In the mountains of Kentucky, where many years ago sturdy Scotch immigrants made themselves homes, the only law is the law of the clans, as strong today there as it was in the Highlands five hundred years ago. Let a man be killed in a dispute over a stolen shoat, a $20 buckboard or a paltry raft of logs — and they kill men there for just such things as these — his kinsmen kill his slayer, and thenceforth every ready rifles keep merrily popping until one or the other of the families is practically exterminated.

Such a feud is that now being waged  between the Bakers and the Howards, which, in fourteen months, has cost six lives and has caused the authorities to decide on sending into Clay county a special judge and prosecuting attorney, under a strong state guard, to bring the murderer of “Tom” Baker to a far different justice than that vowed by his widow, who, over his body, pledged her young sons to avenge their father’s death.

A STATE OF VENDETTAS.

Bloody as has been the Baker-Howard feud, there are others still more bloody in Kentucky history, feuds that have numbered their victims by the dozens, says The New York Herald. A feud begun, in troops of two and threes, with rifles ready, the participants have scoured the mountains in search of their enemies, ready with murderous weapons as soon as some turn of the road brought their foes into view.

The first feud of importance in Kentucky was the Hill and Evans vendetta, which began in 1829 and continued for more than twenty years. The leaders were practicing physicians and they became enemies over a dispute over slaves. It was probably the most terrible feud ever known in the United States, for the members of the two families would fight wherever they met. Dr. Oliver P. Hill was the leader of one faction and Dr. Samuel Evans led the other. Their bloody battles terrorized the citizens of Garrand county. Altogether twenty-seven men were killed.

One of the first feuds to start after the war was the Strong-Amy feud, in Breathitt county, Capt. “Bill” Strong and John Amy being the respective leaders. This feud lasted thirty-five years, and one man a year was killed. The two forces met in a field one moonlight night, and when the firing was over there were five dead men and several badly wounded one.

The Howard-Turner feud in Harlan county was the next important feud. In this thirty men were killed and much valuable property was destroyed by fire. The feud ran for ten or twelve years, and no man was punished until Wilson Howard, one of the leaders, killed a man who did not belong to either faction, and was hanged for the crime. This broke up the feud.

More on the Harlan County, KY feuds can be found HERE.

MARTIN-TOLLIVER TROUBLES.

Another feud that cost the state a great deal of money was the Martin-Tolliver feud, of Rowan county. Craig Tolliver was the most desperate man that ever led a feud, and he terrorized the people of Morehead and Rowan counties until they were afraid to call their souls their own. After the state had spent more than $1000,000 in efforts to put down lawlessness, Gov. J. Proctor Knott gave it up, and told Boone Logan, then a young lawyer of Morehead, that the people of the county would have to be all shot before he would do anything more. Logan mortgaged his home and bought $500? [hard to read] worth of rifles and ammunition and armed one hundred of the most determined men in Rowan county.

He then swore out warrants for the arrest of Tolliver and his men. They began shooting at the posse which had gone to serve the warrants. Logan had secreted his men around the hotel in which the Tollivers had taken refuge and had posted many of them along the road that Tolliver would be likely to take when he left the house. The firing became so heavy and bullets entered the plank hotel so rapidly that Tolliver and his men ran out and tried to escape only to be caught in a crossfire. Three Tollivers, including Craig, were killed and several others wounded. The rest left the country and the feud was ended., after twenty-three men had been killed.

Then came the French-Everitt feud of Perry county, with Fulton French at the head of one faction, and George Everitt, a brother of Judge H.C. Everitt of the Clay county circuit court, at the head of the other. This feud raged for ten years, and thirty-eight men died with their boots on.

THE PRESENT VENDETTA.

