WILD ISLANDERS.

Shannon News, 2 October 1923, Page 3

WILD ISLANDERS.

The enterprise of the Daily Express in sending out a special correspondent to describe the 80 residents in the lonely island of St. ICilda has been amply rewarded (writes Basset Digby, in the Daily Express). It'is probably right to describe those lonely islanders as ‘ ‘ the wildest white people, ’ ’ so long as it is understood that “wild” does not properly mean fierce or dangerous without Special provocation. Small, remote and isolated communities, such as exist to a far greater extent in North America than in Europe, rarely toe the civilisation line. They remain uncouth and ignorant, lazy, grasping, and intensely suspicious of the stranger. The remotest communities apaTt from off-thc-itrack islands like St. Hilda, Tristan da Cunha and St. Helena, are mountain peoples. The whites in the villages near the .“heel” of Italy, are nearly as primitive and “impossible” in their dealings with modern civilised men as mountain folk of the mysterious centre of New,, Guinea. As for the Spanish mountain regions, they arc quite “east of Suez” sociologically g,nd no traveller would dare visit their villages without an armed guard. (George Borrow was lucky—like the fellow who went over Niagara in a tub and survived!). Gre’ece, Albania,

and the Balkans tcom with communities of wild whites. So did Switzer- ' land till the bandits grew impatient and bold, and came down in the valleys to run hotels and winter sports’ resorts. Flat and accessible countries have no wild whites. Railways and cities have come in for a good deal of abuse, but there can be no doubt that they have improved human nature. They have made us more generous, tolerant and kindly. Just imagine 18 St. Kildans or Kentucky ..mountaineers, or back-block Spaniards being jammed into one small railway compartment from Croydon to London Bridge. Mon Dieu! It would be a shambles long before the train got to Streatham!