ISLE OF MAN
“Bold words affirmed, in days when faith was strong,
And doubts and scruples seldom teased the brain,
That no adventurer’s bark had power to gain
These shores if he approached them bent on wrong.”
Wordsworth.[48]
The question was often put to me, Why should the Manchester inspectors
visit the Isle of Man? They have to cross the territory of at least
three friendly colleagues to reach it, and surely they have enough to
do at home? But the satisfying answer was that with no less inducement
could the Manchester staff be kept together. When I was transferred to
that City of Dreadful Night, I was inclined to think that The Island,
as we affectionately called it, was a Heligoland, a Philippine Island:
let who will, take it. But the Manchester staff soon undeceived me.
“We work,” said they, with tears in their manly eyes, “in smoke, fog,
and gas-light for five or six months in the year: if it were not for
the Island we should die: _keep the brightest jewel in your diadem_.”
And, therefore, when the Board hinted that I was overpeopled, and that
without the I.O.M. I should be poorer but happier, I replied with the
familiar Terentian words,
“HUMANI nihil a me alienum puto.”
(All that is of Man, is mine.)
In the following May came my first Essay on Man. Certainly, as the
crew of Ulysses sang, “Our island home is distant far.” There is a
great gulf fixed between Liverpool and Douglas, and out of the tourist
season, when only the smaller boats are running, one is tempted to
think that the Liverpool inspector, who probably examines night-schools
in “The Principles of Navigation,” is a fitter man for the post than
one whose nautical ideas are limited by the Ship Canal and the Pennine
Range. But the sight of Douglas Bay, the clear sky, the pure air, and
the quiet of the night--before the trippers arrive--bring consolation,
and then content.
A classical friend hailed me as ἄναξ ἀνδρῶνm, King of Man, but
that really was an exaggeration. I had no pretensions to the rank
of Agamemnon. The island belongs to the British Crown: there is
a governor, and some deemsters, besides Mr. Hall Caine, and a
second-class bishop. All these dignitaries, and others, take precedence
of H.M.I.
It is somewhat of a mild coincidence that I began my inspecting career
in the Welsh Mona, and, thirty-five years later, ended with the
Northern Mona. The latter is not a large island, about twenty-five
miles from north to south, and about twelve across. The more familiar
Isle of Wight is about two-thirds of the size, but has nearly double
the population. This inequality is, doubtless, partly due to the fact
that the census is taken on the first Monday in April, when Wight is
full and Man is empty. If the first Monday in August could have been
substituted, Man would have made a braver show. Thus is the dignity of
Man sacrificed to a pedantic love of accuracy.
And while comparing the two, let me pause to note that Wihtgaresbyrig,
the old name of the southern isle, had presumably nothing to do with a
wight, or man, and that Mannin, the old name of our isle, had nothing
to do with a man or wight; but that the forces of erosion and attrition
have made one into a Wight and the other into a Man.
To the ordinary tourist the island is unknown. A lady whom I asked
whether she knew it, enquired with some surprise if it was a place
to which people went. But, in the summer, trippers from Lancashire
and Cheshire come in hundreds of thousands; there is the pleasing
punishment of a four hours’ sea voyage; on the island there is cheap
board and lodging, with magnificent air and varied scenery. Our visits
were, perforce, concluded before the mass of the trippers arrived, and
rather before the warm weather set in; but it was a delightful break
in the monotony of town work. Our school journeys did not take us into
the Glens, which are the pride of the Manxman; and the rest of the
country is rather pretty than beautiful. But in May and June we had
all the charm of wild flowers, the fresh green of the beeches, and
the splendour of the gorse and the broom. Song birds abounded in the
plantations, and on the coast sea-birds did their best to prove that
personal beauty is compatible with the entire absence of a musical
faculty.
Walter Scott makes the island the scene of part of _Peveril of the
Peak_; but it does not appear from his life, or from his journal--still
less does the novel show--that he ever set foot there. Wordsworth wrote
some fine sonnets on the island, from one of which I have borrowed the
lines at the head of the chapter. Mr. Hall Caine, of course, has done
ample justice to the traditions and local colour. It is some years
since I read, and much enjoyed, _The Manxman_ and _The Deemster_, and
at the times of reading I was in blackest ignorance of the scenery. To
me the Sacred Bard of the island was T. E. Brown, whose letters,[49]
and especially those from the island, I read and re-read. I skimmed
through a good deal of his poetry also, in the hope of finding
something suitable for the Manx children to learn, but there was little
or nothing of that special kind, and the teachers would have none of
it. We are told that Browning, George Eliot, Max Müller, and W. E.
Henley united in praising his poetry very highly, but his dialect poems
are the most admired, and teachers wage war against dialect. I wonder
whether Scotch children learn Burns?
The Letters, however, are a priceless treasure; and the island which
produced him, and introduced me to them, earns from me a double share
of gratitude. Dip into vol. i. if you see no chance of personally
inspecting his haunts:
The island blooms like a rose. Primroses make no secret of it
now--they are everywhere, and begin to bring with them young
blue-bells, “ter’ble shoy,” but they’ll soon get over that. I went up
Sulby Glen a bit the other day: the gorse there, as elsewhere, is a
mass of golden flame; and I heard the cuckoo....
