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Simple Hobbits Have Lots of Friends - Page 4

© Michael Martinez

The Tooks settled down in the heart of the Shire and let the Hobbits think they had a nice, quiet little country. The Hobbits even elected a Mayor every seven years who oversaw the Postal Service and the Shirrifs and Bounders. The Bounders were useful in keeping the Brandybucks and other riffraff out of the Shire proper, except for occasional visits by the highest members of the Brandybuck family. But the Shirriffs were limited in number, undoubtedly to prevent them from getting too ambitious and launching investigations into the Tooks' financial arrangements. The Mayors were therefore mostly for show, and it may be that the Tooks didn't even care who was elected Mayor as long as he knew his place and applied himself mostly to feasting. The Baggins family obviously had its ups and downs. They were closely allied with the Tooks and probably dominated the legal profession. The law firm of Burrowes, Burrowes, and Grubb was a front for Baggins family money-laundering schemes. Baggins and Took adventurers occasionally went off and brought back huge fortunes in "hush" money. Supposedly, Bilbo Baggins helped take out a dragon in distant lands. So it may be that the Baggins family supplied the Tooks with their hit men. It may be that Frodo's journey to Mordor was simply a contract killing intended to take out this Sauron wiseguy who was starting to threaten to take over the local action. It just so happened that one part of the Baggins family, miffed at losing control over the family business, decided to branch out on its own. They made contact with the Isengard organization and began carving out their turf in the Southfarthing. Things proceeded quietly. Rumor has it that many of the locals were paid off quite well. So the Tooks had no idea of what was coming. They didn't think about calling a Shire-moot and weeding out the traitorous riffraff in their midst. In fact, they couldn't have accomplished anything that way at all. The Baggins family had to deal with its own, and Frodo, head of the Baggins family, was away on a mission. The Hobbits' own secrecy was their downfall. Their blind devotion to family, honor, and tradition prevented them from taking action. Even when the Isengard gangs started showing up, cutting down trees, and gathering and sharing (mostly gathering from the Hobbits to share for themselves), Paladin Took, the Thain, decided he'd wait for Frodo to come back and take out the little upstart Pimple. So what if Pimple called himself, "Boss"? Paladin knew who the real Boss was. And he had the Took army to back himself up. So he closed off the borders of Tookland and kept the Isengarder gangs out.

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