A Queer Fellow

By Henry Dexter

THE Pacific has no monopoly of queer characters; but in the course of my 25 years there I met quite a few, and none of them was more difficult to understand than D.

He was a cattleman on Giligili Planta tion, which is the property of the Common wealth Copra Company (Lever’s). Occa sionally, one meets a man who is by tem perament unfit to have charge of natives.

D was an outstanding instance of this. If a native looked at him, it was wrong; if he did not, it was equally wrong.

D. used to come down to my store on Sunday afternoons. He was a well-read man, and had. an excellent memory. He had been convicted twice of assaults on natives. In Papua, a third conviction bars a man from working indentured labor.

According to the views expressed by D., the natives had no rights at all. They should be rounded up and sent to work, whether they wished it or not. That D. really did believe his ideas were justified, I have not the shadow of a doubt.

I had no objection to D. expressing these views, as often as he pleased, but I frequently protested at the language used by him when doing so. A few ordinary swear words were too common to be noticed, but D.’s language was filthy. The same unpleasant word was used over and over again, and three hours of it on end was a bit wearing.

My first protests were mild. These failing, I made them a bit stronger; but they met the same fate.

One day, the “Nusa” was alongside loading cattle. The wife of the skipper came up to the store. D. sat down and talked to her for an hour. His language would have been acceptable to any com pany.

The next day he was coming up the steps, when he turned and spoke to a native in his usual langauge. Perhaps I was not quite normal that day. Anyway.

I made a vigorous protest. D. stood calmly listening while I did so, and then replied: “And when were you ordained?’’

He turned and walked away, and from that day he never again visited the store.

A little later, he lost his job on Giligili, and, as there was no similar work in the district, he went out prospecting. The inevitable happened; he assaulted his boys, and they ran away and complained to the Resident Magistrate. D. was con victed, and fined. This, of course, pre vented his working any but casual boys; and no native is likely to work long for such a man when he can drop tools at any moment that he chooses.

Again, the inevitable happened; and D. found himself without labor. He took the attitude that the Government, by not allowing him to sign on boys, had taken away his living.

Going in to Samarai, he asked two men to whom he owed money to summon him in the Small Debts Court, his idea being to gain publicity for the airing of his grievances. Both of the men refused to take proceedings. He next went to the office of the Resident Magistrate, and ask ed him what would happen if he put his foot through the window. The R.M. told him that he would be sentenced to im prisonment.

D. promptly smashed the window. He was sent to Port Moresby to serve his sentence. Here he decided on a hunger strike—day after day he refused to touch his food. On the fifth day, the M.O. re ported that D.’s life would shortly be in

danger. A quorum of the Council was got together, and a short Act was passed, which immediately became law.

D. was taken down to a ship that was leaving for South. He saw that there was nothing to be gained by holding out any longer, so he sat down and had his first meal for six days.

It is interesting to note that D. was honourable in money matters. After he had arrived South, a sum sufficient to pay all his debts in Papua was forwarded by him, D. was a non-smoker, and I never saw him touch anything but teetotal drinks.

He told me that he did at one time drink stronger stuff, but he “had made a fool of himself.”

Rev. H. Boileau (Noumea), Rev. J. B.

Chavreuil (La Conception), Rev. E. Bres son (St. Louis), and Rev. J. Hulbert (Kone), Marist missionaries of New Caledonia, arrived in Sydney on furlough by the July Laperouse.