The last, and in many respects, the worst feud Kentucky has experienced, is the Baker-Howard feud, which is now being waged so furiously. It has been stated that a feud between the Bakers and Whites existed over half a century ago, but this is untrue. The present vendetta began only a little more than a year ago. Three months ago only the county of Clay was affected. Now the counties of Perry, Jackson, Owsley, Laurel and Breathitt are involved, and there is no telling how far the war will spread unless vigorous measures are quickly taken.

The attempt to assassinate Jason W. Bowling, at Bogtown, last week, when the assassins mistook “Chris” Jackson, brother-in-law of “Tom” Baker, for him because he was riding Bowling’s horse, has aroused the largest and most powerful element of mountain fighters of any one incident of this feud. Jason Bowling is a leader among his people, and has always been opposed to the manner in which the White family has conducted the affairs of Clay county. He owns a farm near Bogtown, and last week received reliable information that he would be the next man killed by the Whites and Howards, and that one of their spies would call upon him in a few hours to find out just where he could be found. Sure enough that evening one of the White faction came to his house, ostensibly on other business, and then rode away. He had not gone more than 300 years before Bowling saddled his horse and rode away to London, some ten or twelve miles distant, where he stopped at the home of Christopher Jackson, whose young wife was Iby Baker, “Tom” Baker’s oldest sister. Here he was joined by his half-brother, “Andy” Baker of Jackson county, who was in the thirty-five-year war in Breathitt county between Capt. “Bill” Strong and “Wash” Amy. “Andy,” during that long war, was shot at twenty or thirty times, and carries a bullet in his leg, while a forty-five caliber ball went through his left lung.

From “Andy” Baker he received pledges of the support of all the Deatons, Burtons, Sandlings and Bakers in the upper counties. All the families named are closely related by blood and marriage to Bowling and have been for years known as expert fighters.

To give still greater strength to the brothers of “Tom” Baker, the powerful Philpot family is beginning to take sides against the Whites and Howards. The Philpots and Whites, while Republicans, belong to separate factions, and the Philpots have been the “outs” so far as county offices are concerned, for so long a time that there is much feeling between the followers of the two families. In one voting precinct in this county, every voter is either a Philpot or kin to one.

They are rich, and at the same time desperate men, having been engaged in numerous pistol and rifle battles. It is said of the Philpots that no man ever shot at one of them and lived to die a natural death if he remained in Clay county. The Philpots are friendly to Gen. T.T. Garrard and his sons, and this fact is not pleasing to the White and Howards. While General Howard has taken no part in the war, his sympathies are with the Bakers, and he may yet be dragged into the feud in a more active way.

USING EXPLOSIVE BULLETS.

On the other hand the Whites and Howards have not been idle. They have go more and better guns than they had last year, and have added to their stock of ammunition smokeless powder cartridges, which will render bushwhacking much safer than it was with the old-fashioned black powder. It was smokeless powder that was used in killing “Tom”Baker, and the same kind was used when the attempt to kill him on his own porch was made a month ago.

Not satisfied with the smokeless powder, the Whites and Bakers have secured a supply of explosive bullet cartridges, which, when fired into an enemy, produce such an ugly wound that it resists all surgery. Never before in the history of mountain feuds in Kentucky has a war been carried on with such terrible and scientific weapons, and to this fact is due the great loss of life already chronicled.

The men doing the principal fighting on the White and Howard side are those who have been sworn in as deputies of Sheriff “Bev” White. Among them are George, “Chad” and “Doc” Hall, who were the most reliable fighters on the French side in the noted French-Eversole feud of Perry county, which most the lives of seventeen Eversoles and nearly as many of the French faction. It is the presence of these three men, clothed with the authority of the law and armed to the teeth, which causes Judge H.C. Eversole to be afraid to hold court without a strong body of state troops present.

ONE SAD FEATURE.

On of the saddest features of the feud is the desperate condition in which it left Mrs. “Tom” Baker and her eleven children. The oldest, “Jim,” is in jail at Barbourville, charged with the murder of Wilson Howard and Burch Stores, while the other ten boys, who range in age from fifteen years to one year, are at “Tom” Baker’s old home. Their mother received warning that the Whites and Howards have threatened to blow her house up with dynamite and to kill the children, and one of the opposing faction is said to have declared that “we won’t rest until we exterminate the whole Baker brood.”

