Page:The New England Magazine 1891, 5.1.djvu/4

medical aid. No one kept him long at a time, whether because others wanted the price paid for his support, or because he was an unwelcome inmate is unknown. Prices depend on supply therefore it happened that the next pauper was boarded for fifty dollars. Again a lower price for board brought about a lower tax-rate for the householders, and in course of time another pauper was set up at public auction and the lowest bidder was intrusted with his care and maintenance. By 1829 the exports from the island justified the creation of harbor masters and port wardens,—more titles to be coveted. A ferry was established from Campobello to Indian Island and Eastport. The ferryman was "recognized in the sum of two pounds, and was conditioned to keep a good and sufficient boat, with sails and oars, to carry all persons who required between the appointed places, to ask, demand, and receive for each and every person so ferried one shilling and three pence and no more." If any other than the appointee should have the hardihood to make a little money by transporting a weary traveller, such person was to be fined ten shillings, half of it to go to the informer and half to the ferryman, unless he had previously arranged with the licensee that he would afford him due and righteous satisfaction for each person so carried.

As the population grew, the swine began to abound, and soon it was decreed that "neither swine nor boar-pig should go at large unless sufficiently ringed and yoked, sucking pigs excepted, on pain of five shillings for each beast." Then the sheep began to jump fences four feet high, and their descendants have increased in agility. They ate the young cabbages, and standing at ease defiantly