If New York were Welsh

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17527, 2 May 1925, Page 17

If New York were Welsh

NEW YORK has a lot of things to he l hankful for, and one of the chief of these, we take it, is the fact that Manhattan was not discovered by the Welsh instead of the Dutch. ; Not that the Welsh are anything but a hardy and altogether admirable : people, who have done much for this country', even though they have not given us a Lloyd George. But their > habit of economising in the use of vowels in their proper names —an economy so ciose that that it must irk the 3 Scotch every time they contemplate i the results —would have reduced the | nomenclature of New York to one long series of scrambled consonants. Let us suppose this explorer’s name ■ to be Gwilym Gruff yd. The river which we now call the? Hudson would 1 be called after him, of course. That 1 was always an explorer’s first right, and one which was most jealously ] guarded. Then would come the usual process | cf settlement, which the Dutch carried | on so handily. Instead of bowls being j played on Bowling Green, a druidical J amphitheatre no doubt would have been arranged, in which Welsh singing

societies would have given recitals. Instead of New York, the town would be named something like Y Berteddwlad. Then would come the process of nam-. mg the streets, which would be one long continued assault on the consomr ant division of the alphabet. Vandaih. Street, for instance, under a Welsh regime, would have been christened something like Rhyyerch. Imagine the troubles of a modern taxi-cab driver who might be told to drive* to the Llanbadarn Fawr Hotel, instead of the Brevoort. And would there not be a strike cn the subway if guards were asked to call out:— “The next stop Maelgwm Street ’ The Bowery as it is now called in New York—or Y Berfeddwlad—was originally named the Bouwerie. One can imagine the difficulties of the song writer who might be called upon to compose a popular ditty, the chcrus of 1 which ran ; | “ The Wledig. the Wledig, ; I'll never go there any more.” | Altogether it seems fortunate that 1 the Welsh were a home-loving people j in early days and had no great lust for discovery.—Arthur Chapman, in the New York “ Herald-Tribune.”