Newfoundland And Its People

Newfoundland - pronounced by tho n&tires New-fun-land, with a strong accent on the final sy Hable- is one great rock, with an área nearly aa large as the state of New York. Though the island was peopled by Great Britain three hundred years ago, and is the oldesj of her North American colonies, its interior is so little known that tracts of land with ten thousand square miles are marked on the mapa "unknown," or "unexplored." The prevailing type of nationality is EngliBh or Irish, modifled by insular Burroundings. Thres-quartera, at least, of the population of one huudred and eighty thousand in the whole island are made up of poor fishermon. They are a hardy, rough race, familiar witb. erery phase of oeean life, ignorant, narrow and insular, but kindly disposed. Korne of their linguistic oddities, at the renioter fishing stations particularly, are worth nothing. Lite the soutnern negro who ofton uses "him" for "it," so these islanders twist the word "he" into absurd combinations. "Will the 'tiout be cooked soon?" was asked the waiter-girl at ono of the coast inns a day or two ago. "Maybe he will be," waa the reply. '"The wagon has lost he's wheels," or "I don't know where the spade he ie," Ilústrate further these peculiarities. The marine temperament of the people erop out in the term "skipper," always employed by a subordínate m addressing a superior, or by a street boy accosting a gentleman. There is a strange broadening of vowels in colloquial speech. Thus ridge becomea in: Newfoundlandese "rudge," and flre "fur." Many of them would say: "ïhe foreat has furred,"i. e., burned over. The wives of the lower order of ielander, who stay at homo, till the soil and do all the manual labor of the honeehold, while their lords are at sea, become a brawny set of amazons, terrible in domestic warfare, and ruling their consorts in most imperativo f ashion. A party of thirty railroad surveyors, who recently entered the little hamlet, wero put to ■ flight by a few of these muscular damos and torced to appeal to tho pólice bof oro they could continue their work.