The Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo Page A

some of them at least, is perhaps to be found in one of the chapters of this book. 38 The Russian troops who were stationed on Jersey in the early years of this century have left their memory in Jersey’s horses, which are a compound of the Norman horse and the Cossack horse. The Jersey horse is a fine runner and a powerful walker; it could carry Tancred and leave Mazeppa behind. 39
    In the seventeenth century there was a civil war between Guernsey and Castle Cornet, Castle Cornet being for the Stuarts and Guernsey for Cromwell—rather as if the Île Saint-Louis declared war on the Quai des Ormes. 40 On Jersey there are two factions, the Rose and the Laurel—diminutives of the Whigs and the Tories. The islanders of this archipelago, so well called the “unknown Normandy,” 41 delight in divisions, hierarchies, castes, and compartments. The people of Guernsey are so fond of islands that they form islands in the population. At the head of this little social order are the “Sixty,” sixty families who live apart; halfway down are the “Forty,” forty families who form a separate group and keep to themselves; and around them are the ordinary people. The authorities of the island, local and English, consist of ten parishes, ten rectors, twenty constables, 160 douzeniers, a Royal Court with a public prosecutor and controller, a parliament called the States, ten judges called jurats, and a bailiff, referred to as
ballivus et
coronator
in old charters. In law they follow the customs of Normandy. The prosecutor is appointed by commission, the bailiff by patent—a distinction of great importance in England. In addition to the bailiff, who holds civil authority, there are the dean, who is in charge of religious affairs, and the governor, who is in command of the military. Other offices are listed in detail in the “Table of Gentlemen occupying Leading Positions on the Island.”

XIV
    PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION IN THE ARCHIPELAGO
    Jersey is the seventh largest English port. In 1845 the archipelago possessed 440 ships with a total burden of forty-two thousand tons, and its harbors handled an incoming traffic of sixty thousand tons and an outgoing traffic of fifty-four thousand tons, carried in 1,265 vessels of all nations, including 142 steamers. These figures have more than tripled in twenty years.
    Paper money is used on a large scale in the islands, and with excellent results. On Jersey anyone who wishes can issue banknotes; and if the notes are honored when they fall due the bank is established. Banknotes in the archipelago are invariably for a pound sterling. If and when the idea of bills is understood by the Anglo-Normans, they will undoubtedly adopt them; and we should then have the curious spectacle of the same thing as a Utopian vision in Europe and as an accomplished fact in the Channel Islands. A financial revolution would have been achieved, though on a microscopic scale, in this small corner of the world. The people of Jersey are characterized by a firm, lively, alert, and rapid intelligence that would make them admirable Frenchmen if they so desired. The people of Guernsey, though just as penetrating and just as solid, are slower. These are strong and valiant people, more enlightened than is generally supposed, who afford not a few surprises. They are well supplied with newspapers in both English and French, six on Jersey and four on Guernsey—excellent, high-class papers. Such is the powerful and irreducible English instinct. Imagine a desert island: the day after his arrival Robinson Crusoe will publish a newspaper, and Man Friday will become a subscriber. To complement the newspapers there are the advertisements: advertising on a colossal, limitless scale, posters of all colors and all sizes, capital letters, pictures, illustrated texts displayed in the open air. On all the walls of Guernsey is displayed a huge picture of a man, six feet tall, holding a bell and sounding