Ballaglass is delicious in the sunlight with the beechen spray
breathing over it. Also its primroses are good, also its blue-bells.
As yet the blue-bells are hesitant or apologetic. Of course you know
that later on they will attend the funeral of the primroses with a
mighty mourning of hyacinthine blooms; and then they will become quite
cheeky and truculent, and make the ground their own.
Hills above the Gob-y-volley at the mouth of Sulby Glen, twice;
perfection of gorse hassocks, tufted with bell-heather, also of ling
in sheets, sprinkled with the bell-heather--the sea-rim rounding all
with glorious blue--the steamer going round the island with an almost
impudent familiarity of approach, like a “Cotton”[50] throwing his
arms round the neck of a pretty Manx country-girl--“smookin, too, the
dirt.”
Only fragmentary glimpses of these scenes were vouchsafed to us, but
they were enough to enhance our enjoyment of the book. Schools were our
urgent suitors; they engrossed our attention, and what we saw of the
beauties of nature was, in the main, what we passed on our way to and
from schools.
Of the schools themselves there is little to be said that could
interest even a professional reader. They are for the most part
hampered by poverty. Not that the island is poor, though it produces
little, and the harvest of the sea is sorely reduced at present; the
trippers are a copper-mine of wealth. It is said that on an average
each visitor spends at least a sovereign, and I have heard the income
calculated at £1,500,000. A fair proportion of this must reach the
farmers, but it requires a specially high tide to bring it to the door
of the school. It must be remembered that the island is afflicted
with Home Rule. It pays £10,000 a year to the Imperial Exchequer, and
manages its own affairs. No Act of the Imperial Parliament affects
it, unless it is specially named. Certain Acts are adopted by Tynwald
(the Insular Parliament) when they are considered suitable. But
the Education Act of 1902, substituting a central authority for the
parochial organisation, and increasing the Government contribution, was
not so adopted. Therefore the twenty-one School Boards, with £1,000
worth of clerks, &c., remain to manage the forty-seven schools, and
teachers find their salaries so low that they seek their fortunes
across the water.
No doubt the island suffers, as all tourist places in our country
suffer, from Parasitism; and the sentence which Mr. Drummond, in his
chapter on that social disease, quotes from Professor Ray Lankester,
should be pondered in all such resorts:
Any new set of conditions occurring to an animal which render its
food and safety very easily attained, seem to lead as a rule to
degeneration.--“Natural Law, &c.,” p. 317.
For ten weeks or so there are crowded hours of prosperity: then
comes the long period of retrospection, followed by a longer period
of anticipation, neither being remunerative. Even in the season of
prosperity I doubt if the contemplation of Lancashire trippers,
frequently tripping, can be any more beneficial to the parasite than it
is pleasant to the philosophic onlooker. (See T. E. Brown, _passim_.)
Of other work than agriculture there is little: there is some--I know
not how much--lead-mining: the herring and the mackerel have all but
deserted the coasts; men say that the steam-trawlers have ruined the
trade.
The really serious cloud on the horizon is the want of a career open to
talent: young men who have brains, or ambition--still more those who
have both--seek their fortunes in a larger market, and the tendency to
fill up the gaps with the weedy _poitrinaire_, and the seedy genteel
indigent, is still more alarming.
As for the children--the 8,774 children--I lost my heart to them
individually and collectively. But I received no encouragement. They
are very shy, “ter’ble shoy,” in Mr. Brown’s dialect. In most schools
they never see a stranger, except the inspector; and though by the
desire of the Council we made a point of visiting every school twice a
year, there was no time to establish an acquaintance, and the second
visit was paid by a different official. In an oral examination it was
most difficult to get an answer even from the boys: the girls sat mute,
blushing, trembling. In Cheshire phrase, I “got no forrader.”
The Manx language is almost extinct. At the last census 4,500 people,
out of about 50,000, recorded themselves as Manx-speaking, but we
must not suppose that anything like this number was monoglott. In
the district between Peel and Port Erin on the west coast there is a
school, where I was told that the children heard little but Manx at
home; but I have never heard it spoken. On my first visit to Douglas I
was under the impression that the children in the streets were talking
Manx; but it turned out to be English with all the short syllables
eliminated. This local variety is much in use in school. The children
pitch their voices high, and rise by an imperfect fifth on the last
word; thus they would chant on and around A, and would end on E flat.
It is strange that a very similar inflexion is in use in parts of
Norfolk. The Manx school recitation of poetry is conducted on this
principle, and the effect is this--the italic representing the high
note (_Merchant of Venice_; Trial Scene):
Portia: Th’ qualt’ merc’s not _streen’d_:
’t droppth ’s gentl’ reen f’m _heav’n_
’pon th’ pleece _b’neeth_: ’ts twice _bless’d_:
’t blessth him th’t gives, ’nim th’t _teeks_:
’s mightst ’n _mightst_.
