Lookout, N.I.!

Thousand Excursionists Due on December 26.

WEATHER permitting, Norfolk Island on or about Monday, December, 26, will have a unique experience.

It will be overwhelmed by a thousand or two care-free tourists from Aus tralia.

It was announced on Wednesday, Oc tober 12, that the magnificent new P. and O. liner, “Strathaird,” would run an excursion to Norfolk Island from Sydney during Christmas week. The steamer would leave on Friday, De cember 23, and return to Sydney on Thursday, December 29, and the in clusive fare for the six days’ holiday cruise would be from £6/10/- to £10 per head, according to cabin accommoda tion.

On Thursday morning, October 13,

the sober and dignified booking-clerks at the P. and O. office in Sydney were nearly killed in the rush. By that evening, practically the whole of the “Strathaird’s” accommodation was booked out.

So now Norfolk Island knows what to expect. The liner is expected to lie off Norfolk Island during Monday and her thousand or so passengers will be ferried ashore and permitted for a few hours to over-run the island. Weather permitting! Norfolk Island knows what that means!

Incidentally, there is much laughter in Sydney shipping circles concerning this development. On a number of oc casions the organisation of some such excursion as this has been urged upon the owners of coastal passenger steamers: but the latter, with singular lack of enterprise, have turned it down.

The P. and O. Co. have now hopped in and stolen the rich prize from under the noses of the Australian ship owners, who will have at least two first-class passenger liners lying idle during the Christmas holidays.