It was the mother’s wish to have her children admitted to the Masonic Widows’ and Orphans’ Home in Louisville, but thus far no arrangements have been made.

Mrs. Iby Jackson, sister of “Tom” Baker, had to leave Clay county two months ago. She had carried a pistol to kill “Jim” Howard for killing her father in what she considered cold blood, and she was warned that she would be shot from ambush if she did not leave the county.

– Louisville Letter.

The Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, Wisconsin)Jul 8, 1899

*****

In THE BOY WITH THE U.S. CENSUS BY FRANCIS ROLT-WHEELER, which can be read online at the Project Gutenberg website, is a chapter entitled,  A BLOOD FEUD IN OLD KENTUCKY, which mentions the Baker-Howard feud.

De Burgerlijke Stand is in Nederland in 1811 ingevoerd, maar in Suriname pas in het jaar 1828. Vanaf 1 juli 1828 moesten alle aangifte van geboorte en overlijden van Vrije personen gedaan worden bij de Secretaris van het Hof van Politie. Daar werden de akten opgemaakt en werden de registers bij gehouden.

Onderstaand treft u de regels aan die werden gehanteerd op het Secretaris bij de geboorteaangifte en geeft u een beeld over de gegevens die op de akten te vinden zijn.

- Bij kinderen die in het echt verwekt zijn moet de vader aangifte doen van geboorte.

- Als de vader verhinderd is dan moet de aangifte door de vroedvrouw of vroedmeester worden gedaan.

- Bij kinderen die buiten het echt geboren zijn moet de vroedvrouw of vroedmeester aangifte doen van de geboorte. Als de vader zich meld voor aangifte dan wordt er een vermelding van erkenning op de geboorteakte gemaakt.

- De akte zal vermelden: geboortedag, tijdstip, huisnummer en letter waar het kind geboren is, dezelfde gegevens van de beide ouders met beroep. In geval van onwettige geboorte den naam, voornaam en beroep van de moeder.

- De aangifte van de geboorte moet binnen 3 dagen na de geboorte geschieden. Er geldt een boete van Fl.2 per verzuimde dag van aangifte.

- Als het kind is overleden voor de aangifte dan moet alsnog aangifte gedaan worden van geboorte alswel van het overlijden.

- Als het kind doodgeboren is dan wordt het niet ingeschreven in het geboorteregister, maar gelijk in het overlijdensregister.

- Aangiften van kinderen die ter vondeling zijn gelegd moeten melding maken bij den Secretaris van den Hove met aanduiding van kleren en goederen, tijdstip, plaats en omstandigheden waarin het kind is aangetroffen.

- De Secretaris van den Hove dient de aangiften van geboorte en overlijden in duplo in registers vast te leggen.
[Bron: Gouvernementsblad Suriname, 1828, No.3]

Hierbij een digitale index op het geboorteregister van 1829. Het betreft naast Paramaribo ook alle districten.

Bekijk hier de Index op het Geboorteregister van Suriname 1829

Bij wet was geregeld dat er aan het eind van ieder jaar een index gemaakt moest worden op de registers. Helaas is dat niet consequent doorgevoerd. Het interessante van de index van 1829 is dat de naam van de ouders erin vermeld staan. Hier zijn er maar weinig van.

Veel plezier!

PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 1.

We learn that the Judge of the Court of Quarter Sessions for this county, on Friday sentenced a woman to be ducked by immersion as a common scold on Wednesday next.

Annexed is the sentence of the Court –

Commonwealth vs. Nancy James. –

Indictment for a nuisance — charged with being a common scold.

Oct. 11th, 1824 — Verdict, Guilty.

