Only Picturesque
p. 28 · Read in the full issue
The Fijian Policeman Is Not
SUVA, July 2.
THE spectacle of 23 prisoners, on their way back to Suva Gaol after their day’s outside work, clambering out of the covered gaol truck and lining up near the Town Hall to watch the traffic police test the vehicle’s brakes, might once again have inspired the comment: “Where but in Suva could this happen?”
The incident occurred at 4.20 p.m. on June 30, after a collision between the truck and an Indian youth on a bicycle at the Victoria Parade-Macarthur Street corner.
Within a few minutes a large crowd had materialised and three lines of traffic were entangled at the corner. A handful of Fijian policemen materialised as promptly as the crowd and, within another few minutes, the ex-cyclist, with a minor head injury, had been sent to hospital, the traffic straightened out and the crowd moved off the roadway. The brake-inves tigations were a side-issue.
Which was another demonstration of the stupidity of the parrot-cry (still heard occasionally) that the picturesque Fijian policeman is mainly ornamental.