News from Norfolk Island

Record Shipment of Bananas—Irritating Postal Regulation

From Our Own Correspondent.

Norfolk Is., May 2.

ON April 24 we sent away, per S.S.

Hikurangi, our record shipment of bananas to date, 2,800 cases con signed to Auckland and already sold at a stated price per case for three grades.

A week previously we shipped 1,540 cases to Sydney, gambling, as we always must do where Australia is concerned, on the condition of the market. Prices were splendid while we were packing and while the old Makambo plodded homeward; but they fell with a thud just about the time she berthed and, as only too fre quently happens, we realised just about enough to cover the actual cost of freight and labour.

We shall be fortunate if a scheme, now under consideration in New Zea land, materialises and we are once more assured of a regular service and an alternative market to Sydney. We should still be glad if Messrs. Burns, Philp would run a tourist service be tween Sydney and Auckland, via Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands, but, as re gards freight and mail, we should be better satisfied to have a small steam er plying direct.

Successful Race Meeting.

A week or so ago we held a race meeting—intended to take place on Easter Monday, but postponed on ac count of the long-delayed rains, which

decided to set in on that day and lasted until the island was nearly washed away and we were sick of the sight of heavy grey skies and the sound of rushing torrents.

The meeting was held in “Nobbs’

Paddock,” and everyone went and no body won anything, but everybody had a good time. The sea shone blue and silver beyond the cliffs, the sun was bright above us and the air was soft and warm.

One or two confidential bookies laid the odds among their friends, but, officially, all betting was transacted with the tote, a small and amateur enclosure where one executive wrote upon a school blackboard the names of the same half-dozen horses for every variety of event, and two others, seated at a kitchen table, issued quaint tickets in exchange for silver coin.

For we are an impoverished and un sophisticated community, and we bet in shillings and half-crowns.

The most exciting race was the Ladies’ Bracelet, ridden exclusively by women who, here, ride marvellously, and the most sporting race of the day, was won by Mr. “Tot” Chapman, ex-cable operator and present secre tary of the Planters and Growers’ As sociation. He arrived upon the field simply as owner of Lucky Star, which was to have been ridden by his nep hew, young Vincent Stevenson, not quite 16, and son of our popular and well known Registrar of Lands, and anything else that one registers upon this island. But Vincent, riding and winning an earlier race, crashed into a tree and fractured his elbow, so Mr.

Chapman, two stone over weight and utterly unprepared, pulled on the blue and white jacket and cap and rode his entry to a magnificent finish.

Whether we had backed him or not we cheered and clapped his victory.

An evening entertainment, classified as a “cabaret,” held in the public hall and carried well into the joyous hours of next morning, concluded a most popu lar innovation.

Registration Of Outward

Parcels Prohibited.

We suffer many disabilities in the transaction of business overseas, being severely rationed in the matter of steamers and, also, on every alternate visit of the Makambo, having to post our return mail within an hour of the receipt of letters.

Recently, an additional handicap has been imposed. From the dusty archives of the General Post Office in Sydney— I suppose it is the Sydney office —has been resurrected an aged ordinance prohibiting the outward registration of parcels from Norfolk Island, and the terms of this ordinance have been transmitted to the office here with in structions to enforce them.

It is obviously an imbecile and one sided regulation, because, by every mail we receive registered parcels in quantities that may be described in the words of a lady I know here as “by the galores,” and the measures that are taken to deliver them safely might be presumed to carry outward bound parcels with equal care; also, we are still permitted to register let ters. The registration of any kind of packet automatically transforms it into “first class mail matter,” with pre cedence over less important postage and a guaranteed degree of safety.

Surely we may be allowed this assur ance of speed and snecial consideration when posting, as many of us regularly do, right across the world.