Oct. 29th, 1824 — The prisoner sentenced to be place in a certain engine of correction called a Cucking or Ducking Stool, on Wednesday next, the third day of November ensuing, between the hours of 10 and 12 o’clock in the morning — and being so placed therein, to be plunged into water — that she pay the costs  of prosecution, and stand committed until this sentence is complied with. Nat. Gaz.

Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania) Nov 10, 1824

From duckingstool.com:

Ducking stool, a stool or chair in which common scolds were  formerly tied, and plunged into water, as a punishment. The practice of ducking began in the latter part of the 15th century, and prevailed until the early part of the 18th, and occasionally as late as the 19th century. –Blackstone. Chambers.

The picture is also from this website.

LAWS

The court of quarter sessions for Philadelphia county, lately sentenced Nancy James, convicted of being a common scold to be placed in a certain engine of correction called a Cucking or Ducking stool, on Wednesday the 3d of November ensuing, between the hours of 10 and 12 o’clock in the morning, and being so placed therein, to be plunged into the water” &c — The case has been carried up to the Supreme Court to try the legal validity of the sentence, we presume.

Ohio Repository, The (Canton, Ohio) Nov 26, 1824

PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 5.

On Monday last, the judgement of the court of quarter sessions in this city, in the case of Nancy James, who was indicted and sentenced to be ducked as a common scold, was reversed by the Supreme Court, on the ground that no law of Pennsylvania, either statute or common, warranted the sentence of the court below.

Judge DUNCAN considered that this inhuman and barbarous part of the English common law had become obsolete; that, at all events, it had never been brought to this country by our ancestors; that it was incompatible with their humane habits, as well as with the enlightened maxims of civil policy introduced into Pennsylvania by WILLIAM PENN; and that even if the punishment formerly inflicted upon common scolds had ever obtained here, it had, by implication, been repealed by the general spirit of our mild penal code. The decision of the Supreme Court must give universal satisfaction.

Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania) Jan 12, 1825

A famous scold:

The United States vs. Ann Royal.

Another case came up yesterday before the Circuit Court, which, by the unusual crowd that thronged the Hall, appeared to excite much interest. Mrs. Ann Royal, against whom a bench warrant was issued last week appeared to answer an indictment found against her during the term, by the Grand Jury, for certain alleged improprieties of conduct, denominated in legal phrase ‘common scold’ ‘common slanderer,’ ‘brawler’ ‘common nuisance,’ &c. The defendant’s counsel entered a demurrer to two out of the three counts of indictment, which the counsel for the prosecution agreed to submit to the court without argument. The defendant also asked a continuance of the trial to Friday next, on the ground of the absence of two witnesses material to her defense. The indulgence was granted, on the understanding that if she was convicted, the expense, (growing out of the repeated attendance of many witnesses) would be paid by her. The trial was accordingly postponed to Friday, — Gaz.

On the 18th Mrs. Royal was heard first by her counsel, 2dly by her witnesses, and lastly by her eloquent self. Nevertheless the jury ungallantly found her guilty, and the Bench still more ungallantly ordered her to jail, until she found bail for her appearance to receive judgment, which was arrested by her counsel. “This is a pretty country we live in,” said she, as she heard the mandate for her incarceration.

Ohio Repository, The (Canton, Ohio) Jul 31, 1829

For more on scolds and ducking, see my “To Punish Scolds” post. There will also be two more posts on this topic, later this week.

In Emma Smith’s diaries, which begin (as far as what is extant) in 1815, she time and again mentions a series of concerts which came under the general heading The Antient Music. Her sister Augusta was an especial fan. So imagine my surprise to see two volumes – one for 1829 and an earlier one from 1791 – dedicated to the programs and participants of these Antient Music concerts!!

Some very familiar names, thanks to the Smiths and Goslings seeing these artists perform — or hiring them for their own soirees:

* Mr W. Knyvett
* Mrs W. Knyvett
* Mr Vaughan
* Miss Stephens

Then there are the very well known, such as “Madame Malibran”!

