"A WORLDLET WITHIN THE WORLD." [To THE EDITOR OF THE
"SPECTATOR."]
Ste,—The story of a society where money and misery are un- known, and great crime almost impossible, comes to a nine- teenth-century Englishman like the lotus-eaters' song to sea-beat mariners ; nevertheless, I suspect the condition of Pitcairn, if fully known, would only justify our belief that such a state, however ideally beautiful, is not the fittest soil for the robust growth of the highest virtues ; that faith, hope, and love, and manly pluck and womanly patience, are plants which are per- fected only when watered with the bitter tears of deep suffering, and do better in the murky atmosphere of a London slum, it may be, than in the brilliant sunshine of the Pacific.
The author of "Bishop Patteson's Life" says of the Pit- cairners of Norfolk Island (Vol. 11., p. 147, third edition) :—
" Tho gentle Tahitian nature has entirely mastered the English turbu- lence. FO that there is genuine absence of violence ; there is no dis- honesty, and drunkenness was then (1867) impossible ; there is also a general habit of religious observance, but not including self restraint as a duty ; while the reaction of all the enthusiastic admiration expressed for this interesting people, has gendered a self-complacency that makes them the harder to deal with. Parental authority seems to be entirely wanting among them ; the young people grow up unrestrained, and the standard of morality and purity seems to be pretty much what it is in a neglected English parish, but as Were said, without drunken- ness and lawlessness, and with a universal custom of church-going, and a great desire not to expose their faults to the eves of strangers. The fertile soil, to people of so few wants, prevents the necessity of exertion, and the dolce far talents prevails univetsally. The Government build-
ings have fallen into entire ruin, and the breed of cattle has been allowed to become worthless for want of care. The dwellings are un- cleanly, and the people so undisciplined that only their native gentle- ness would make their present self-government possible."
These are Miss Yonge's words, not Bishop Patteson's, but I suppose they may be taken to set forth the Bishop's opinion ; that it is a less favourable one than Admiral de Horsey's, may perhaps be due to more intimate knowledge. The Pitcairners in Norfolk Island, in 1867, were as little exposed to outside influences as their kinsmen in Pitcairn are now.—I am, Sir, &c.,
W. W. H.
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