Plea For More

Leisure

Why This Feverish Demand for "Schedules"?

By Our Tahiti Correspondent

rE sans souci of the Islands so delec table to Temperate Zone residents in travellers’ books, becomes to their tidy, thrifty minds a cumulative irritant when they have actually settled here in Tahiti, for a season.

“These people have no regard for time or propertv” thev say. “It is all a wicked waste. Look at that axe, that sickle, that machete; dropped at the places where they ceased using them, as though the things were of no value. Their disregard for the value of time is scandalous”; and so on, and so on.

Our friend the retired colonel was one of the most bitter of these critics. Tar diness was the catalyctic agent which transformed his usually calm temper into an explosive compound.

The invariable delay in the departure of Islands schooners, motor-buses and even mail-steamers goaded him to fury; not because he was ever a passenger, but because of the principle of wasted time.

One afternoon three of us strolled down to the wharf to view the departure of the Leeward Islands schooner.

Now, the sailings and arrivals of inter island schooners are occasions of purely native concern and present pictures of uninhibited native life all too rare in this age of sophistication. The emotions of parting, last minute messages, the sending inland for bits of forgotten bag gage, the arrival and stowing of delayed parcels of freight, and the final round up of the crew from the several quarters of the town delay the departure far beyond the scheduled hour.

While this was going on, the colonel had his eye, not on the exotic scene, but on his wrist-watch.

When the schooner finally cast off, 55 minutes after the appointed time, the gallant officer was in as feverish a state of irritation as if a lance-corporal of his old regiment had refused to salute him.

The following day, the colonel had need of a small piece of merchandise —a ribbon hat-band to decorate his new head-gear.

He found what he required at the first shop he visited; but in order to satisfy himself that the price asked was not half a franc too much, he ransacked every emporium in Papeete before he finally bought the ribbon at the original counter.

We looked at our wrist-watch. Two hours and more had gone into the irre coverable past.

We were moved to make a few caustic remarks; but we refrained.

WHEN, later, some of our friends re newed their animadversions on the subject of the axe, sickle and machete, our mind went back to the average farm of our native country, where ploughs, mowing machines, reapers and other costly implements are left unprotected in the fields and barnyards throughout the winter, while their owners attend meet ings of the Farmers’ Alliance and set on the gad-flies in the legislative lobbies to extract grants from an over-burdened nublic to replace the rusted derelicts at home.

The Tahitian, on the contrary, retrieves his axe, sickle and machete, when re quired, rubs off the film of rust with a fragment of coral, sharpens them with a dolorite stone, and eventually hands them on—unimpaired—to his grandchildren.

Often we wonder if sans souci is the exclusive property of inhabitants of lands close to the Equator.

Inquiry for J. T. McEvoy

ANYONE who has knowledge of the whereabouts of Mr. H. S. Taylor, radio officer, or Mr. J, T. McEvoy, planter, both of Manus, New Guinea, is asked to communicate with Mrs. Marion Taylor, c/o Mr. J. S. Taylor, “Oberlin”, Hazelbrook, NSW. Mr. McEvoy, accom panied by Mr. Oaten, of the Carpenter plantations in Manus, is believed to have left Manus in Mr. McEvoy’s schooner “Daydream” about January 13, en route to Kavieng or Rabaul, and they may have arrived about the time of the Japanese invasion. Mr. Taylor, at that time, was still in Manus. Mr. McEvoy is believed to be carrying letters, etc., for Mr. Taylor’s family and friends.

Miss E. E. W. Moraghan, arrived in Suva recently to join the Fiji Public Ser vice, as supervisor in the Telephone

Department.

Mrs. Emily Towson, wife of Mr. N.

Towson, of Savu Savu Bay, Fiji, died last month after a short illness. She is survived by her husband, a daughter, and two sons.

Rev. and Mrs. R. S. Walker, formerly of the Methodist Mission station at Cakaudrove, Fiji, will shortly take up duties at the Methodist Church, Mur willumbah, New South Wales.