These concerts were given under the “patronage of His Majesty,” and, in 1829, performed at the New Rooms, Hanover Square. Lists, such as these of performers and subscribers, as always most welcome; for what other printed matter can allow the researcher to look into a world two hundred years in the past? And maybe, just maybe, you find a correct spelling for a name, or a first name for someone’s last name.

For 1829, the year of Mary’s (Lady Smith) earliest diary and the year Emma’s little Cholmeley was born, we see the following familiar names among the subscribers:

* Mr. Gosling
* Miss Charlotte Gosling
* Mrs F. Gregg
* Miss Emily Gregg
* Miss Jessy Gregg
* Miss Harriet Gregg
* Mr. Richard Gosling
* Mrs. Richard Gosling
* Miss Smith

* Miss Jelfe
* Hon. Thomas Kenyon
* Hon. Mrs. Thomas Kenyon
* Miss Charlotte Kenyon
* Miss Kinnaird
* Rev. James Brownlow
* Sir Astley Cooper, Bt.
* Lady Astley Cooper
* Mr. William Courtenay
* Mr. W. Reginald Courtenay
* Mr. T.P. Courtenay
* Miss E. Courtenay
* Mr Capel
* Mrs Capel
* Miss Capel
* Lord Bishop of London
* Miss Neave
* Lord Nepean
* Dowager Countess Poulett
* Sir Lucas Pepys, Bart.
* Lady Pepys
* Mr Pepys
* Mrs Pepys
* Lady Sykes

See the whole list for yourself here; and don’t forget to take a look at the concerts being given that year! For instance, the concert which opened the season (Thursday, 5 March 1829)  under the “direction of His Grace The Archbishop of York, for His Royal Highness The Duke of Cumberland”. It featured music of Handel, Mozart, Graun, Handel, Geminiani, more Mozart, and a lot more Handel. Included with the words are detailed listings of who sang. It is possible that those programs which generated this book were among those seen in Augusta Smith’s sole sketchbook; Augusta used them as scrap paper! If so, the originals were a heavier card stock. She either used them because of a lack of anything else when the mood to draw struck her, or else she saved them in order to have some scrap. What a wonderful souvenir to unearth online!

As to the 1791 edition, again we see some of the family in attendance; these concerts were performed at the “New Rooms, Tottenham-street”:

* Mr Smith Burges
* Mr. R. Gosling
* Mr. W. Gosling
* Mrs. Gosling
* Mr. F. Gosling
* Mrs. F. Gosling
* Mr D. Smith
* Lady Sykes
* Miss Smith
* Bishop of Winchester

* Mr Houghton
* Mrs Houghton
* Mr. Bramstone
* Mrs. Bramstone
* Mr. Bosanquet
* Mrs Bosanquet
* Lord Brownlow
* Lord Bulkeley
* Lady Hotham
* Miss Hotham
* Sir Lucas Pepys
* The Duke and Duchess of Devonshire

An absolute THRILL is to see listed among the performers a certain “Miss Storace” and “Mr. Kelly” — they can only be Nancy Storace and Michael Kelly — two performers who premiered (1784) Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro!!! Madame Mara gets a mention or two in the letters of Mrs Lefroy (Jane Austen’s friend) and Mr Knyvett (presumably the father, Charles Knyvett senior) was among the soloists that year too.

