first page
| would be nothing unusual if newspaper
| files ran back 5000 years. according to
bulletin by the National Geographic
| Society.
Mount Etna has provided perennial
| casualties that make a Wall street bomb
explosion seem a trifing mishap. Plato's
visits to the island were heralded as
broadly. if not by printers ink. as was
Sir Oliver Lodges tour of the United
States. What Sunday magazine section
could find a more lurid spread than
Plndar'S story of how PhalariS erected
bronze bull, built fire underneath
and threw his enemies in the cauldron
to see how nearly their groanS resem-
hled the bellows of live BULL And
! ponysius the Elder, with his temple.
| city wall and palace building steady
! source of real estate news, certainly
| would have landed on the first page
when the story broke of his famous
\ marble harbor at Syracuse.
i Syracuse New York of HelIas.
| VI SuppCSe tIdl tHeTe ldu Dteli Ill
| the days of ancient Utica, Troy and
| Syracuse hotels operated as they are in
the modern municipal namesakes of
| those cities. Their registers, in Sicilian
cities, would show such names as Sap
| pho. Xenophanes. Aeschylus. Athens
and Corinth are credited with being the
! Bostons of Greek civilization: but SYRIA
cuse in size and activity. was its New
I York. And lest any New Yorker object
| to that distinction it may be well to
mention that it takes into reckoning
| the Syracuse prestige in letters, art and
philosophy.
Moreover Syracuse. when it had
| an estimated million or more popu-
! lation. and was the foremost city of
| Helles. possessed a classic prototype
| of Greenwich village. Among it's ar
| lists and thinkers were pretenders
| Dionysius himself. not content with
| protean achievements as ruler, city
| builder and conqueror, aspired to
| write verse. His efforts al first were
| criticized by Philoxenus and We're
! Kissed at the Olympic games, but
| finally he won a prize at Athens for
| a tragedy. Whereupon he celebrated
with debauch that caused his death
"Unwritten Law in Sicily.
| Files of our imaginary Sicilian
| newspapers also would contain men
| ton of appeals to an 'unwritten law
LOT the operations OF the Malta, IN
| evitably suggest this latter-day plea.
| except that the Malta code was far
more inclusive. The much-talked-
about Malta is not-was not, more
| properly, for it only survives in parts
of Sicily as remote as our own
feudal spots-a secret order clan
Rather. as some one wittily remarked
of an American city in another con-
| nection, it is a state of mind. 1t
represents the idea that 'venveance
TOE 1,o<
| law is weakness. that the indi-
vidual is the supreme arbiter of his
| own affairs, even when they involve
others.
OBVIOUSLY. the OPERATIONS of the
Malta is not a heaNhful field for, the
| sociological student; moreover, those
| who hold the theory that blood
| washes blood have other proverbs
which lay utmost stress upon silence.
TO speak little is fine art is one
| The man who talks enough says
nothing is another. Hence there are
not enough data to supply any ade
quate account of the origin of the
! Malta and the tenets of Amerta, as
| the code is called.
"One may get clue from the pan
Drama of Sicily's fateful history.
Fifteen nations had foothold there
| in it's historic span of nearly 5000
years-in ancient times Phoenicia,
Greece. Carthage. Rome, Byzantium
Vandals, Saracens, Normans, Germans.
Anjouans, Aragonese, Spanish, Bour-
bons, French and English. Nor does
that list include the period since 1860
as a part of the kingdom of Italy or
the original jewellers. the Sikans.
Sikels and Elymians. May it not be
that with such a shifting of rulers
and standards. with such constant
conflicts of cultural and social ideals,
that the Sicilians displayed strength
- oJ,a ota hnr no Wiz
tendency. in evolving a selfimposed
and self-enforced code?
Island Linked Europe to Africa.
"Geologically, Sicily is a newborn
babe among the land masses, even If
it is Methuselah of human history.
1t all but halves the Mediterranean
into two great bowls. In fact, it once
linked Europe and Africa: the famous
Etna having been peak in a noun
tain range that begins in the Apen-
mines of today and twists to the
sweep. of the Atlas range westward
from Tunis Today it is an isolated
mass, in the position of a foot ball
about to be kicked by the toe of
Italy's boot.
'In size Sicily is comparable with
our state of Maryland, including
Chesapeake bay, but minus the east
ern shore; and in shape 1t resembles
the same state, minus it's western
the Mediterranean, but it is crowded.
Only FIVE of our states exceed its,
population.
palermo, Catania and Messina. in
the order mentioned, are Sicily's
principal cities. Catania, at the base
of Mount Etna, has been buried. and
often partly ruined by the volcano
beside which. it has been . said,
Vesuvius is "a mere pocket volcano.
for which space might be found upon
ha nf far a n
Before the harbor of Messina is
Charybdis: Scylla. it's companion in
classic lore, lies opposite in Calabria
across the narrowest stretch of the
straits of Messina. Messina suffered
what is probably the worlds most
cruel earthquake in 1908. when about
100000 people. two-thirds of its
population, lost their lives because of
a tremor of only thirty-five seconds
duration"
The Isabelle Thoburn College. in
Lucknow, India. the first Christian