They shouted for Doctor Funks, and drank damnation to the régime that let patriots surfer to profit les canaques. But, in reality, the governor months ago had secretly begun a plan to help them.
One day the governor, his good lady being gone to visit at Raiatea, had given his cook three francs to buy fish for the déjeuner at the palace. When they came on the table, a bare bite for each of the company, the governor had called in the chef.
“Mais, I gave you three francs for the fish, n’est-ce pas?”
“Mais, vous don’ lai moi t’ree franc, oui, oui,” answered the Chinese. “Moi don’lai canaque po po’sson.”
The governor had led in the chorus of sácres and diables. All at the table were of the redingote family, all feeding from the national trough at Paris, and they had the courage and power to end the damnable imposition on the slender purses of Papeete citizens. Sapristi! this robbery must cease. He must go slow, however. Being an honest and unselfish man, he investigated and initiated legislation so carefully and tardily that the remedy for the evil was applied only four days ago. He had returned to France, so one could not say that he consulted his own purse; but the present governor, an amiable man and a good bridge-player, also liked fish, and they pay no bonanza salaries, the French. The fishermen had known, of course, of the approaching end of their piracy, but, like Tahitians, waited until necessity for action. The official paper in which all laws are published had the ordinance set out in full. Translated, briefly, from the French, it ran like this:
That the Governor of the establishments of France in Oceania, a chevalier of the Legion of Honor [this information is inserted in every degree, announcement and statement the governor makes, and stares at one from a hundred trees], in view of the “article du decret du 21 decembre, 1885,” etc. [and in view of a dozen other articles of various dates since], considering that fish is the basis of the alimentation of the Tahitians, that in the Papeete public market, fish has been monopolized with the result that its price has been raised steadily, and a situation created injurious to the working people, the cost of living necessitating a constant increase in salaries, orders that after a date fixed, fish be sold by weight and at the following prices per kilo, according to the kind of fish:
| 30 cents a kilo | 25 cents a kilo | 20 cents a kilo |
| 1st category | 2d category | 3d category |
| Aahi | Auhopu | Ature |
| Ahuru | Au aavere | Atoti |
| Anae | Ioio | Aoa-Ropa |
| Apai | Mahimahi | Faia |
| Ava | Moi | Fee |
| Lihi | Nato | Fai |
| Mu | Nape | Honu |
| Nanue | Orare | Inaa |
| Oeo | Paere | Maere |
| Paaihere | Parai | Maito |
| Paraha peue | Puhi pape | Marara |
| Tehu | Tohe veri | Manini |
| Varo | Taou | Mao |
| Oura (chevrette) | Uhi | Mana |
| Paapaa (crabs) | Ume | Ouma |
| Oura-miti (langouste) | Vau | Oiri |
| Roi | Pahoro | |
| Tuhura | Patia | |
| Puhu miti | ||
| Pahua | ||
| Tapio |
As a kilo is two and a fifth pounds, the ature that Joseph caught by the Quai de Commerce, being in the third category, would cost, under the ukase, less than ten cents a pound. Crabs being in the first category—paapaa,—would cost about thirteen cents a pound, and the succulent varo the same, whereas they were then two francs, or forty cents a pound. We lovers of sea centipedes toasted the brave governor vociferously.
The decrees were nailed to the trees on the Broom Road, in the rue de Rivoli, and in the market-place. The populace were joyous, though some old wholesale buyers like Lovaina questioned the wisdom of the governor’s edict and the effect on themselves.
“If they do that,” said she, “maybe, by’n’by they fix my meal or lime squash.”