Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/182

Rh dealers, on paying freight for them at the rate of 2½d. per 10 ℔, or 1s. 6d. per cubic foot. The prices to be paid for European articles are fixed every year, the prices current in Danish and Eskimo being printed and distributed by the Government. According to a calculation, founded on the average of the last few years, about 22 per cent. of the value in the European market is paid for the products in Greenland. Out of the payment five-sixths are given to the sellers, and one-sixth devoted to the Greenlander's public fund, spent in “public works,” in charity, and on other unforeseen contingencies. The object of the monopoly is solely for the good of the Greenlanders,—to prevent spirits being sold to them, and the vice, disease, and misery, which usually attend the collision between civilization of the trader's type and barbarism, being introduced into the primitive arctic community. The inspectors are, in addition to being trade superintendents, magistrates, but serious crime is practically unknown; while the cases of theft which have occurred within a decade are so few that they are held in recollection as historical events. The “vices of civilization” are few, and its diseases unknown. The Danish officials are mostly men of considerable intelligence, and all of good character, though their pay is small. The inspector receives £328 and a residence; the average salaries of the 11 “colonibestyrere” are £250, of the 18 clerks—“assistants” or “volunteers”—£106, besides residence, fuel, and attendance. In addition there are about 182 “ulliggers,” seamen, mechanics, &c., each receiving an average of £25 a year, besides, in the case of the outpost traders, a percentage on their trade. Though the officials are all-powerful, yet, owing to the exertions of Dr Rink, local councils or “parsissaet” were organized in 1857 in every district. To these parish parliaments delegates are sent from every station,—shrewd men, wise in council, and well acquainted with the wants of the Grennlanders. These “parsissoks”—elected at the rate of about one representative to 120 voters—wear a cap with a badge (a bear rampant), and aid the European members of the council in distributing the surplus profit apportioned to each district, and generally in advising as to the welfare of that part of Greenland under their partial control. In 1873 there were deposited, in a savings bank established in Greenland, £200 as contributions for the support of illegitimate children; £199, 10s., sums gained by inheritance or by other unforeseen circumstances; £791, savings from wages, chiefly those of the Europeans; and £121, savings of the Eskimo, or half-bloods. But thrift is the least prominent feature in the Eskimo character. The “municipal council” has the disposal of 20 per cent. of the annual profits made on produce purchased within the confines of each district. It holds two sessions every year, and the discussions are entirely in the Eskimo language. In addition to their functions as guardians of the poor, the parish M.P.'s have to investigate crimes and punish misdemeanours, settle litigations and divide inheritances. They can impose fines for small offences not worth sending before the inspector, and, in cases of high misdemeanour, have the power of inflicting corporal punishment. During the first ten or twelve years the following causes were submitted to trial:—one single case of having in passion occasioned the death of a person, and another of openly threatening; five or six instances of grosser theft or cheating, and as many of concealment of birth and crimes relating to matrimony; every year a few petty thefts, and instances of making use of the tools of others without permission, or of like disorders; and several trifling litigations.

