A HAPPY COMMUNITY.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 505, 24 January 1906, Page 3

A HAPPY COMMUNITY.

Island in Chesapeake Bay Where Crime Is Unknown. Place of Singular Interest and No Little Charm Where Lite Has Attained to Almost the Ideal. One of the oddest of the many odd island communities in the Chesapeake is Tangier. It lies in shoal water, off tlu coast of Somerset county, the most southerly county of the Maryland eastern shore, about 15 miles from the mainland and midway in the bay at one of its widest points, says the New York Times. Northward lies Tangier sound, and eastward lies Pocomoke sound, broad shallow arms of the bay, teeming with fish, crabs and oysters. Tangier stretches a long, narrow, irregular sand spit, with two or three elevations, perhaps 15 or 20 feet above sea level. Those who travel the Chesapeake in passenger steamboats know Tangier only as a lowgreen strip of land with clusters of houses, here standing gaunt and bare against the sky, there half hidden in trees with a church spire peeping out, a clay mark to mariners. So shallow are the waters all about the island that tho Chesapeake steamers cannot approach its shores. The islanders accordingly come out to the steamers in lightdraught "bugeyes," and receive and deliver freight and passengers at an Irregular polygon of a wharf built upon spiles sunk in a sand spit, less than, a quarter of an acre in area and almost awash at high tide. A rude little warehouse snelters goods and passengers while they await the steamer or transportation to the island. This odd little wharf, set amid the glittering waters of the Chesapeake, always has about it half a dozen tiny craft with raking masts bobbing in the waves, while enormous seine reels occupy other sand spits hard by, and gaping idlers watch the arrival and departure of the steamer. As the steamer chugs her way back to the deep channel of the bay, the passengers see the islanders loading their light craft with all manner of merchandise, and hoisting sail forthe island shores, nearly a mil? 1 away. Strange and lonely seems that low, distant shore to those who have never taken the trouble to visit it, but he that, trusts himself to the terr'pr mercies of a tiny bugeye and actually approaches the island itself finds it a place of singular interest and no little chsrm. Here on a very small area, some of which is scarcely habitable, dwell about 1,300 persons, mainly fishermen and the wives and daughters of fishermen, a hardy race, and . prosperous, among whom real poverty is unknown. The able-bodied men of the place fish for anything that the waters of the Chesapeake, yield, especially oysters, clams, crabs and terrapin. There is no slack time with the Tangier islanders, for oysters take the place of crabs and crab'? take the place of oysters, and there is no season when something worth having is not to be taken from Tangier or Pocomoke sound, or the waters north or south.

The Tangier islander Is in an almost ideal position to get the most In a simple material way out of life. He draws his living from the sea, and the shore affords him only occasional standing room and a place to sleep. So precious is the small available land of the island that an acre high and dry is worth $2,000. Taxes are light, for, although the islanders maintain good schools and have a large and comfortable schoolhouse, they have few of the ordinary civil expenses. Crime is almost unknown, there are no paupers, and in effect there are no roads and streets to maintain, for there are no horses on the island, and few wheeled vehicles save wheelbarrows. The islanders are regular and faithful attendants at church, and liberal givers to religious objects. They have one costly church with an organ that would be regarded as notable in a much larger community. Profanity U punished by fines imposed by a .luetic- of the ppr.ce, and it is a favorite lo!-'e that those who do not dare to relieve their minds by hard words on the ieinnid so outftothe wharf to do their swparins.. The Tangier islander is in fact a well-conducted person at home, though it is said that the temptations of Crisfield sometimes prove too much for him. Change of Air. The quasi-miraculous benefits which are associated with" change of air in the popular belief are in reality derived when they accrue from change of environment, from change of habits of life. In a great many instances the measure of benefit obtainable would be as effectually secured, and at much less expense, by mere change of habits, without fatigue and inconvenience of change of domicile. The overwrought city clerk might advantageously take to driving a cab, while the cabman would find it a relief to discharge for a time the fv:>ctlonß of caretaker of a darted housfe. Many an srerworkod physician would a dteti.net wer* he to qualify as a chauffeur, with no Stller object ifl view than to ijQvfei' Space/ and thefs are few domestic servants whose health would not be sensibly modified by a brief experience a:-' milkmaid or gleaner, should iheseasoi 1 lend Itself to that pursuit The "litei'ary gent," whose brain is sterile of neW ideas, might recuperate his energies by

usurping the role of a sick man and remaining in bed a week or two.—Medical Review. African Slave Trade Abolished. The great slave trade at Kano, the metropolis of Nigeria, Africa, havini 100,000 inhabitants, which averages 500 men and women told each day, has been abolished by the British, who have extended their authority over it. Three provinces on the Niger were seized because the native chiefs refused to surrender the murderer of a British" nficer. —N. Y. Sun.