xxi « NATIONALITIES " & POLITICS 259 



no doubt of the absurdity of the nationality plea on 

 ethnological grounds. 



The greatest absurdity of all is the supposition that 

 the people on the North and South sides of the Scottish 

 border, from the Humber to the Forth, are nationally 

 distinct — in any other than an artificial, political sense. 



I hope you will be able to come to the " X " 

 — Athenaeum, July 30th. — Ever yours very faithfully, 



T. H. Huxley. 



Mr. Isaac Taylor writes : 



Savile Club, 107 Piccadilly, W., 

 March 26th, 1887. 



Dear Sir — I have been greatly interested in the 

 discussion in the Times on the Races of Britain, in which 

 you have done me the honour to quote some things I 

 have written. 



If you have any thought of putting your letters into 

 more permanent form — a magazine article, for instance — 

 I should be glad to have an opportunity of correcting 

 and supplementing my old work of twenty years ago. 



E.g. I now think it can be proved that the Angles 

 were nearer in race to the Danes than to the Saxons. 

 That there were three, if not four Jutish settlements. 

 That in Yorkshire, Angles and Danes occupied alternate 

 townships — interspersed, but not fused. E.g. in my 

 own parish, and in several neighbouring parishes there 

 are two townships — one Angle and other Danish. The 

 Landnamabok affords curious evidence of the mixture 

 of Gaels and Norsemen who colonized Iceland from 

 Ireland. The Manx runic inscriptions afford curious 

 evidence of the mixture of Scandinavians and Celts in 

 the Isle of Man. 



Dr. Beddoe's recent book you know, but his facts and 

 tables remain to be interpreted, and will, I think, supply 

 you with a strong argument from the " Pictish " side. 

 The king of Scots with his handful of Gaels ruling over 

 Pictland was like the Scandinavian Russ ruling over 

 Slavs at Kiev or Novgorod. — Believe me, yours faithfully, 



Isaac Taylor. 



The City of London Liberal Association was 

 partly Unionist and partly consisted of Home 



