The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-18
THE cAYMAN LsLANDERs.
A Colony of Cromwellian Soldiers
 Who Have Made . Model State.

Who Have Made Model State.
 N. Y. Correspondence of Chicago Jour-
 nal. -.
 What splandid-looking men," ex- claimed an American tourist. as he watch ed half dozen sailors unloading turtles from a small schooner anchored in the harbor of Kingston, Jamaica. Not one of them was less than six feet tall. and tWo were giants. Well built tanned by the tropical sun. brawny. handsome. frank of countenance and agile as cats, they loox- ed the ideal faiior.
 Don't you know who they are?' sad a Jamaican friends to the tourist. ''They are cayman islanders No wonder you admire them I suppose that, physicaliy and morally. they are about the finest race of men in the worid.''
 The Caymanians. tucked away and iso- lated from the rest of the world on thy islands in the Caribbean Sea, between Jamaica and Cuba. have succeeded in establish an ideal commonwealth of which philosophers and statesmen have dreamed. Crime, immortality and disease are unknown among them: they have just as much civilization as is good for them ,and no more, and they hold fast to primitive ideas of duty and religion, and practically the old-fashioned virtues
 Tie Cayman Islands are three in num- ber-Grand Cayman. Little Cayman and Cayman Brac. On the first over 900 peo- pie dwell. and they have even couple of small towns. called Georgetown and Boden Town. On the second there are about 100 residents, and on the third. q barren rock jutting sharply out Of the placid surface of the Caribbean. only q couple of families dwell.
 Unlike the other islands of the West Indies, they are inhabited mainly by white people. There are no negroes in the smaller Caymans. and only A small minority of them in Grand Cayman. and these are recent arrivals. The original settlers were some Of Cromweifs Iron sides. and the manners and virtues of that stern breed of men survive in their descendants to this day.
 When Cromwell had England and Flu. rope under his heel. he sent out an ex- petition which captured Jamaica from the Spaniards Some of the men in that expedition were veterans of Naseby and Marston Moor. and they were naturally advanced to the highest oflces in the new colony. But when Charles II. came to his own again, these men found the times out of joint. They were deprived of their oflces and harshly treated by the royalist authorities. Unwilling to ''bow the knee to Baal." they sold their possessions. bought a ship and sailed away to colo nize the Caymans and live as they pleas ed. unhindered by Kings and Governors. They were another shipioad of Pilgrim Fathers.
 The Caymans were deserted islands. oc- easionaliy used by buccaneers for refit- ting and provisioning their ships. The Ironsides made short work of those gent ry and had the islands to themselves. They established patriarchal form of government, titled the ground, built houses and villages and sailed the neigh boring seas in ships of their own con struction. They hoisted the British flag. but practically they were an independent people. Their descendants today are nom- inally subject to the Governor of Jamaica. but they make their own laws and gov ern themselves through elected overseers and vestrymen. All the other colonies In the West Indies are automatically ruled by officials sent out from England, but the Caymanians areas independent as the Canadians or the Australians
 Just as they have kept the old English methods of government. so they have kent the old Enslish customs and man.