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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 10, 1924)
I, THE KING By W AYLAND WELLS WILLIAMS. (Copyright, 1924.) ________/ M untlnurd From Saturday.} Slowly Kit raised himself on his hands, to his feet, half expecting to tie allot dead. Was It all over, so nulekly? lie went down the ladder end out of tho building, followed by the two soldiers. "Sec to that man," tie said, pointing to the wounded Tengulan. Masson lay on Ids left side; blood flowed from his mouth, and darkened the dark ground. “Masson.” said Kit, bending over him, "it's I, Newell. Do >ou want to sav anything'.’1' The man quivered and groaned; blood choked htm. “Masson, 1 did It. I'm sorry I had to, hut I’m not sorry I did it. There was no other way. . . But he knew he was not talking 1o Masson. The quiverings and gasplngs slowly abated; Kit never knew just when he died. When he got up the stars were fading and dawn was cold over the ocean. IV. The war. as President Wilson put it, thus came to an end. The Ten guiati loss was two killed and perhaps a few slightly wounded; all but Mas son and his companion regained their canoe and their island in safety. There was no Nlaravan casualties. That afternoon Kit took two armed canoes over to Tengnlu and dictated terms. He demanded every rifle and cartridge on the island, on pain of Instant execution of the entire popu lation. All the rifles and thirty-eight cartridges were handed over, and he was satisfied. He then told Ongong that no further measures would he taken, but that henceforth he would rule over Tenguiu as king. Kakaiwia and the Council were con vinced it was best that way, and on the whole Kit agreed. Ongong if left Independent might cause further trouble; Ongong as subchief and vice roy (or as a private citizen, if he demurred) would be sensible. He could send over the exacted tribute, and take his orders from Nuei. It was the only way to save anything for himself. Kit briefly outlined his plan, which was to rule Tenguiu exactly as he did jialrava coming over at stated inter vals to hold a council. He would he ready at all times to come if needed, and to uphold the government by force of arms. He would endeavor to give peace and prosperity, to forget the past and finally he would com mend the island, with Niarava, to the rare of that mythical foreign power, i The elders nodded gravely. They knew when their game was tip, and they were rathgr pleased at having a white ruler, especially one who had f-- ' New York --Day by Day _» By O. O. MoINTYRE. New York. Nov. 9.—A page from the diary of a modern Samual Pepya: Betimes up and renewed my Strength with the coldest hath ever I hud. Came Roy L. McCardell to breakfast and in a real rollicking, frolicking humor. This day 1 pondered on myJjless lngs and cast my accounts and find myself out of debt, but with little put by. So to my tasks like the ’hardy yeoman X am. In the afternoon through the town to meet a publisher about the doing of u tome, but the idea ap-1 pealed to me not a whit and we I fell into sharp words but parted fair friends: To dinner on the floor below with Rudolph Valentino and his wife and he had a kind of meat I never tasted before, but held, from asking what it was. Left early when a serv ant inquired if Valentino wished to be called at 5:30 in the morning. Good Lord! thought I, he deserves a big salary. So to bed. Sime Silverman, who publishes Variety, tells of an old darkey who walked many miles to town to do a bit of shopping. He stopped in at the village grocery to refresh him self with food and purchased what he supposed to be crackers and but ter. A new clerk by mistake substi tuted some sour axle grease for butter. The old darkey sat on a back step eating. Finally the clerk Inquir ed: "WeH uncle, how are you enjoy ing your bit?" "Fine, sah, very fine. These crackers is powerful good but the butter is a little ransom.” Hotels with shady pasts in the roaring 40s havs the custom of changing"their names when a po lice raid Is made. While these hotels •re disreputable they are at least honest in their attitude toward un suspecting patrons. If by chance, • man or woman goes there be lieving them to be respectable places the clerks will turn them •way with a statement all rooms gre engaged. There Is a hotel frequented by girls of the burlesque chorus a Short distance from Times Square. “Please see that all clgaret Stubs are extinguished. In the past A printed sign in each room reads: year three beds have been set • fire by guests going to sleep hold ing lighted cigarettes. Other guests were thereby endangered." He Is one of these chunky, sleek haired and immaculate proprietors who run chop houses In the Broad way district. They always appear freshly shaved, debonnalre and worldly. This one was formerly a newsboy, a preliminary boy at box ing bouts arid later a bartender. The other night I sat with him at midnight while a swirl of trade eddied in. A waiter brought him a note, It read. "Watch that Kiri In • pink dress ami black hat four tables from you.” My hack was to her. Suddenly the proprietor rushed to her table and knocked a glass from her hand, it was pungent witli , the odor of carbolic acid. "How did the waiter know 7" I asked after ward. "She has tiled that three times before in here,” he replied. Five aubduded and contrite mem bers of the theatrical club ap peared in tlie breakfast room the other morning with their hair dyed red. They not laughing any more •nrl there was suspicious puffs under tired eves, in i hilarious moment the night befon one had said: “Rove, lei's dye our hair red.” Th“y called In a Imtr dyer and being ■n Insistent he did the Job. It will t*A.