WHERE MEN GROW WILD.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18953, 29 August 1923, Page 5

WHERE MEN GROW WILD.

The enterprise of the Daily Express in sending out a special correspondent to describe the 80 residents in the lonely island of St. Kilda lias been amply rewarded (writes Bassett Digby, in the Daily Express). It is probably right to describe these lonely islanders as “the wildest white people,” so long as it is understood that “wild” docs not properly moan fierce or dangerous without special provocation. .Small, remote, and isolated communities, such as exist to a far greater extent in North America than in Europe, rarely toe the civilisation line. They remain uncouth and ignorant, lazy, grasping, and intensely suspicious of the stranger The remotest communities, apart from oif-the-track islands like St. Kilda, Tristan da Cunha, and St. Helena, aro mountain peoples The whites in the mountain villages near the “heel” of Italy, aro nearly as primitive and '‘impossible” in their dealings with modern civilised men as the mountain folk of the mysterious centre of New Guinea. As ior the Spanish mountain regions, they aro quite "east of Suez” sociologically, and no traveller would dare visit their villages without an armed guard. (George Borrow was lucky—like the fellow who went over Niagara in a tub and survived!). Greece, Albania, and the Balkans teem with communities of wild whites. So did Switzerland till the bandits grew impatient and bold, and came down in the valleys to run hotels and winter sports resorts. Flat and accessible countries have no wild wtiitcs. Railways and cities have come in for a, good deal of abuse, but tbero can be not doubt that they have improved human nature. They have made us more generous, tolerant, and kindly. Just imagine 18 St. Kildans, or Kentucky mountaineers, or back-block Spaniards being jammed into one small railway compartment from Croydon to London Bridge. Hon Dicu! It would be a shambles long before the train got to Slrcathani I