CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
THE GAELIC NUISANCE.
FROM DAWN TO SUNSET.
OUR INDIAN PETS.
THE ADMIRAL'S SECOND WIFE.
REMINISCENCES OF QUEBEC.
FRENCH FISHER-FOLK.
EMERGENCIES.
THE TRADE IN ARTIFICIAL EYES.
A NOBLE OCCUPATION.
| No. 723. | SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1877. | Price 1½d. |
THE GAELIC NUISANCE.
It is not a very creditable fact that after centuriesof national consolidation, there should be communitieswithin the British Islands who usedifferent vernacular tongues and are ignorant ofEnglish. In other words, there are large numbersof persons who cannot in ordinary circumstancesbe directly communicated with. They can neithersend nor intelligibly receive letters through thepost-office. Summoned as witnesses on civil orcriminal trials, they are in the position of foreigners,and stand in need of interpreters. Cut off fromEnglish books and newspapers, a correct knowledgeof history, of science and art, and of passingevents is scarcely possible. They necessarilyvegetate amidst vague legends and superstitions.Theirs is a life of stagnation and impoverishment,in the spot where they were born; foranything like voluntary emigration to improvecircumstances is only exceptional. And all thishas been complacently tolerated, if not pampered,for hundreds of years by a nation full of enterprise,and which, with no injustice, aspires to bein the front rank of general civilisation.
We are quite aware that much the same thingcan be said of most of the continental nations. Allare a little behind in this respect. The ancientBreton language survives in France, as does theBasque in Spain. Switzerland, Germany, andRussia are respectively a jumble of spoken tongues.In Holland and Belgium, we have the Dutch,French, Flemish, and Walloon. To accommodatethe inhabitants of Brussels, the names of thestreets are stuck up in two languages. These continentaldiversities do not greatly surprise us. Infrequent wars, revolutions, conquests, annexations,along with want of means, and a host of inveterateprejudices to be encountered, we have an explanationof the strange mixture of languages anddialects which still prevails in continental Europe.
The case is somewhat different in the UnitedKingdom, where everything but old prejudiceswould seem to favour a uniform native languagewhich all can use an