61. _The Island of Rakahanga._
On Nov. 20th, 1908, the following paragraph appeared in the papers:
"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.