\e several weeks before the dye loses Its color and many hnd to ex plain to their wives. (Cunyrliiht, ^Hiit I shown so much dash and resource In warfare. An act of accession was drawn lip and duty stgned. Kit. left tlie island the only Dual Monarch in tlie world, except Karl Hapsburg. Masson was burled In a little bare sun-dazzled cemetery by the ocean. Kit had a smooth board prepared as a headstone, Hnd on it with some dif ficulty he carved this Inscription: George Masson First-Class Seaman, U. S. N. King of Tenguiu Died June 26, 1918. He wondered if Masson was able to appreciate the calm dignity of the words, the changing splendors of sea and sky about him—or any other good thing that God hRd made. CHAPTER IX. I. Having plenty of time and pnpei at hand. Kit kept a diary during the ensuing months, a detailed and soul ful document. Fnder a date In Sep tember occurs this passage: "... I thought at first that with the war o\er and Masson out of the way I was never going to have another care on this Island. But my nails are Just as short, from being bitten, as they were during the war. Why should one worry as hard In prosperity as in adversity. I suppose it's one result of having what Jack used to call a neat mind." The reflection, however, exaggerat ed. had a hasis of truth. There were diversions, of course: ruoios and and trips of exploration and shark ratchlng and torchlight fishing. Also drilling; he enlarged his Guard to thirty-two and devised a uniform for them. Also baseball; the natives made halls, braided out of pandanus leaves; roughly cubical, hut service able halls, and they used to play games between villages. There was also the not unheard-of diversion of love, of which more anon. Yet he never could apply his full attention to these as another man might have done. His mind was not only inclined to worry hut avid to learn; a large part of his bother was the result of mere intelligence. It was all Immensely Interesting. Here he was, alone among people whom a few months ago he would have lightly dismissed as "savages,” -pf whose general kind lie liad known nothing when fie landed. He soon found that savages—the term is of course an improper one for the Nlara vans—were ns much people ns New Yorkers, and that savagery Is as much an institution as Tammany Hall. They had their mores, laws, arts, politics and economic problems as naturally and inevitably as they had a climate and a soil. The whys and where fores of these gradually transpired to Kit: for instance, he presently under stood that the basic reason for the -Tenguians’ warlikeness was the old business of Satan finding mischief still for idle hands to do. On a coral atol] one has to work for one's living; on a volcanic Island one does not, or much less so; hence a host of differences. And he was tremendously stimulnt ed ns it dawned on him that here was a South Sea community nearly in its original state. It had decreased in numbers since its opening to the world, but far less than most. The Germans had been in active posses sion for hardly more than a decade, and in the three years since they had left their Impression had been largely ' obliterated. Education, religion, trade, I disease—all these had disappeared or ' diminished, and Insensibly the Island ers had been lapsing hack into tlieir old habits of mind, body and belief, [r was surprising how well they got along. There were about seven hundred people on the two Islands, or possibly a little more. Niarava proper held nearly two hundred and fifty, Naituvi something under one hundred, and Tengulu's figure was substantially more than these two combined. This population was divided Winto two castes, the nnbles. comprising the ehiefs and their kin, roughly about one-sixth of the whole, nnd the others. Tn the old days the lower class had been divided into landed and landless, but now there was enough land for every one, though some paid a nomi nal rent in kind. Although at many times, as In the rimio or in various forms of communal fishing, class dis tinctions were forgotten, they were firmly embedded in the native mind as the fundamental social order. The nobles might have as many as three wives, whereas the others were a! lowed only one; certain forms of speech were used toward them, and only them; certain matters were tabu in tlieir presence. I.and constituted practically the