Mr. A. L. Braisby
p. 11 · Read in the full issue
Samoa's Well-known Police Inspector Dies Suddenly
From Our Own Correspondent Apia, November 13.
WESTERN SAMOA’S best-known European, Police Inspector A. L.
Braisby, died in an Auckland hos pital on November 11, soon after he had undergone a severe operation. He had resided in Samoa for 26 years; he had been in charge of the police for 20 years; and he was the Territory’s senior official. He had intended to retire next February.
Inspector Braisby represented the forces of law through some of the most turbulent periods in the stormy history of Samoa and, as was natural, he was frequently criticised and at times voci ferously hated. But the best commen tary on the character of the man is the fact that he held his difficult job throughout, and retained the goodwill of the people generally. Old residents regarded him as a thoroughly good mixer and a genial entertainer. He was a famous rifle and pistol shot, and was keenly interested in horse-racing.
Arthur Leslie Braisby was born in England, but was a youth in South Africa when the Boer War came. He enlisted, and served throughout, and was decorated. As a member of a travel ling circus in North America (where he was the crack shot, and the tattooing artist) he wandered all over United States and Canada. He was in New Zealand when World War I came, and he was put in charge of the military police at an aliens’ internment camp. In 1919, the Samoan Constabulary was formed, and he went to Samoa as a sergeant, under Inspector Cruickshank.
He became Inspector in 1925, The news of the Inspector’s death was received in Samoa with general and sin cere regret. Many messages of sympathy went out to his widow, and to his daugh ter—who is the wife of Mr. R. N. Low, of the Bank of New Zealand staff, Suva.
Madame Hagen, president of the New Caledonian committee which raised con siderable funds for the Free French cause, during her visit to France has been officially received at the war-dam aged town of Haguenau, adopted by Noumea. She received a great reception from the inhabitants. No woman in this French colony worked harder for the Allied cause than she, and her work de serves the warmest recognition.