Too Much "Parie" in

the "Mutuel"!

A Memory of Port Vila's Race Club

By “Snikwad"

REPENTANCE, like strong drink, is a thing we are better without —in large quantities, anyway.

That was why I was sitting alone in the kiosk of the Hotel-Vila-Boulangerie bar on that Sunday morning. The night before I had been to what, com mencing as a somewhat decorous dinner party, had ended as a 100 per cent, “wild night”.

I was now trying to reduce or slake the “repentance” content of soul, head and stomach with a bottle of cold V.B. With every cooling sip I was feeling better and

better, and less repentant, and was quietly musing on the strange and excit ing ways of the all-too-human.

My reverie was interrupted by the sud den arrival of a legging-ed, spurred and sombreroed olive-skinned individual, mounted on a disreputable-looking, high withered hack, who rode straight into the kiosk yelling “Allume—allume” (“Let’s get going”). Behind him surged a motley gathering of Frenchmen and near-Frenchmen from all the lieus and purlieus of Vila and the outer planta tions.

Having enjoyed the clattering of his horse’s hooves on the concrete floor of the kiosk, the cowboy-man rode, still “Alluming”, across the yard, and in at one end, and out through the other, of the main hotel building—which, by the way, is of about the size and shape of a large rabbit-hutch. The mob mean while “got going” by re-setting up the chairs and tables which had been knocked over in the kiosk.

At length, everything more or less shipshape, the vaquero dismounted. His beast tethered, the mob seated and drinks ordered, they “got going” again in true Gallic style, everybody talking at once. The French are all for this form of procedure at all their gather ings, and hold that it is in keeping with their Republican motto of “Liberte, Fratenite, Egalite”, for, they argue, a person is free to shut up if he wishes; but no one, excepting the blessedly stone-deaf, has the right not to hear him if he wishes to speak. Shades of Voltaire!

The conversation seemed to be all about the horse, and horsey. Some chat tered of spurs and stirrups, some of saddles and bridles and others of horses, tracks and paces.

Then it dawned upon my dull brain that I was listening-in to a gathering convened for the purpose of starting a racing club.

Before long, somehow or other, it appeared that a president had been elected and someone was loudly calling for a vice-president—and that’s how I got into it. Such is fame!

“Void!” cried a lad, whom I did not know from a bar of soap. “Void, Monsieur Snikwad! The very man. Ne parle-t-il pas francais; n’est il pas

ancien combattant de la grande guerre; n’est il pas anglais; il faut un anglais; n’est il pas un Condominium. Mais mot de Cambronne, alors.”

“Mais oui. Mais mot de mot de Cam bronne, alors,” shouted another.

“Mais, mot de Cambronne de mot de Cambronne, alors, mais oui,” said a third. (Rough translation: “See, there is Monsieur Snikwad. Does he not speak French? Is he not a veteran of the Great War? Is he not English? We must have an Englishman as v.p.—is this not a Condominium?” The remainder may be skipped. The word used by General Cambronne at Waterloo is translatable, but not printable.) And so I found myself vice-president of the “Association des Courses Hippique des Nouvelles Hebrides”, or something of the sort.

A modest and retiring man, the weight of this sudden new responsibility weighed heavily upon me. I couldn’t have felt more denressed if the children of one of the world’s best Revolutions had elected me as “la lanterne” or “la guillotine”.

I NEED not have worried, however. The French, naurally polite, even to whatever gods there are—having, as it were, propitiated the joss by electing officers—just carried on, or “allumed”, taking no more notice of said officers than if they weren’t there.

There followed more meetings, with more discussions about saddlery, tracks, weights and paces, at which president and other officials seemed to do nothing but exercise their prerogative of silence.

But the Gaul is nothing if not enthu siastic; and, once this racing bug had bitten him, it was the races, the whole races, and nothing but the races.

Monsieur Rimbert kindlv loaned his paddock as a race track, and willing hands did the rest. And when at last the great dav arrived there was a grandstand, judge’s box. parie-mutuel and saddling paddock, all complete, as well as a pro gramme that ranged from Stockman’s Handicap to Grand Prix.

It was a great success; and many more meetings followed.

But, alas! Pleasures are like poppies.

Secrets don’t hold together as such for long in Vila. And even the most sacred secrets of the stable at last leaked out; and there came the day when Merdalor won the Stockman’s, and everybody was “on” him. Sacresalop won the Flying, and everybodv was “on” him; and Parle bondieu won the Prix, and everybody was “on” him.

The Parie-Mutuel, of course, deducted its percentage, and paid a minus divi dend: and everybody wondered how they backed the winner and lost money.

Such a state of affairs cannot go on in a great democratic country. Had the races continued the whole of the finan cial resources of the island would have been frozen in the hands of the Parie- Mutuel. So the races ceased; and I, once vice-president, resumed the status of an ordinary citizen.

Mr. and Mrs. L. Maxwell, of the Sev enth Dav Adventist Mission at Raro tonga, left the island for Australia in May.

Doing useful work on Tomanau rub ber plantation, Sagari Valley, Papua, is Mr. J. Palmer, who, after being called up by the military authorities in Port Moresby, was afterwards given permission to return to the plantation. He reports that the plantation is doing well and that he has had little trouble with the native workers—who, for the most part, know little of war developments,