Tropicalities

THE following is an extract copy of a letter written by a Fijian school teacher to his superior officer. It will be noted that even well-trained Fijians find the complexities of English a little

beyond them:—

Deai-j Sir, —I believe it wouldn’t travel you. the point, which I came to relate you. This is the story of 29th December that my assistant teacher has been fined by the Court, in order to assault his wife. Now you may have been not since heard off that what further decision took place.

As to my assistant teacher, I could strongly recommend that he is off not that type which has been mention in the Court. He may have been mocked. It could be viewecf as a forged one.

Sir, he is asking me to settle the matter and retake the burden of the family and live peace ful life. Sir, I think it is good idea too. and it has been noted that husband and wife’s travel always occur every place, and they will settle again and again to enjoy the beautiful garden which God has created for every men and women, so why we make them separate from this rightous path which God the Father has given us.

So, Sir, I am asking you to put a foot in this matter and tell Mr. that they are husband and wife, and let them go to their umbralla which protect them from rain and sun. To my best ability I am assuring you that further they’ll never going to have any such cases.

Keep in view that if settlement would not take place he wouldn’t take any risk to give money or allowances for such things, and he may see the Boss on your reply.

Hoping you’ll do your best to avoid further travels and inform us earlier.

I am, etc., At first glance it seems a hopeless jumble of words. Yet if you read it again quickly without examining the

phrasing too closely, you can quite

clearly get the general sense of the com munication. * * *

TWICE during March the dignity and

repose of Suva Magistrate’s Court were shattered.

On the first occasion the court., in cluding the bench, rocked. The Magis trate having asked the clerk for ink and the clerk having relayed the message to a police inspector who was conducting a prosecution — and who handed un his own inkwell — a Fijian orderly, ‘ mis taking the request, moved towards the doors demanding the presence of a non existent witness named Ink in stentorian tones.

The second occasion was when a youth with an unmistakably Fijian name, who was charged with a petty theft, turned out to be an Indian who did not under stT^?Mhls^ 0W , n ianguage, Hundustani.

While the bewildered court waited for the arrival of a Fijian interpreter, the clerk suggested that the vouth might have been an orphan cared for bv a

Fijian family..

s.

* * * A WRITER in a recent issue of “Smith’s Weekly” (Sydney) com , . jnents upon some “souvenirs” which a Digger friend collected “after Japanese bombers had wrecked the Port Moresby township.” •n'k 0 * souvenirs are a wad of cheques collected from scattered papers from the meal bank and endorsed Errol Thompson Flynn (and from which the Digger 52555« n V? d Ji! an L of P artin g): some notes written by the film star to the bank- a

leaf from a diary written by the late explorer Jack Hides; and other records probably from the police station.

The point is that Port Moresby was never wrecked by Japanese bombers.

The damage to Port Moresby was done by Australian Army looters, who literally took the town apart in the early days of 1942. It is a remarkable state of affairs, that these men can come back and boast of their depredations in what was after all, an Australian town. The so-called souvenirs of “Smith’s” Digger still be long to the bank, and to the Police and Magisterial Department (now the Dis trict Services Department in the com

bined Administration)

Mac.

* * * IIifHEN Mr. Brian Neely, a member of TT the “Blue Lagoon’’ film unit, reached New Zealand in March he said that he had had tropic isles, shim mering lagoons, coral reefs and all the rest of it. Mr. Neely was wearing his hair long and bleached. He said that he had been told that the bleach would take two years to grow out. That was another grievance.

Neely had been doubling for the star, Donald Houston, and had been with the film group in Fiji for the past three months.

During the shooting of the island sequences he had to crash a canoe on the reef four canoes had to be crashed before the shot was considered satisfac tory, during which Neely had been severely cut by coral. He had also had to fight an octopus. The technique, he said, was to paralyse the brute by grasp ing the eyes and pressing them inside out.

The things people do to earn a living!

V ♦ WHO is responsible for the legend that Pitcairn Island is a lonely, isolated * lace ? Tlle Resident Comissioner of Gilbert & Ellice Colony, Mr. H. E.

