A Visitor From Papua

rE other day, there appeared at the Sydney office of the former Federal Attorney-General (and. at one time, Minister in Charge of Islands Terri tories) Right Hon. William Morris Hughes, a lady who asked to see “the chief”.

She told the inquiry-clerk that her name was Mrs. William Morris Hughes.

The office-boy winked, and the confiden tial typist hurriedly powdered her nose.

The lady certainly was not Dame Mary Hughes. The statesman is 76 years old, and a man of regular habits. But this is wartime, and one never knows.

The lady was announced —with relish and eclat. Experienced “Billy” Hughes is not easily put out of countenance. This time, however, he arose with agitation, and sought frantically for his spectacles.

But it was only the long arm of coin cidence.

It was revealed that Mrs. William Mor ris Hughes is an evacuee from Port Moresby; she is a resident in Mr. Hughes’s electorate; and she was seeking the member’s aid in getting news of her husband, who had been a member of the New Guinea Rifles, and had been ill in Port Moresby.

Dame Mary Hughes came in shortly afterwards, and found her distinguished husband still perspiring slightly.

Mr. Walter L. Coath, who at one time had an auctioneering business in Fiji, died in Auckland, NZ, recently, at the age of 81. He was a member of the Melanesian Mission Trust Board.