BERMUDA: Even the King!

Rumors titillated last week in the island of Bermuda, where the Assembly decades ago voted to outlaw automobiles, that loggerheading Lieut.-General Sir Reginald John Thoroton Hildyard, K.C.B., D.S.O. will go back to England and stay there unless as Governor of Bermuda he is permitted to have a motor car. Before the Assembly itself it was hotly argued for Sir Reginald that the 100 troops under his command ride in motor trucks, that even the island’s garbage is collected by motor lorry, so it is unseemly, illogical, ridiculous and in bad taste that their Governor, who is, moreover, the King’s representative,cannot have a car, but must poke about on foot or use a horse and carriage. Members of the Assembly pricked this pompous British argument with Bermuda chuckles which swelled into a laugh. They again voted that in Bermuda nobody can have a car on the public roads (they are allowed on private estates), recalled the immortal words of Bermuda’s Sir Henry Watlington: “If the King himself wanted to ride in a car in Bermuda he would never be permitted to do so!”

When the Bermuda railway was completed in 1931, many local patriots violently opposed it by stealing out at night, driving spikes intended to derail trains. This the Assembly thought no joke, legislated that in Bermuda attempting to wreck a train is punishable by 15 years in jail, squelched the wrecks.