Tony Ringel’S Misfortune

TONY” —as 72 year-old Anton Ringel is known to all on the Papuan gold fields—has met with another misfortune.

He arrived at Mukawa on Collingwood Bay to await, with his stores and recruit ed labour, the arrival of the Mission schooner, Maclaren King, which would take him away up the North-east coast, and stayed in the Goverment rest house, a native building near the Mukawa Mis sion Station, He retired at 10 p.m., but somewhere around 3 a.m. he was awaken ed and found his bed on fire. The fire, which had started in the kitchen, com pletely destroyed the building.

“Tony” is lucky to have escaped, but he lost all his stores, save two bags of rice, some money and his papers and personal belongings—about £5O in all.

“Tony” is one of the “old timers,” who landed in Papua first in 1899 and, after making sufficient to retire on, returned to his native Austria in 1908. He married and settled down there; but the war robbed him of practically everything and, in 1925, he returned, bringing with him his son, who soon after became seriously ill, and died after being taken to Bris bane. Marvellous the spirit of the “old timer” —pencil and paper at 4 a.m. in the Mission House, and his plans quickly made for a new order. No fuss, though the fire had not awakened him until his pillows were well alight and the top roll of his mattress had gone.

Mr. T. J. V. Wright, son of Mr. and Mrs. J. V. Wright, of Papua, died at Madang, New Guinea, on August 12. Over 20 years ago, as a small boy, he was a well-known identity of Port Moresby, where he lived with his parents at Sap phire Creek, the flourishing little centre of the old copper mines.

Mr. D. Luttrell, manager of the Gizo branch of Messrs. Burns Philp (S.S.) Co. Ltd., arrived in Sydney by the Mon toro on October 1. After a brief stay in New South Wales, he left for a holiday in Tasmania.