The times., 1899-12-12

English-spesking government may be
found If there are three Irishmen in a
new Western town. one will be mayor. one
chief Of police, and one the uncrowned
political boss Of the other two. 1t is not
surprising therefore. that Governor Leary
has been getting along nicely with the
peaceable and unofIending inhabitants OF
the little colony near our western boundary
line
When the new Governor reached his
charge he found that things were going on
in the island very much as they do in al
most any other country of the sort, which
has been under the control OF Spain for
some hundreds Of years. The people sat
around in the sun and had beautiful times,
and did net split their kindling- wood or
wear tailor made clothing. The most
fashionable youth in The whole community
did not wear a crease in his trousers.
Everybody Owed everybody else, and no
body ever paid bill There was not a
+ ccoking-stove or a bottle Of shoe-polish or
cake of soap in the whole island. Il was
virgin soil. The Connecticut Yankee who
dropped into King Arthur's court at the
( behezt of Mark Twain had good material
in which to plant modern ideas. but his
country was bristling with rocks and
choked with weeds, compared with the
4 land on which Governor Leary was expect
! ed to start the garden OF civilization
/ King Arthur's knights had deeply implant-
/ ed notions about chivalry and witchcraft
and the like. which were hard 10 uproot
! but the people of Guam had never troubled
/ themselves to develop anything of that
! kind. They gave a joyous and comforting
consent to all that their new ruler pro-
posed.
They separated their personal posses
sions. as far as possible, from the intri-
cate tangIe into which they had fallen,
and sorted them out, and divided the land.
Each citizen now has his own chicken
house and pigsty. his own plot of ground
and family. The general Indebtedness was
gotten rid of by the canceling Of all OBJ
legations so that all could start even. II
was beautifully simple.
Having arranged the temporal affairs o;
his subjects. Governor LeaTy turned bis
attention to their moral welfare. He had
observed that the marital relation was in
a state which might be generally described
as quaint The people had been in the
habit Of settling all that sort Of thing
themselves. If a young man desired a
Young woman for his wife, he told her so
and if she said yes, that settled it. There
was no license fee, no wedding journey
no reception, no cards, nor anything else
+ generally associated with such occasions
in this country This did not strike Gov
ernor Leary as being in accord with the
rest of his improvements and so he ISSUED
decree that everybody should get mar
ried properly, with a license. He ap-
pointed persons to issue the licenses, and
explained the whole matter very plainly
The result was that there was a great
rush to the hymeneal altar, or, at any
rate. to the Office of the justice of the
( peace. and more people were married il
a short time than in any given locality
since the wedding of Alexander the Great
and q thousand of his captains. Every
thing is now comfortably arranged, and
the Governor is happy in the conscious
ness of a large task accomplished. Some
dav the folklore of the people Of Guam
viii have a demigod in it, and the name
Of that deity viii be Leary, and he will b'
the patron Of weddings.