The houses are substantially built of wood with good furniture. A well-made chest of drawers was a birthday present to the missionary’s wife from the young men of the island. There is a separate bedroom or cubicle for nearly every inhabitant, and some houses have a room set apart for meals. Hospitality was shown without stint, and we were entertained during our stay to a series of attractive repasts in various homes; our hosts bore such names as Christian, Young, and McCoy. Meat is limited to goat or chicken, but there is a profusion of tropical produce, and oranges are too numerous to gather. The coconut trees are unfortunately dying. Each household has a share of the ground rising behind the village, and the hillside is traversed by shady avenues of palms and bananas, which afford at every turn glimpses of outstanding cliffs and the brilliant blue of the ocean. The standard of life compares very favourably with that of an English village, and is immeasurably superior to that achieved on Easter Island under similar circumstances.
Pitcairn has the dignity of being a democratic self-governing community, with a Magistrate and two houses of legislature. The present Constitution was suggested by the Captain of H.M.S. Champion in 1892, and superseded an earlier one. The Lower House, known as “the Committee,” comprises a Chairman and two members, also an official Secretary; it makes regulations which are submitted to the Upper House or “Council.” The Council consists of the Chief Magistrate, with two assessors and the Secretary, and it acts also as a court of justice. The two committee members and a constable are nominated by the magistrate, but the other officials are elected annually by all inhabitants over eighteen years; Pitcairn was therefore the first portion of the British Empire to possess female suffrage.
It was interesting to see the Government Records, though the present book does not go back beyond above fifty years, earlier ones having apparently disappeared. This contained the Laws of 1884 revised in 1904; regulations for school attendance; a category of the chief magistrates; a chronicle of visits from men-of-war and mention of Queen Victoria’s presents, consisting of an organ in 1879 and newly minted Jubilee coins received in 1889. There were also recorded the births, marriages, and deaths of the island since 1864; and a description of the various brands adopted by respective owners for their goats, chickens, and trees.
Among the legislative enactments was more than one concerned with the preservation of cats, the object being to keep down rats. Thus the laws of 1884 direct that:
“Any person or persons after this date, September 24th, 1884, maliciously wounding or causing the death of a cat, without permission, will be liable to such punishment as the Court will inflict.... Should any dog, going out with his master, fall in with a cat, and chase him, and no effort be made to save the cat, the dog must be killed; for the first offence—fine 10s. Cats in any part of the island doing anyone damage must be killed in the presence of a member of Parliament.”
Illicit medical practice is forbidden, and the regulation on this head runs as follows:
“It may be lawful for parents to treat their own children in case of sickness. But no one will understand that he is at liberty to treat, or give any dose of medicine, unless it be one of his own family, without first getting licence from the President. Drugs may not be landed without permission.”
More recent laws enact, that each family may keep only six breeding nannies; and that coconuts may only be gathered under supervision of the Committee or in company with their owners of the same patch, in case of want, however, they may be plucked for drinking. Persons killing fowls must present the legs (i.e. the lower portion which bears the brand) to a member of the Government.
With the entries of deaths are recorded their known, or presumed, cause; those occasioned by accident are somewhat numerous, and include fatal results from climbing cliffs after birds, chasing goats, and falling from trees. Wills can be made by simply writing them in the official book, but entries under this head were not numerous.
The island is in the jurisdiction of the British Consul at Tahiti, but the Magistrate explained sadly that it was then two years since it had been possible for his superior to send any instructions. In very serious matters, such as murder or divorce, reference is necessary to the High Commissioner at Fiji, and five years may elapse before an answer is received.