no use telling them that other people paid taxes.
They were not other people. They were Heligolanders. This, it seems,
when spoken in their own patois, means a great deal; for they consider
themselves intellectually and morally superior to all the other nations
of the earth, whom they call, individually and collectively, _skit_,--a
word in their language signifying dirt. As soon as it was known that "an
ordinance enacting taxation on real and personal property" had been
"enacted by the Governor of Heligoland, with the advice and consent of
the Legislative Council, and the concurrence of the Combined Court,"
there was a grand disturbance. A reactionary party immediately arose,
with the cry of _The old state of things, and no taxation!_ When the
tax-collectors went round, the men laughed in their faces, and the women
called them names. It was in vain that the Governor summoned a meeting
of the inhabitants, and addressed them in very excellent German, and
gave them six months to turn the matter over in their minds. At the end
of that time they were still obstinate, the tax-collectors resigned, and
this victory was celebrated with festivities. But suddenly a British
man-of-war appeared; a file of marines marched on shore; the ringleaders
of the reactionists were put into durance vile--for an afternoon; and
the taxes were paid up with marvellous rapidity.

The next move of the opposition was a petition, which was signed by
three hundred and fifty out of the two thousand islanders, and was sent
into the Colonial Office, protesting against the new constitution, and
requesting the abolition of all the ordinances which it had passed.
Since a certain occurrence which took place in the reign of George III.,
the British government has been in the habit of paying most careful
attention to all popular petitions from the colonies, but this one, as
may well be imagined, was refused. The constitution being popular, and
the taxes being light, (there is but one person on the island who pays
as much as L3 a year,) and the population extracting considerable wealth
from their season visitors, they have no real grievance to complain of,
and when last I heard from the island I was informed that the public
debt was rapidly melting away, and that peace and good feeling had been
quite restored.

This Liliput Province, in which the Governor is the only Englishman, and
his cow almost the only quadruped, deserves to be more frequently
visited by to