NB: Poor Mozart would of course not see the end of 1791…

First Fiji Consul, W. T. Pritchard, was the son of Missionaries (London Missionary Society) and born in Tahiti, of English parents. ”I hardly knew whether to call England or Tahiti my fatherland. When, as a boy, playing at my mother’s feet, I heard her talk of ” Old England ” as every daughter of England speaks of her native land, I used to feel proud, and flattered myself that I too was English”.
Date of birth: “Such is the case in my study of the mid-19th century British Consul, William Pritchard, who was born in Tahiti in 1829 and served in Samoa and Fiji before being fired, following a Commission of Inquiry that I show to have been little more than a kangaroo court”. On Writing a Biography of William Pritchard Andrew E. Robson,
Favourite of Tahiti Queen: William Pritchard himself wrote “But when patted on the head by Queen Pomare and called her little favourite, carried about on the backs of her attendants, and every juvenile whim quickly humoured, I forgot all the pretty little stories of the far-off land, and thought only of the present of the actual before and around me; then, there was no place like Tahiti, and I have a lingering fancy that in my childish vanity there was the thought that after all it was perhaps better to be bom a Tahitian than an Englishman”.

Sent to England to study: But when, at the age of ten, I was … sent to the home of my parents, England soon became the fatherland ; and as years rolled on Tahiti was remembered only as the lovely little spot where I was bom where I played and romped under the shade of breadfruit-trees and orange groves, and along the sandy beaches and over the reefs of the seashore, without thought of Latin grammars or Greek hexameters, of puzzling circles and triangles, or mysterious signs and quantities. When at last as a schoolboy I learnt that Tahiti was no longer the Tahiti of my childhood, that from the Tahiti of Queen Pomara it had become the Tahiti of Louis Philippe, I hardly cared to remember even that much..”.

On Writing a Biography of William Pritchard Andrew E. Robson, and
Polynesian Reminiscences; Ob, Life In The South Pacific Islands. By W. T. Pritchard, F.R.G.S., F.A.S.L., F Ormerl Y H.M. Consul At Samoa Fiji. Preface By I) Berthold Seemann (R. Seemann). London : Chapman And Hall, 1932, Piccadilly. J. B. Taylor And Co. http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=krOxFi-KHVAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA320&dq=Polynesian+Reminiscences:+Life+in+the+South+Pacific+Island+(First+Published+in+London+1866+ed.)&ots=l4FMvmBzh1&sig=vScUWL_vw_23ncTgnqhVFAHVinI#PPA357,M

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.

William Pritchard, -first resident British Consul in Fiji was born in Tahiti of missionary parents in 1829, and given extraordinary power by Fijian chiefs… changed Fijian histor,… was tried and dismissed by a British government in a gross miscarriage of justice. William Pritchard’s first wife was Samoan, and her identity is revealed in this book, as is the previously untold story of his relations with missionaries, chiefs, and officials in London, some of whom conspired to bring him down

Prelude to Empire. Consuls, Missionary Kingdoms, and the Pre-Colonial South Seas Seen Through the Life of William Thomas Pritchard by Andrew E. Robson See also   “The Trial of Consul Pritchard.” The Journal of Pacific History.
30.2: (1995):173-193.,Andrew E. Robson

Andrew E. Robson
Professor of English  Associate Dean, College of Letters and Science  University of Wisconsin Oshkosh 101 N/E Building Tel: (920) 424-1185 Fax: (920) 424-3125 Oshkosh, WI 54901 robsona@uwosh.edu

The sea-slugs (Holothuria) variously known as beche-de-mer, trapang, and dri, are found in the tropical waters of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. They were – and are – plentiful on the reefs of Fiji, especially in the shallow and quiet seas that cover the wide reef flats off the leeward coasts of the two large islands. they average about eight inches in length, and are about three inches thick, though some varieties are much larger.

Ancient China trade routes: For centuries before the Fiji trade began, Chinese vessels had sought beche-de-mer on the coasts of the Indian Archipelago and New guinea; and when British and American ships began to frequent the south Pacific, the trade extended to New Caledonia, the New Hebrides and other groups. In Fiji, for some time sandalwood was too profitable for captains to concern themselves with collecting and curling beche-de-mer.

Sea-slugs: All have rough skins, thickly coated with slime. The colour varies from black or grey to dark red; in the Fiji trade, however, the commonest grades were black and red, the black being the more highly prized; nevertheless, even in these there were differences in quality, and the buyer needed some skill and practice to discriminate between them.

