Boxer's Death

Round of Sports in Rarotonga

From Our Own Correspondent

T Rarotonga, Dec. 1.

HE Polynesian population of Raro tonga are great lovers of competi tive sports—but more, perhaps in enthusiastic spasms than as regular forms of exercise.

Football, tennis, cricket and table ten nis have swept the island during the last few years. The Rarotonga Sports Asso ciation, which has European officers, has long despaired of trying to institute sea sons for the various sports—football in mid-summer is considered quite correct if m vogue at that particular time.

The latest sport craze was boxing, in which four clubs vied for the recently presented shield. A European referee saw fair play, and the boxing, if a trifle wild, was clean and interesting.

Unfortunately, on the occasion of a match between the Muri and Avarua Clubs, on November 12, a young Muri Euronesian, Matia Dean, suffered injury to an artery in the head and died at 3 a.m, the next morning. The young man was well-liked by everybody and his untimely death is a real loss to the island.

A post-mortem examination was pro jected by the medical authorities; but the wife and relations of the dead man, adhering to their ancient Maori beliefs with regard to the hereafter, refused to allow this, and eventually no examina tion was made.

Whether the Boxing Association will be allowed to continue its activities is not known.