A Fatal Error
p. 26 · Read in the full issue
RECENTLY, three New Zealand soldiers in Fiji were sentenced to long periods of imprisonment, with hard labour.
They had severely beaten up and robbed an Indian taxi-driver.
Here is the story behind it all.
The three lads, on leave for the even ing, talked to an Indian taxi-driver in Suva. He agreed, for £l, to take them to a house where morals do not run ac cording to law. He drove them to a quiet place, waited until they disem barked; and then he laughed at them, and drove away.
The soldiers made the remarks usual in such circumstances—and noted down the number of the car.
The next time they were on leave, they searched through the town for that taxi— found it, and engaged it to drive them to a locality outside the town. There, they reminded the driver of his perfidy, and gave him a thrashing calculated to make him remember the incident all his life.
They found 12/3 in his pocket, and this they took, on the ground that he owed it to them, anyway, for non-fulfilment of contract.
This was fine. But it was the wrong taxi-driver.
In this town, anything up to half a dozen Indians seem to take turns in driving one taxi; and even an experi enced European could easily mistake one for the other.
American medical scientists report that the ill-effects of the war-time shortage of quinine have been minimised by the discovery of two sulphanilamide deriva tives, effective against malaria. Sulpha drugs are not regarded as preferable, but are highly suitable substitutes for quinine.