artist clothed it for him in good language; and nothing remained
but to have it signed by King Malietoa, to whom it was attributed. "So
long as he knows how to sign!"--a white official is said thus to have
summed up, with a shrug, the qualifications necessary in a Samoan king.
It was signed accordingly, though whether the King knew what he was
signing is matter of debate; and thus regularised, it was forwarded to
the Chief Justice enclosed in a letter of adhesion from the President.
Such as they were, these letters appear to have been the pleadings on
which the Chief Justice proceeded; such as they were, they seem to have
been the documents in this unusual case.

Suppose an unfortunate error to have been made, suppose a reversal of
the Court's finding and the year's policy to have become immediately
needful, wisdom would indicate an extreme frankness of demeanour. And
our two officials preferred a policy of irritating dissimulation. While
the revolution was being prepared behind the curtain, the President was
holding night sessions of the municipal council. What was the business?
No other than to prepare an ordinance regulating those very customs
which he was secretly conspiring to withdraw from their control. And it
was a piece of duplicity of a similar nature which first awoke the
echoes of Apia by its miscarriage. The council had sent up for the
approval of the Consular Board a project of several bridges, one of
which, that of the Vaisingano, was of chief importance to the town. To
sanction so much fresh expense, at the very moment when, to his secret
knowledge, the municipality was to be left bare of funds, appeared to
one of the Consuls an unworthy act; and the proposal was accordingly
disallowed. The people of Apia are extremely swift to guess. No sooner
was the Vaisingano bridge denied them than they leaped within a
measurable distance of the truth. It was remembered that the Chief
Justice had but recently (this time by a decision regularly obtained)
placed the municipal funds at the President's mercy; talk ran high of
collusion between the two officials; it was rumoured the safe had been
already secretly drawn upon; the newspaper being at this juncture
suddenly and rather mysteriously sold, it was rumoured it had been
bought for the officials with municipal money, and the Apians crowded in
consequence to the municipal meeting on April 1, with minds already
heated.

The President came on his side armed with the