THE GREAT REVOLUTION IN PITCAIRN

Let me refresh the reader's memory a little. Nearly a hundred years ago
the crew of the British ship Bounty mutinied, set the captain and his
officers adrift upon the open sea, took possession of the ship, and
sailed southward. They procured wives for themselves among the natives
of Tahiti, then proceeded to a lonely little rock in mid-Pacific, called
Pitcairn's Island, wrecked the vessel, stripped her of everything that
might be useful to a new colony, and established themselves on shore.
Pitcairn's is so far removed from the track of commerce that it was many
years before another vessel touched there. It had always been considered
an uninhabited island; so when a ship did at last drop its anchor there,
in 1808, the captain was greatly surprised to find the place peopled.
Although the mutineers had fought among themselves, and gradually killed
each other off until only two or three of the original stock remained,
these tragedies had not occurred before a number of children had been
born; so in 1808 the island had a population of twenty-seven persons.
John Adams, the chief mutineer, still survived, and was to live many
years yet, as governor and patriarch of the flock. From being mutineer
and homicide, he had turned Christian and teacher, and his nation of
twenty-seven persons was now the purest and devoutest in Christendom.
Adams had long ago hoisted the British flag and constituted his island an
appanage of the British crown.

To-day the population numbers ninety persons--sixteen men, nineteen
women, twenty-five boys, and thirty girls--all descendants of the
mutineers, all bearing the family names of those mutineers, and all
speaking English, and English only. The island stands high up out of the
sea, and has precipitous walls. It is about three-quarters of a mile
long, and in places is as much as half a mile wide. Such arable land as
it affords is held by the several families, according to a division made
many years ago. There is some live stock--goats, pigs, chickens, and
cats; but no dogs, and no large animals. There is one church-building
used also as a capitol, a schoolhouse, and a public library. The title
of the governor has been, for a generation or two, "Magistrate and Chief
Ruler, in subordination to her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain." It
was his province to make the laws, as well as execute them. His office
was elective; everybody over seventeen years o