"News has reached here that on July 1 last the natives of Rakahanga, in the Cook group, hauled down the British flag, and, after ejecting the island council, appointed their own Government, judges and police. The ringleader of the movement is a dismissed teacher of the London Missionary Society."
62. A Complaint against the Police.
A policeman, stationed at the corner of Bond Street and Oxford Street for the purpose of regulating traffic, raises his hand as a sign for carriages coming from Bond Street to stop. One of the drivers ignores this sign and drives on. The policeman seizes the horse's head and stops the carriage, whereupon a gentleman within complains, maintaining that he is an ambassador to the English Court and that the police have no right to stop him. As the policeman does not give way the ambassador leaves his carriage and, going immediately to the Foreign Office, complains of the violation of his privileges and demands the punishment of the policeman.
63. A Man with two Wives.
In 1900 Oscar Meyer, a German by birth, who is naturalised in England without having ceased to be a German subject, marries an Englishwoman in London. In the following year he obtains a judicial separation from his wife. As his marriage was never known in Germany, he succeeds in 1902, while staying in Berlin, in marrying his niece, whom he brings back to England as his wife. In 1905 the niece finds out that Meyer was already a married man when he married her, and has him arrested for bigamy.
64. Murder on a Mail Boat.
The Marie Henriette is one of those mail boats plying between Ostend and Dover which are the property of the Belgian government and are commanded by Belgian naval officers. On the 25th July, 1900, an Italian on board murdered an English fellow-passenger on the voyage between Ostend and Dover, within three miles of the latter port. On the arrival of the vessel the captain handed over the murderer to the English police authorities, but a few days later the Belgian government claimed the extradition of the criminal.
SECTION XVII
65. Persian Disorders.