If I laughed, or remonstrated, however tenderly, the sensitive plant
would shrivel up.
Both in the island and in North Wales I have often been told that on
a fishing fleet in the Irish Sea the Manx, the Irish, the Gaelic, and
the Welsh fishermen could converse freely. It would be rash for a man
who speaks none of those languages to lay down the law. But we know
that they differ widely: the Welsh are Cymric, the other three are
of the Gaelic branch of Celts; all four would have the Indo-European
joint stock and the Celtic roots in common. But conversation cannot
subsist on roots. Judging from the names of places in the island
there is little kinship between Welsh and Manx. I do not remember any
Manx place-name beginning with Llan, or Lan; there is no Welsh town
or village beginning with Balla, the general Manx prefix; Bala, the
nearest approach, is the name of a modern town on Llyn Tegid, and in
the parish of Llanycil. But Bally is common enough in Scotland and
Ireland. So with other names.
I imagine that what happened in the Irish Sea was this: a Manx
fisherman held up a fish, and shouted the Manx name for it--which, I
think, resembles the Welsh “pysgodyn”; whereupon a Welshman held up a
whisky bottle, and shouted “Iechyd da chwi” (good health); and they
parted with mutual satisfaction. Yet, if there is any truth in the
novels of Scott and Lever, the Gaels and Erse should have preferred
some such word as “slaint” for “health”; the bottle is pan-anthropic.
About 1904 some local enthusiasts attempted to introduce the study
of the Manx language as a part of the island school course. It was
manifest after careful enquiry that the language had no literary
value, for there is no Manx literature beyond some fairy stories and
folk songs. Nor has it a commercial value, for obvious reasons. It
has an antiquarian value; but between 9 A.M. and 4.30 P.M. the time
is already fully occupied, and the rates and taxes will hardly bear
the additional strain of sentiment. The Board in Whitehall are very
unwilling to interfere with Manx local option in education, for the
island pays all the school grants, and he who pays the piper may call
the song. Whitehall confined itself to the sprinkling of cold water on
the scheme. I heard no more of it.
It is strange that in our crankful England no crank has arisen to
demand the teaching of Old English (which we used to call Anglo-Saxon),
the language of our forefathers. Why do we not all feel it to be
monstrous that the “Lay of Beowulf” is a sealed book to our six million
children, and that the tongue of Ælfred should be unknown to the
subjects of Edward VII.?
The Manx language may not be a remunerative study, but the history of
the island is full of interest, and the excellent patriotism of the
Speaker of the House of Keys has provided the children with a school
history, abbreviated from a larger work. I wish it were more generally
used. Manx history is tangible; the monuments lie all round; Celts and
Scandinavians have left traces everywhere. Saints and martyrs, such as
were Patrick, German, Maughold, Bride; kings and warriors, King Orry
and--and others; Stanleys and Murrays. Who would not be proud to be a
Manxman?
Who was King Orry? I have great gifts of forgetfulness when it comes to
history instead of story, and I do not recollect the details of that
monarch’s career. It is all in that book on the shelf. A Manx boy to
whom I put the same question--Who was King Orry?--replied “a boot.”
It was explained that he meant “boat” and that one of the Liverpool
steamers is called after the king. That does not carry us any further:
but I remember the story of Bishop Wilson, which a colleague told me as
we came back from Castle Rushen, and (like an examination candidate) I
offer the one in place of the other:
Thomas Wilson was for 57 years (1697-1755) the saintly Bishop of
Sodor and Man. The Governor’s wife had, it was alleged, declared
that Mrs. Z. was no better than she should be. Mrs. Z. said she was
as good as Mrs. Governor. The matter was referred to the Bishop, who
decided in favour of Mrs. Z. and ordered her assailant to apologise.
On the lady’s refusal he excommunicated her. But she “got at” the
Archdeacon--(“ploughed with my heifer,” said Bishop Wilberforce of his
Archdeacon 150 years later)[51]--and persuaded the inferior officer to
admit her to Communion. Thereupon the Bishop inhibited the Archdeacon.
Whereupon the Governor seized the Bishop, and put him in the dungeons
of Castle Rushen, till he should be purged of his contempt.
There is much to be said for Home Rule.
FOOTNOTES:
[48] One of my colleagues was unable to land on the Island, and was
carried on to Barrow. Till I had seen these lines, I fully believed
that it was the ordinary result of an easterly gale. Now I see that he
was after no good.
[49] _Letters of T. E. Brown_, 2 vols. (Constable.)
[50] “Cotton” = Lancashire man?
[51] That was when the Archdeacon of Oxford acted as “Chairman of
Hardy’s Committee”; the Bishop favouring Gladstone. Mansel’s epigram is
famous, beginning--
When the versatile Prelate of Oxford’s famed city
Spied the name of the chairman of Hardy’s Committee,
Said Samuel (from Samson his metaphor seekin’)
“You have ploughed with my heifer,--that is my Archdeacon.”
&c., &c. (see Burgon’s _Life of Mansel_).