A DEGENERATE RACE.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 294, 28 May 1898, Page 1 (Supplement)

A DEGENERATE RACE.

In pursuance of a suggestion made to the Admiralty in 1879 by Admiral de Horsey, the annual visit of a British ship of war to Pitciirn Island (says the Pall Mall Gazette) was made in November last by the Cotnus, which took out a vast number of presents—a sewing machine, a box of books, a picture of the Queen, &u.—supplied in pursuance of the admiral's report that "if the munificent people of England were only aware of the wants of this most deserving little colony they would not long go unsupplied." As the "munificent people of England " have no desire to visit the sins of the mutineers of the Bounty upon their children and grandchildren, year by year a ship is detached from the Pacific fleet to go upon what has hitherto been considered au errand of mercy. An officer on the Comus, however, writes Home saying that his visit quite disillusionized him. He details the circumstances of the visit in the following words:—"We had scarcely anchored before a boat came off, bringing the ' chief magistrate' (who also holds the onerous posts of pastor and schoolmaster), and about a dozen men, most of them of good height and physique, and varying from very swat thy and dark faces to quite ftir. They had not been on board more than half an hour when they commenced—as we hid been told they would—begging for any and everything—soap, flannel, serge, medicine, &c. ; in fact anything they could think of. They informed us that a young gentleman on the island, rejoicing in the peculiarly inappropriate name of Christian, had three months previously broken the even tenor of life in Pitcairn by taking his young lady out on the cliffs and beating her to death. He had been in prison •iticc committing the act, and they seemed anxious to know what to do with him, as the relatives of the unfottunate girl had vowed vengeance, while the relatives of the murderer had sworn to protect him. Unfortunately th*re was no evidence beyond the man's own oonfession and the disappearance of the young lady, so we were unable on such scanty grounds to take him away. A large party of us Went ashore in the one boat the island boasts of, and were not enchanted with the scenery. . . The Inhabitants squat at the doors of their wooden shanties and are ugly and uninteresting to a degree. Thousands of fowls were running about, and the few natives who were showing any signs of life were busy in catcbing roosters to send off to us, together with bananas, potatoes, yams and rotten eggs. . . . What struck us particularly about the islanders was that not one of them asked a single question about the outside world or betrayed the slightest interest in its goings on, though several have been in England and the United States ; nor did they express any thanks for our gifts of the presents *e had brought from various misguided philanthropists in Honolulu and England and the United States. . . , In fact, we were all disappointed in the extreme with these people, ancb were more so a few diys afterwards when we got to sea and discovered the quality of some of the provisions we had purchased, particularly the eggs, which might have been relics of the Bounty."