only form wealth. The Germans had introduced currency, but it had fallen into disuse except during the rare vis its of trading ships. All the productive land belonged to definite owners, and though the boundaries were un fenced and apparently unmarked there was a great deal of feeling if they wer* overstepped. More than half the cases which came up 1 efor* the Connell involved trespass in rnm* form or other. The land, of course, was chiefly valuable for the produc tion of cocoanut and pandanus trees, the two plants which enabled the na tives to sustain life. All their vege table food, all their building and clothing materials, were derived from these jtwo trees. Government was by the village chiefs assembled in council, one of them heing king. The office was nominally hereditary, hut the council had power to elect and depose, under appropriate circumstances. The king was, to all Intents and purposes, as troworful a* he could make himself. It was a question of how much he. could persuade the council to do, nnd this was soon made entirely clear to King Nuei. Tlie laws were complicated nnd *n tlrely static. They were also rodl lied, hut only In the minds of the til Men, there being no native writ ing; hence it followed that, a council consisting of men with long memo rles was not so unrepairable as might at first appear. The laws, as Kit be gan to learn them, seemed Incredible, Oilbertesqua <W. S.. not Islands) In their buoyant inconsistency. The marriage laws In particular were most Involved. A woman never Inst her caste; If she married Into tlie rnonogn moils class ah'* remained head of the household ami had the right to marry more than one husband. From this It followed that misalliances were not wholly unpopular among noble ladles. But the husband or husbands, though of a lower class, had every right to punish Infidelity on tier part, while she had no redress against infidelity on theirs. The penalty for adultery was murder of the paramour—if you could get him: no one else was going to bother. Murder of a husband, or of a wife not proved unfaithful, or of : person In a higher class, was penal ized by death. Murder of a common er by a noble was punished by a nielli ml exquisitely adjusted to prevent the crime: lite murderer was obliged to support tlie bereaved family till they all died or married. Murder of a parent, on lite other hand, was a mere matter of a fine, and murder of a minor child try a parent was to it punishable at oil Abortion was a mere matter of taste. After passing throne h the Ineyl table st.igi's of amusement and scan ialization, Kit perceived that then was a reason for all these things, and that the reason in most eases was the need of making tin* product!vit> of the country sufth-e fur the popuia tion. Thus the law on abortion, an net which In the old days had been compulsory after the third child, was a sheer triumph for Mnlthus. and that mi infanticide wan simply an exten sion nf it. of course, many of the laws were no longer adjusted to the conditions and went contrary to each other and common reason; but th Xairavans made little of that. Kit reacted, began arguing hotly; then stopped. Better not to start changing till he knew all there was ' r to hr i*i tanged. Ilu spent hours writing Hi the dictation of the older < hiof*.; Ifihwi was a mine of informa tion so was <>ld Mwah tHe* premier *hi**f of Naituvi. thrice married and gayly begetting children at over sev enty. It took him weeks to collect all thev knew, and then there was the work of classifying and .studying if. At this task he spent his morn ings, and -made it the main routine work of government. He presently decided, and so in formed the Houncil, that the killing of one person by another was not to be allowed, except by due process of trial and firing squad. Not even, the astonished elders asked, If the victim had committed a crime deserving death? No. But If he deserved death the Council would punish him? Yes. Then why waste their time; why not simply announce the law and leave every man to act within 11? Because —Here Kit began to have an unpleas ant vague feeling—the individual was not capable of Interpreting or enforc ing <he Jaw justly. Why not? '• >»' ’ always had. If a man overstepped it (f„ iif « ontlnufil Touilgmw.1 . The adage that "The good d.e young" originated in the observa tion that we meet so few of them in the adult stage.—Columbia Record. ■ - • - -- - • THE NEBBS WHAT’S IN A NAME? ______ _ I Directed for The Omaha Bee by Sol Hess (Copyright 1924) XOftOOV. UZ CECTA\nlw^—v Xyou UVTLE MUGGIE~'X r^V1^ 0'S,POS\T10N» - v( you WANDSO^E LITTLE So Good kjatured and ) ^o\_l • RUOOLPU 'tur i^ssr«5, at~G / ®Sf?f SSg5L’?sA ■^GgftNO WiSer y tSEteKGo5lo?i ^ dad. There'S a' v /^Just a lvttl£~n'— I SELr^AN^oS-TTHEM^WTkNG U£\T A\NtV SAME STuaaORN nGHTlNS U?V opr f 'omt"-u^Tr1""XcStw.so( Ht. WANTi -\ HAVE tNOUGU FOR A --\y xzX ft Good lou cation ) - \ QC^WHEN NOUGROW UR/Vy c\a ARE WE GO'.kiG ^ __—-x “TO NAMETMW vc\o ? 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