Sea-slug soup: The valuable kinds, of which there were said to be as six in Fiji, form the chief ingredient of a soup, believed to have great restorative properties and much in demand among the wealthy classes in China.

Collapse of the sandalwood trade: During the lull that followed the collapse of the sandalwood trade.. occasional American ships came in search of it; and by 1829 the trade began to gather momentum. In that year three ships – the Glide (306 tons) and the brig Quill (189 tons), both of Salem, and the Morliana of Tahiti – were in Fiji.

http://www.janesoceania.com/fiji_discovery1/index.htm

In 1829 the Glide brought six Maoris from New Zealand to help in the beche-de-mer work. The beche-de-mer trader’s shore plant and equipment… were few, and of a kind easily put up by natives, with bush materials;

•  the “fish” were taken by …divers working from canoes, and without any special gear. When they were received from the .. collectors, they were weighed and counted, and dumped into large casks filled with sea water, or into pools dug in the sand and having channels communicating with the sea at high tide.

In these pools the slime with which the creatures were covered was removed, and they were slit open and cleaned; and, though the intestines contained little but sand and water, the process was responsible for the “ancient and fish-like smell” characteristic of the traders’ camps.

• Though exposure to the air had little effect upon the live “fish, when cleaned they had to be cured without delay or they would coalesce into a glutinous mass of which no use could be made.

Off to the pot house: They were taken to the pot house – an open shed with a thatched roof, which housed large iron pots similar to those used by whalers. In these the “fish” were parboiled, in salt water; and for better results, the boiling was done twice, for about ten minutes each time.

Then to the smoke house: They were then removed to the smoke house, called in beach parlance the vala house, which was a long building, of native construction, with an earth floor. It was fitted with two sets of racks or shelves (vala), one on each side, with a passage between. The racks were built of thin sticks and reefs, supported on a framework of poles, and on them the “fish” were laid. Trenches were dug in the earth floor, under the racks, and in these, fires were made with green wood, to provide smoke and heat for curing. The slit “fish” were spread by means of short sticks, to prevent curling, and were smoked for several days, being turned at least once. When properly cured they were hard, of the consistency of sole leather, and would rattle like clips when handled. Thorough curing was necessary if the beche-de-mer was to reach its destination in good condition.

For building the houses, gathering the beche-de-mer, cutting and carrying firewood, cleaning and handling the “fish” during treatment, and bagging and loading the finished product, … labourers were needed.

High risk of fires; The shore processes were messy and exacting, and constant vigilance was necessary to prevent loss from over-heating or fire. the heat of the fires made the reeds and thatch of the vala house as dry as tinder, and little more than a spark was needed to sent the whole plant up in flames and smoke. It was temptingly easy for any native with a grudge against the owner, or with an eye to loot, to put a fire-stick to the wall as he worked, and, taking advantage of the confusion, to make off with the riches of the trade chest.

Arson a very regular event: Captain Wallis of the Zotoff, who was deservedly well-liked ….and probably suffered less than other captains, had six houses burnt in seven months; and during the whole period of that one voyage his losses were at least a round dozen. Visiting ships found it convenient to employ the beach-combers as their shore agents; and men who lacked the initiative or the capital to engage in the trade on their own account were glad to earn a little money in this way, for tobacco, arms, and ammunition.
http://www.janesoceania.com/fiji_discovery1/index.htm

So Choi Si Won was cast as Lee Mong Ryong in some MBC “special play” thing.  He just did that Chinese movie Battle of Wits and now he’s gonna do another rendition of Choon Hyang.  Unless its another contemporary Choon Hyang like Jae Hee’s. Didn’t read that far.  But in 18 v 29 he was set in the early 90s too.  Just seems as if he likes period pieces. 

 I dont know what he’s standing in front but I keep thinking it looks like Hitler…