Judicial Comedies in Samoa. them saying that he could not agree to the man being sentenced in this summary man ner, and pointed out that civilized legal procedure demanded first a trial and a convic tion. The Samoan authorities complained over this, feeling that the consul was putting them to needless trouble; if the man was hanged what more could be required? Never theless they agreed to give the accused a trial and asked the consul to assist them with the indictment and other formalities he had mentioned in his letter. This the consul did, insisting at every step upon a careful attention to judicial routine. The indict ment was made out, and the prisoner put upon his defense. He immediately pleaded guilty. He was then told that he must deny his guilt in order that there might be a trial, whereupon the court, the jury, and the wit nesses came to the conclusion that the con sul had changed his mind and did not want the man convicted. Therefore, every wit ness gave his testimony and took solemn oath that he had seen the accused " not commit the crime." This brought the rep resentative of Germany to his feet in protest, and the prosecutor, believing he had changed his mind again and wanted to have the prisoner hanged, offered to recall the wit nesses and have them swear the exact op posite, that they had seen the murderer kill the black boy. After the consul had expressed his horror of such perjury, a new lot of "witnesses" was called in, the prisoner's guilt was proven, and he was sentenced to death. Dying is no very hard matter for the Poly nesian, and next day the young murderer ascended his scaffold jauntily smoking a cigarette. The rope was adjusted and every thing was ready for the fatal drop, when the consul called for a pause in the proceedings. After a lengthy speech upon the enormity of the prisoner's crime, he declared that the German honor was now satisfied, and recom mended a commutation of sentence. King
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Malietoa, after some severe words to the prisoner, commuted the sentence to impris onment with hard labor for three months. Again the consul rose to his feet in protest; and the sentence was again revised to hard labor for ten years, and the culprit was set to work immediately in taking down his own gallows. The following morning he began his sen tence with the hard labor of sitting in front of the royal hut and weeding the path wher ever he could find a bit of shade. This was repeated for ten days, when an English planter offered to take the man and work out his sentence on the bush estate of Suisinga. To save the cost of keeping the male factor the authorities accepted the offer, and he had not been there more than a week when he ran away from Suisinga and re turned to his own town, where he is to-day held in high honor for his safe passage through white man's law. The Berlin Act of 1889, signed by the United States, Great Britain and Germany, recognized the independence of the Samoan government, according to their own laws and customs; but at the same time made provision for the establishment of a Supreme Court of Justice for the adjustment of claims and titles to land, for the raising of taxes, and for the restriction of the sale and use of arms and intoxicating liquors. This court is maintained at an annual cost of about $6,000. Then there are the wholly native courts which deal with cases in which no white foreigner is involved. Each town has its judge, every district its chief judge, and overall is a chief justice. Concerning one of the incumbents of this last office, a rather interesting story is told. It appears that when the Berlin Act went into effect, a few thousand dollars of funds of the old municipality was turned over to the new authorities, who decided to employ the sum for the maintenance of prisoners. When the aforesaid judge sent in his bill week after week for the keep of prisoners in
