Descendants of cannibals and victim reconcile, and more

Descendants of cannibals and victim reconcile

The family of a 19th-century English missionary who was eaten by cannibals has received a formal apology from their descendants. The Rev. John Williams was clubbed and shot with arrows shortly after stepping ashore on the Pacific island of Erromango in 1839. This month, 18 of Williams’ descendants traveled to the island to participate in a reconciliation ceremony. “I thought it would be dispassionate after 170 years,” said Williams’ great-great-grandson Charles Milner-Williams, “but the raw emotion, the genuine contrition, the heart-rending sorrow has been hugely moving.”

Library book, 99 years overdue, is returned

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A book that was overdue for 99 years was returned this week to the New Bedford Public Library in Massachusetts. Stanley Dudek found the 1894 volume, Facts I Ought to Know About the Government of My Country, while cleaning out the home of his mother, a Polish immigrant, after she died, in 1998. He didn’t realize it was a library book until he opened it last year; after reading a newspaper story about another library book that had been overdue for 60 years, he decided to return it. New Bedford’s librarians waived the $360 fine. “My blood pressure will probably go down now,” Dudek said.