Maude, now holidaying in New Zealand, told an Auckland audience recently that, In the ten years prior to World War II an average of one large ship a week called at Pitcairn. More shipping ton nage visited Pitcairn per annum than visited Suva, or Apia, or Nukualofa. The Island got £2,000 per annum from ship ping. *i_P lc MS?t a lly, it is worth noting that this little, unsophisticated island bene fited substantially from the “philatelist racket” now the habitual resort of most small Colonial Treasurers. Pitcairn “ ad only £5O in its community chest in 1940. Now it has £40,000 sterling in the strong-box the result of an issue of Pitcairn Island postage stamps, which excited the world’s stamp collectors. * ♦ ♦ THE story of BP’s, the Village Coun cillor and the White Shirt is illus strative of the New Papua.

White shirts are in short supply there and a departmental manager in the Big Firm’s store decided to keep a tight sa^es » So that the Europeans should not have to go without. (In case y° u , liv £ in Pa P ua - it is explained mat the coloured gentlemen of that Territory now have more money than they know what to do with, and they buy anything that takes their fancy especi ally European goods.) There came to the store a Native Coun cillor from Hanuabada.. a gentleman

with a keen sense of his own importance He wanted a white shirt. He was told he could not have one; they were being re served for the European trade.

T T T ? e Councillor went to a Verv High Official, and howled. The VHO soothed him with tender words, and then got on the telephone with the BP 1^ ter was informed sternly, that the native was just as much entitled to a white shirt as any Euro pean; and, furthermore, that if the BP firm wanted a quiet and pleasant life, it would be advisable to sell white shirts to all black and white men alike, just as a ®4. the demand or the supply lasted That, it was intimated, was Ed-Wardian c ° uncillor > smirking, got his shirt.

People of conservative and reactionary minds are hoping that the BP store assis tants are following the practices of George and Pitt Street, and keeping the S , lght ’ undPr - the counter.

But they don t know. Officially, anyone can have a White Shirt. y

THAT’S the fellow I was telling you about'” said Dental Officer Brumm wwhhoS® Am^ ri £ an Luthe ran Mission,’

Finschhafen, and he pointed to a little high* 1 natlVo, not more than 4 ft. 6 in. a B u ame forward immediately and ripnfnrpc hls w 6t fud u PP er and lower dentures. He has a massive crop of al f dyed a dirty ginger-red. w n^ e J°° ke^ r 1 said> and in stantly he withdrew and gave me the Myson’s teeth set in a beautiful pink acrilic resin base made on anatomical articulators to the rnJKSf Precision, and valued in the United States at 100 dollars. But Buru was fortunate; he paid only £2 for them csarity 5 arity of the Lutheran Mission. Half-a-dozen more patients are waiting with £2 in hand. P are n£^? g y? uru I s °ff-s id er to the Dental Officer, his main duties being to inter pret and to convince patients from his own experience that teeth can be pain lessly extracted. He is devoted to Mr .tsrumm. ‘‘You kai-kai good?” I inquired M Number one!” replied the little fellow rjf.?’ , meat -, biscuit, altogeta sum- E f £ut he had to admit that he had an P d sugl e r-cane°! Ulty “ tackling a len S th of “Taim belong sleep me loose’m nau Putem alon £ water,” he added.

“Oh, do you!” said Mr. Brumm. “Well from now on you will sleep with them

In!”-

c.

I WAS amused recently when a “PIM” photographer was taking photo- £ n ? r to * the de P a rture for ? a PUf "New Guinea of a Qantas airliner. fwSS °t the . Passengers were Papuans, fr m2 O T th S i^ wa i'°t- Mlsslon ’ near Samarai. hpTolfL ?v? not ? ave^ their Photos taken i he P e °P le who were seeing them agree with “PIM” policy; but, £L th ® natlve f when asked, said that the paper f” PUfe y ne « ati ve attitude to And some people still call our Papuans

untutored savages!-

B.

Although leprosy is said to be on the deelme, there is a disturbing amount of the disease in New Caledonia. Known cases at present include 140 Europeans, 885 natives and 11 Asiatics. About 200 of the worst cases are looked after by nuns at the Ducos Sanatorium in Noumea harbour. New cases last year numbered 14, of whom one was a European. Leprosy is said to have been introduced into the Colony by Chineses coolies employed by the Nickel Company towards the close of last century.