THE MALTESE

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 80, 28 December 1921, Page 7

THE MALTESE

THE IRISH OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.

An island people with the most intense national sentiment, possessing a language and physical characteristics shared by no one else in the world, living under the British flag yet fiercely jealous, ot their rights and privileges as a nation, the Maltese may be accounted Hie Irish of the Mediterranean, writes M. . 1. Uainsselin, R.N. in tho “Daily Mail. Like the Irish also, they are fervent Roman Catholics and have always had a strong Nationalist Party. For many years their elected members refused to take their seats in the local Parliament and maintained a red-hot Nationalist priest was once appointed to a charge in the west of Ireland. Hie friend from the larger isle doubted whether he would ever be able to acquire the native Ersa whereupon the Southerner rattled off a sentence in Maltese “Sure, if ye can get your tongue, round that lingo," laughed ' no language on earth that 11 ba e j <■ Further the Maltese peasant, especially when aged, 'bears a striking facial r • semblance to his Irish brother; and with his short dudheen stuck m his mouth, looks as if h© liad come etral B h from Conncnifl.ra« , 1 It is only among the labouring classes that the pure-blooded Maltese are found. The upper classes pride themselves. on descent from the old Knights; they speak Italian or English, and are rathei ashamed of tho native . But the original stock is 1 unic, r the language that of the ancient Phoenicians. Carthaginian names; such ns Hnmiiear are common in th slan, s particularly in Gozo, where the race womlerful ruinslf a' PhoSian temple, h " rdbclp Io turn flit? soil. 1 Although the islands cover scarcely more than a hundred square miles, the claim to the status of a nation is not extravagant. The' inhabitants are mo ; sirs nro tenumerable tow™ and church, and two large cilies which divide tho honour of being Hie cap>to Valetta, tho seaport, and Citta (which the sailor calls Sh’vvery Wick), connected with the modern <iti to the Government railway, six miles long. Tin.- Maltese 'are a sturdy and industrious people. If is a lazy man y ' n is not at work by four in the mornin„. Thov arc good seamen, and in the annual nulHn" race for Service cutters over a course of three miles the Maltese crew UJA h- i—always in black, though they Telie Yf tho ronibroness by plentiful go < en o inents of somewhat Urbane . • Their nun-like appearance m bv Um euriorH natiomil hen* ni they term, onelln, a wide stiffened capo and hood combined. p , o Tho hiirh-born of the . ordinarily dress like other European ±Tn r ,7re earefnl to adopt ibo natmnn costunra when attending .cli«’’eh It is with them the outward sign of <bat intense jealousness for their nationality which is inherent in every individual of the Maltese people.