Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1895-11-25


with South American republics in
general, British Guiana is like an
oasis of civil liberty in a wilder
ness of monkey monarchies. L
wandered about that happy
Georgetown at every hour Of day
or night, feeling rs secure as
though on Broadway. Tidy negro
policemen patrolled the principal
points, apparently having a very
easy life. The streets we're so
clean that they seem like those of
latter-day New York; not drive
way in Central Park is kept better
rolled and trimmed and sprinkled
and brushed than the average
thoroughfare in the capital of
British Guiana.
In some of these thoroughfares
are sluggish canals, wherein are
seen to today the Victoria Regia,
whose leaf is 50 big and strong
that child may stand upon it, at
least so people say. Each leaf
seemed to me big enough to form
the roof of buggy, and cool bit
of shade indeed for tropical
wood nymph.
There was evidently a very good
Board Of Health IN Georgetown,
for | saw no refuse about the
streets; ! smelt nothing offensive,
and this is strange, for there were
many Cinnamon and Hindus, ne
groes, Indians, and all sorts of
mongrel races besides, who made
a living in this prosperous town.
Mr.. Bigelow found that the
white race had flourished from
generation to generation in that
tropic colony. He was much
struck by the public spirit of the
colonists, which has produced q
"home rule" or local self-govern-
ment much like that of Canada or
Australia. Indeed" he says,
"the citizen of Georgetown ap-
peured to have more to say about
the affairs of his native town than
we voters of New York. England,
it lie true, sends a governor and
few Crown officials, but these do
not seem to have modified the
local powers of the citizens to
any material extent" Continu-
ing, he makes the following strik-
ing observations:
In fact we must open our eyes
to the fact that IN all South Anne
RIGA there is but one republic and
that is British Guiana. On a
vast continent of crazy quilt Con-
stitutions and patchwork presi-
dental pronunciamentos, the onl y
body of people that conserve to-
day the traditions of civil liberty
and local self-government are the
few thousands of Anglo-Saxons
who have held their own near the
mouth of the Orinoco for now
nearly 800 years.
The writer discovered in British
Guiana the marvellous ductility Of
modern British colonial rule, so
that it Can be stretched to adapt |
itself to any conditions. cat the
close Of the great Napoleonic
wars in Europe, Dutch government
gave way to British; but there
was no more break in the contin-
uity of republican practices than
when ore President relieves an
other at the White House. At the
Georgetown courthouse found |
that Dutch law, based upon ko-
man law, prevailed throughout !
British Guiana, and that no
disposition was shown to force
upon the colony any such sys-
tenn as in the Cars dominion
would be called classification. ,"
He shows parallel of the liberty
of all classes there with that en-
joyed by the French in Canada
and the Hindus in India, saying
that Sin British Guiana the white
colonists enjoyed as much person
al and political liberty as any man !
upon Broadway or Picadilly." He
supposes he is talking to "such as