Forbidden!

The Governor and the Cannibal

ON a recent visit to one of the outlying stations, in the west of Papua, the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Hubert Murray, was approached by a prisoner who com plained that he was not getting enough to eat.

The Governor ran his eye over the amply-cushioned chest and inflated abdo men, and took note of the skin, oily from good living and not excessive employ ment.

“Don’t you get plenty of rice?” he asked.

The native nodded impatiently.

“Plenty,” he answered.

“And sweet potatoes, bananas, pine

apples, sago?’’

“Yes, yes—plenty those things.”

“Don’t you get meat, too?”

“Oh, yes. I kai-kai meat all right. But

I hungry.”

The Governor looked puzzled. Then: “What are you in gaol for?” he asked.

The native looked down coyly at his twiddling toes.

“I been kill ’im man!” he said at last.

“Behind I kai-kai ’im. Govment say, ‘No good you kai-kai man. More better you go gaol seven year’.”

Then the Governor understood. But the native will have to do without his favourite food —at least, until his sen tence is completed.—C.