Tropicalities

APPARENTLY the value of a wife, un like that of gdod wine or pictures does not increase with age.

An aggrieved Papuan, named Faramu, sought redress, in the Native Court re cently against a fellow-countryman, who had alienated his wife’s affection, induced her by seductive promises to desert her husband, and crowned his offence by marrying her.

Faramu felt that he had a grievance— not so much in his injured self-esteem, or his lacerated affections, as in the fact that he had bought his wife and paid for her, whereas the home-wrecking Lothario who had destroyed his domestic peace had got her for nothing.

A pig, 42 armshells, and £l6O in cash may not have flattered unduly the charms of the blushing bride, but they consti tuted a measure of the bridegroom’s ardour at the time of the marriage, and were the price that he paid to her par ents for possession of her person. And he sought to recover frohi the seducer the whole of his outlay.

But the Magistrate could not see it like that. The original marriage took place 14 years ago, and the lady’s charms, meanwhile, had wilted. And, since the ro mance had been placed on a commercial basis mundane considerations intruded themselves —such as amortisation of in terest, depreciation of the Australian pound, reduced expectation of life, value already received, and the effects of wear and tear.

Taking all these elements into account, the damage was assessed at 44 armshells and £6O, to be paid in twenty monthly instalments of £3. —L. • • * AFTER spending 32 years on the island of Marakei, In the Gilbert Islands, Father Adolf Vocat, Roman Catholic missionary, was unlucky enough to pick 1938 as the year in which to pay a long planned visit to his native Switzerland.

When he arrived back in Australia, in the middle of April, he caused much amusement and aroused not a little sympathy in Australia by emphatically de claring that, having had one good look at Europe under present-day conditions, he was very glad indeed to be going back to his lonely island in mid-Pacific, where he expected to spend the remainder of his life. Father Vocat evidently has a keen sense of humour, and he made one illuminating comment. “I have nothing to say about European politics,” he said, “except that I am sorry that my name is Adolf.”

It was a coincidence that the Rev.

Father Cadoux, a member of the Sacred Heart Mission in Papua, also returned in April from a visit to he had spent 10 years in primitive Papua. Father Cadoux said that he had seen enough of the so-called “civilisation” of Europe to be very thankful that he was returning to what he termed the “higher civilisation in Papua”. • ♦ ♦ IT is announced from San Francisco that Richard Halliburton, a well known author, with three companions, has disappeared in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean, while attempting to sail a Chinese junk from Hong Kong to San Francisco. It was intended that they should reach San Francisco in time to

make a dramatic entrance to the Exhi bition now being held there. No one wishes death upon a man; but if it should prove that Richard Halliburton has unfortun ately been lost to civilisation there will be no salt tears wept among lovers of truth and decent restraint in travel liter ature. Halliburton obtained fame of a kind by pure stunting. He produced a series of travel books in which the colours were exaggerated to the point of absurd ity, and in which he directed attention to ’ himself by performing idiotic tricks, such as firing off revolvers, a la American cowboy, from the top of the Taj Mahal.

So far as we know, he never has visited the South Pacific—a remarkable thing, considering that the South Pacific for many decades has been a happy hunting ground of every kind of near-journalist and pseudo-author who makes a kind of living by sacrificing truth to sensation alism. * * * SOME Australian newspapers, in April, wept publicly over the alleged sor rows of the newly appointed Dir ector of Native Affairs in Australia.

The appointment of Mr. Chinnery to his new post at £1,200 per annum was an nounced recently. It appears that he pro ceeded in April to Darwin, to commence his new duties, but when he got there he found accommodation of every kind at a premium, and no person in authority had had sufficient vision to get an office ready for him. Finally, Mr. Chinnery ac cepted an offer of accommodation from the Crown Solicitor, and set up his office on the front verandah of the Crown Solicitor’s home.

This, of course, is all very sad. But one cannot escape the reflection that the present time, when the Australian Com monwealth is committed to enormous ex penditure on defence, is scarcely the best in which to commence all this fuss and expense in connection with Australian aboriginals. After all, the Australian natives got along well enough without a £1,200 per annum director for 100 years;

and it would not have mattered if the very worthy but not essential new under taking had been postponed for a few more years, until such time as Mr. Hitler has been disposed of, and the Australian taxpayers have a little money to spare from defence, for humanitarian pur poses. * • • A MOTOR car accident near Port Moresby, recently, had a compara tively happy ending when the three occupants disentangled themselves and crawled from the wreckage under their own power, writes a correspondent “Hanua”. The driver, who has flown a good deal over Papua, seems to be air-minded, and appears to have tried to take off from the edge of a steep em bankment on one of the town streets.

Cars in Port Moresby have to be am phibian to some extent during the wet season; but this does not mean that they can fly. ♦ * * IS it any wonder that employers of in dentured native labour in the Morobe section of New Guinea spit with rage, at times, and hold the Native Depart ment officials in contempt.

Some time ago, certain wise people in Rabaul decided that the system of issu ing rucksacks to indentured labourers should cease and that, instead each in dentured labourer must be provided with a wooden box—the type in which so many natives keep their small possessions.

So the obedient employers of the gold field threw away hundreds of rucksacks, and bought hundreds of boxes, which were duly issued to their labourers. Now, the wiseacres of Rabaul have decided that the

previous decision was wrong and have given instructions that rucksacks may be legally issued to indentured labourers and wooden boxes abandoned. So rucksacks are once more on issue on the Morobe goldfields; and if anyone wants an astonishingly cheap line in wooden boxes he is invited urgently to make early ap plication. Meanwhile the Morobe em ployers, with more or less unpleasantness are asking when Rabaul is going to secure the services of someone with a real know ledge of New Guinea labour conditions, to assist in the drafting of these all-too frequent regulations, • ♦ ♦ A COMMERCIAL broadcasting station in Sydney is dramatising an early phase of Fijian history as its theme for a short sketch in an advertising pro gramme. It is based on the story of how the Polynesian Company acquired 200,000 acres of land around Suva.

The curtain rises. We hear the rasping voice of an American demanding £lO,OOO from King Cakoba.u, indemnity for alleged damage done to American properties by Fijians. Poor Cakobau is in a dilemma— he has not got £lO,OOO. But, wait! An Australian comes on the scene, represent ing the Polynesian Company, and offers to pay the fine in return for a grant of land to grow cotton.

In his relief, Cakobau becomes gener ous and eloquent and, in addition to giving the land, he says: “Give you coco nut oil, too—coconut oil good for hair,”

Which is the cue for the announcer, who breaks in and says, “and Blank’s coconut oil is good for your hair.” * • * AN embarrassing gift was received in the Solomon Islands by the third engineer of the British freighter “Polzella”. The “Polzella” ran on to a reef near Gizo, but she got off two days later, and arrived in Sydney late in March, leaking badly.

The third engineer immediately got in touch with friends ashore, and offered them “a fine, wee shell, right oot of the tropics”. But when the friends went to collect it, they almost fainted. It was a clam-shell, 3 feet across by 2 feet high, and it took up so much of the engineer’s cabin that he had to climb up and over it to get into bed.

While the ship lay on the reef, the engineer repaired the launch-engine of an old resident of Gizo. The grateful owner gave the engineer the shell, which he said was the biggest clam-shell in the world. The engineer said it really was a fine shell; but, as he got used to it, it seemed to grow in size, and he was pre pared to pay anyone to relieve him of the curio.

Mr. C. S. Ramsay, famous as “the Tin- Can Mailman of Niuafo’ou”, Tonga, where he was a trader in the years prior to the depression, arrived in Auckland on April 17, from London. He said that he was going to settle down again in Tonga or Samoa.