In For A Duck!
p. 63 · Read in the full issue
From Our Own Correspondent •
Pt. Moresby, Oct 2.
IN the Court of Petty Sessions last month, before Mr. W. R. Humphries, R.M., a native, Mea-Konia, of Elavala vil lage was charged with having in his possession a duck reasonably suspected of having been stolen.
In reply to questions put to him by the Court, Mea-Konia indignantly resen ted any reflections upon his honesty of purpose.
The duck, he asserted, with a pained expression, was his own property—he had caught it himself one morning while fish ing at Paga Point. Feeling, as he des cribed, a heavy tug on his line, he hauled it in with much effort. To his astonish ment, he found this “ ’nother kind of fish” dangling at the end of his hook!
It is a hard world. Mea-Konia, in spite of his conscientious explanation, was con victed and sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. Perhaps the evidence of seven previous convictions for stealing lent some doubt to his ingenious tale.
Mrs. Ernest Henry, a New Zealander who had lived in Rabaul, New Guinea, with her husband since 1933, died in Namanula Hospital recently at the age of 28.