Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1894 — ISLE OF THE BLEST. [ARTICLE]

ISLE OF THE BLEST.

A Little Colony Where Poverty, Crime, and Doctors Are Unknown. A little island, one of the Lipari group, lying to the south of Italy and between It and Sicily, is the happiest land beneath the sun. It is known to the world os Panari i. Within its border there is neither doctor nor dentist. There is no lawyer and no prison, no quarrels between debtor and creditor, and no theft. There is no liquor-seller, nor tobacconist, nor tea merchant; ana yet the people are not unsocial nor gloomy. There is no almshouse and no beggar. Each family wins from its own plot of ground enough grain, vegetables, oil, and wine for home consumption, and of the two latter products sufficient is exported to procure from abroad the materials for their simple clothing, which the housewife makes up in complete independence of tailors. The sea yields them all their animal food, except a few chickens for great occasions, as a christening or a wedding. In the whole island there is no carriage road, and few there have ever seen a horse. This idyllic state of affairs is largely due to the work of a single priest, a sort of Catholic Oberlin, a personal epitome of the Civic Church. When he oame to Panaria he found no port, no post, no school, no church, no anything but a verdant and fertile island, and a people, not savage nor bad, but utterly illiterate. He has remained there until this day, devoting himself to their welfare as faithfully as Father Damien to his lepers, baptizing, marrying, burying, preaching, teaching, and growing old serenely in hie consecrated service. Thanks to his untiring efforts, Panaria has now a little port, postal communication with the mainland, a submarine telegraph to Sicily, a school, and a commodious church, where 365 mornings of the year and fifty-two afternoons there is service. All the public offices are united in one person. Padre Michelangelo is priest, mayor, harbormaster, postmaster, and master of the marine telegraph, aided in the last named office, nowover, by his widowed niece.