236 APIAN QUEEN-MAKING. 



at all events, the political system of Apia worked well, and the 

 perfection of its government, as well as the industry of its 

 people, was always universally extolled, held up even for imi- 

 tation by the various nations amongst whom the queendom of 

 Apia and her sister states, were located, and to whom they 

 paid tribute. 



To return to our narrative ; on the occasion of the great 

 event wherewith it opens, there occurred the deficiency above 

 spoken of, an heir was wanting to fill the vacant throne. 

 Sincere as was their mourning, the loyal subjects of the 

 queen defunct soon ceased idly to bewail her loss ; and while 

 the majority resumed their usual avocations, a select com- 

 mittee was appointed to the important business of making an 

 artificial sovereign out of a piece of plebeian stuff, to supply 

 the place of a natural born princess. As a preliminary to this 

 process, a party of workwomen was instantly employed to pull 

 down a number of ordinary dwellings, for the erection, on the 

 same site, of several most spacious royal nurseries ; and in the 

 performance of this business, -so little was the regard paid to 

 the poor occupants of these humble tenements, that a parcel of 

 helpless children, sleeping unconsciously in their cradles, were 

 crushed beneath the ruins. This proceeding would certainly 

 appear of a somewhat cruel and arbitrary character ; but the 

 rule of Apia was, as we have said, the rule of expediency, 

 and who can say that there is nothing at all resembling it 

 among ourselves, now groaning beneath the iron rule, not of 



