Oct. 17, 1881] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



317 



In the novthern districts wheat is raised, and oats and 

 liarley are freely grown. Flax is raised, too, and wrought up 

 liy many of the cottagers, both for home use and for export. 

 A race of very hardy ponies is peculiar to the island, and 

 partridges and hares abound, as do also woodcocks and 

 snipe. In olden days falconry was much practised, and, 

 indeed, the falcons of Man were much celebrated. It has 

 lieen frequently remarked that no poisonous creature is 

 found, but thi.s, I fancy, is rather apocryphal. Red deer 

 once roamed over the mountains, and the skeleton of the 

 elk has been found in quarries. The land-teiiure system is 

 worth studying, especially in these days, when the English 

 landlords are on their trial. " We do not hold farms," a 

 Manxman will remark, " as is done in England ; there they 

 pay for them and return them to the proprietor ; ours are 

 our own, and we bequeath the whole." There are, however, 

 jiumerous exceptions ; and, indeed, for so small a commu- 

 nity, there is ample variety in the existing modes of land- 

 tenure. The selling of the island to England by the Duke 

 of Athol was a most unpopular proceeding, and a current 

 rhyme among the people declares that : — 



The babes unborn will rue the day 

 That the Isle of Man was sold away. 



Formerly the Bi'itish Navy was largely recruited from 

 among the is'anders, and Manxmen were and are held in 

 high esteem by British naval officer?. One man, pressed 

 •out of Douglas, rose to be first lieutenant to Nelson in the 

 Victory at Trafalgar. There are a good many native 

 •domestic manufactures and industries worthy of notice, but 

 the fisheries enqiloy a large number of the inhabitants, and 

 the departure of the great herring fleet is a sight that once 

 seen is not easily forgotten. The people are healthy and, 

 as a rule, long-lived, and as a body are superstitious to a 

 •degree. They are a religious people, as may be inferred, 

 and it is to their credit that the Manx language does not 

 inchide any words at all equivalent to those oaths 

 which, unfortunately, abound in our Anglo-Saxon. I 

 don't know how this may be just now, but not many 

 years ago, when an ill - advised emissary of some 

 Infidel propaganda landed in the island to distribute tracts, 

 a sensation was produced among the people as though a 

 man-eating tiger had made its appearance, and yet I must 

 confess that with all this the Manxmen are rather addict-d 

 to drunkenness. They are, like most Celts, fond of music, 

 and pay great respect to their various ancient remains, 

 their circles and crosses, and other legendary monuments 

 One trait strikes a stranger much, and that is the singular 

 fondness of the people for law. Formerly, love of litigation 

 was so great that persons are said to have gone for redress 

 in the courts of law for sums amounting to only one 

 shilling, which, by the way, used to be the ordinary day's 

 earnings of an industrious Manxman. As is the case with 

 their Celtic cousins in Ireland, indolence is a characteristic 

 o£ these simple and generally amiable islanders, and most of 

 the workmen observe the custom of taking not one but two 

 hours as an interval of rest in the middle of the day. 

 Like the Irish, the Manxmen are hospitable, but to English 

 notions this hospitality goes rather far, since even the 

 passing beggar, on presenting himself at the door of a 

 house and asking for board and bed, could not be denied 

 bis " simple boon," and at one time the plague of sturdy 

 beggars was a serious evil. 



The Manxmen have really no literature, except some 

 very melancholy songs in the style of Ossian, and, like 

 most Erse poetry, indicating consciousness of vanished 

 national power. The first book ever printed in Manx 

 was issued by Bishop Wilson as late, comparatively speak- 

 ing, as 1699. Subsequently, village libraries were formed, 



and real progress made in removing the reproach of 

 illiteracy from this corner of the British Islands. 



One of the best views in all the island is from Ramsay 

 Bay, in the north. The coast at this point forms a fine 

 semi-circular sweep, flanked by the huge precipices of 

 Maughold Head and by a range of red clifls. Right in 

 front is the fine and loftj' ]Mull of Galloway, with its grey 

 cliff's and storm-worn aspect. The innumerable sea-fowl, 

 too, which breed among the clifis of the island, give a very 

 striking character to the coast, and assimilate them greatly 

 to some of the western islands of Scotland. Taken all in 

 all, for persons seeking entire freshness of scenery, com- 

 bined with great natural beauty, and desirous of combining 

 studies of primitive rural British life witli seaside recrea- 

 tion, the Isle of Man forms an excellent resort, and its 

 historic and archreological reminiscences and remains abound 

 in permanent national interest. It now remains to deal 

 in detail with the very extensive coast line of Scotland, 

 which, as I shall show in my next, possesses some very 

 extraordinary and deeply interesting features. 



THE INTERNATIONAL HEALTH 

 EXHIBITION. 



XX.— ANTISEPTICS AND DISINFECTANTS. 



AS preliminary to an inquiry into the present aspect of 

 the sewage question, the pollution of rivers, and the 

 utilisation of house refuse, we propose to give a brief 

 review of the principal methods which have been introduced 

 for the purpose of securing those conditions which are so 

 important to the maintenance of healthy homes, where the 

 accumulation of waste products, and their outcome of filth, 

 cannot conveniently be avoided. To check the spread of 

 disease arising from dirt, and the consequent growth and 

 multiplication of evil germs, is the work of the purely 

 antiseptic reagent. But there are many drawbacks to the 

 exhibition of such preparations as carbolic acid, tar, turpen- 

 tine, ic, the chief of which lie in their deleterious effects 

 upon the vitality of living things, and tneir own offensive 

 odours. Their mode of application, too, in the form of 

 powders or soaps for general use is, to say the least, far 

 from desirable ; for, in the former instance, the accumula- 

 tion of dust is aggravated, and, in the latter case, they 

 cannot be employed with any degree of convenience and 

 comfort. Powders and soaps, however, are both of great 

 value in special instances, and we are delighted to find that 

 the new Carbolic Sanitary Company, of Hackney Downs 

 railway-station, have produced a carbolic powder under the 

 name of " The Government Disinfectant," which is a com- 

 bination of various agents, carbolic acid predominating, 

 and which acts as a deodoriser in addition to its other 

 antiseptic and disinfecting properties. 



To fulfil the requirements of a good disinfector, the 

 material employed ought to be odourless, free from stain- 

 ing propensities, non-poisonous to man and the higher 

 animals, non-corrosive, and capable of being both generally 

 and specially applied with the greatest degree of con^ 

 venience and a minimum of expense. There are many 

 such preparations now in the market, amongst which the 

 more notable may be viewed and tested in the Eastern 

 Annexe of the Exhibition. 



" Condy's Fluid " claims our prior attention as having 

 been the pioneer of this class of disinfectants. It is pre- 

 pared from the permanganate of potash, and acts as a 

 powerful oxidi-ser of organic matter. The varied uses to 

 which it can be applied may be gathered from a little 



