Portland Guardian (Vic. : 1876 - 1953), Thursday 5 October 1933, page 1


SBY CHARLEr CIAUVE TtIE STORY OF TIE. PICTURE T E SA NAM '".DIITRIBUTED BY UNIVERIAL PICJIJ

(Continued.) PENALTIES for misbehaviour on Pitcairn are hard labor on public works and rat catching. When serving a rat penalty the sentenced man must kill a prescribed, number of rats and prove the killing by presenting their tails to the magistrate. In order to keep down the rats, the cat became.a sacred animal and was protected, until -the chickens started to "go west" in alarming numbers. Then the' cats bpcame unholy,, and their protection was lifted. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. The fowls'are all toe-marked, and the goats' and other- quadrupeds are ear-marked. There are fifty different toe-marks and ear-marks on the island, and one of the great events of the year on Pitcairn is the annual goat muster. There are no rates- or taxes to pay on Pitcairn, and there is no money and no stores. The fruit and vegetables are exchanged by the community to passing ships for flour, groceries, etc., and these spoils are distributed equally to every family on the island. There is a tithe house, into which, a tenth of every man's produce is stored, and when a sale is made to passing ships the money is given to the church. -Although Pitcairn is badly in need of many of the ordinary comforts of life, the little island community collects and sends away more than £100 per year to world charities. Helped the Russians. The hard-earned savings of the little-community' have gone to a firil for. starving Russians, Save the Children Fund in England, and to Seventh Day Adventist Missions in New Zealand, Tahiti, Asia Minor and South America. The Seventh Day Adventist health cafe, in Wellington, and the New Zealand Tract Society also have benefited by the self-sac

I'ifice and thrift of these lonely people. Shipping owes many a debt to this little island, that can best be paid by the ships calling there whenever possible. Pitcairn's old shipping lists are a plain and unassuming record of service and succor to distressed shipp~ing. Only a few lines will tell how a ship, after being jammed for jnonths in the ice floe of the Horn, brought its starving crew to Pitcdirn, when the island was in the throes of a drought, and how. each family quartered and fed a member of the crew and provisioned the ship. Other lines from the shipping list tell how a captain pushed his sinking ship into Bounty Bay, with a mutinous crew aboard. The Pitcairners to a man worked for fourteen hours to repair the, ship and make it pbossible for the captain to continue upon the voyage. , Many refugees from ship-wrecks have found comfort and care on Pitcairn, and many a ship provisioned without thought of reward. Sometimes a steamer will pass by, not bothering to call at the little island, and a Pitcairn life in need of medical attention will pass away. Abandoned by the World. Abandoned by the world, which in their small way they help so much, these brave people battle on, cjingirg closely to each other in their exile, setting store on things often unappreciated by the world to-day, and frankly believing in their Christian principles with their whole hearts. I will never forget the dawn of each day on Pitcairn, when the sweet strains. of the little family organs, ilaing " to- the' morning prayers; came floating through the waking village, as each Pitcairner asked for strength to face his isolation and difficulties. We could learn much from these people with hearts of gold, who bravely live so close to the source of things. (THE END.)