A Spurious Utopia. 
WO years or so ago, with a wail of sorrow 
X and indignation from its people, Norfolk 
Island came to the end of its existence as the 
Utopia of the balmy Southern Ocean, and, 
sentimentally speaking, was wiped off the map. 
For henceforth its future will be the care of 
the practical-minded Government of New South 
Wales and instead of the delighted visitor to 
this dreamful isle being welcomed on the shiny 
strand by youths and maidens garlanded with 
flowers and chanting a melody of welcome, as 
is generally supposed to be the island custom, 
he will be met by hotel-runners and other 
prosaic evidences of a practical civilisation. 
But the Norfolk Islanders bitterly resented 
the change forced upon them. For forty or 
more years they had been patted on the back 
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