OF THE SOUTH SEAS 283 



all feeding from the national trough at Paris, and they 

 had the courage and power to end the damnable imposi- 

 tion on the slender purses of Papeete citizens. Sa- 

 pristi! this robbery must cease. He must go slow, how- 

 ever. Being an honest and unselfish man, he investi- 

 gated 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 gov- 

 ernor, 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 ne- 

 cessity for action. The official paper in which all laws 

 are published had the ordinance set out in full. Trans- 

 lated, 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 dii 21 decembre, 1885, etc. [and 

 in view of a dozen other articles of various dates since], con- 

 sidering that fish is the basis of the alimentation of the Tahi- 

 tians, that in the Papeete pubhc market, fish has been monopo- 

 lized 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 follow- 

 ing 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 



