ITS HlSTOJiY AND INHABITANTS. II. 



05 



It seems that many of these customs appeal- to be purely 

 Semitic, for which reason I refer to their having a wider sway than 

 amongst the Teutonic races. They were probably the same before 

 that race left Central Asia. 



I wish to thank Dr. Stefansson for his interesting paper. 



A Member. — May I ask what is the general population of 

 Iceland at present ? 



The Lecturer.— Aljout eighty thousand. 



Mr. KousE. — I think this has been a most fascinating paper, and 

 has informed us on many matters whereof we were formerly ignor- 

 ant, especially that the Celts were the first colonisers of Iceland — 

 that they were there before the Norwegians. That the first 

 preachers were Celtic I knew; but I thought that their hearers were 

 Norsemen. 



I should like to ask the Lecturer the meaning of the prefix pap in 

 IVipey, etc. I think it suggests an interesting fact. Does it come 

 from papa, a priest 1 



The Lecturer. — Yes. 



Mr. Rouse. — Herodotus tells us that all the priests of Scythia 

 were called popes, and to this day in Kussia the priests are called 

 popes. Again, Ovid says the Roman priests were called popes in 

 certain rites ; and we know that a certain Bishop of Rome, the 

 second successor of Gregory the Great, got the Byzantine Emperor 

 to confine that title to himself, whereas it had formerly been the 

 alternative title with "pastor " given to all the clergy. 



The Lectiu^er mentions that the trial by jury passed from Iceland 

 to England ultimately. Now Knight in his EncjlkJi Encijdopu'dia, 

 and Nasmith in his Institutes of English Fublic Law, give proof that 

 trial by jury was not an Anglo-Saxon institution but a Norman one, 

 as the name suggests, but it may have come to the Normans from 

 Iceland. I do not quite understand the reasoning here about it. 

 Are we to gather that the forty-eight men were subdivided into 

 portions of twelve men apiece to form the local Courts, and that 

 each of these parties of twelve men forming a ' ' Thing " or lesser 

 Court, was the origin of our Jury '? 



The Lecturer. — Yes. The Court and Jury are difterent. 



Mr. Rouse. — I should like to say further regarding the matter 

 which has been dealt with by Colonel Hendley so interestingly, 

 that even supposing — which I do not for one moment suppose — 



