Showman’S Troubles

Wheel for Tahiti and Pygmies From Borneo

INTEREST in Pacific affairs has brought a crop of troubles to a gentleman named Barney Bergin, known to Syd ney as a former secretary of the Show men’s Guild of Australia.

When the British Consul in Tahiti, Mr. Henderson, was in Australia on leave in early 1949. he was asked by Mr. Oscar Nordman, of Papeete, if he could find for him a merry-go-round or something of the kind. It appeared that Mr. Nord man planned to open an amusement park in Papeete.

Knowing nothing about such equipment, Mr. Henderson got in touch with the Showmen’s Guild; and the secretary of that organisation, Barney Bergin, placed a Ferris wheel under offer to Mr. Nord man, for £2,500.

Having received specifications and a photograph, Mr. Nordman accepted the offer, and, in July, one of his agents in the Islands sent £7OO to Sydney. Mr.

Nordman. being unrepresented in Sydney, asked Mr. R. W. Robson, publisher of Pacific Islands Monthly, to receive the £7OO and pass it on to Bergin, as part payment on the wheel.

This was done. Bergin received the money on August 1, 1949, gave a receipt for it, and an undertaking that the wheel would be shipped to Tahiti on the Sag gittaire on August 4.

Some weeks later, Nordman radioed from Tahiti that the wheel was not on the Saggittaire. Robson, after some diffi culty, contacted Bergin, who was no longer secretary of the Guild; and Bergin offered a series of explanations for non-shipment.

He then offered to supply another wheel; but Robson, who in the meantime had received the photograph and specifica tions from Nordman, insisted that either the original wheel be supplied, or the money be returned and, if another wheel was to be supplied, another contract be made.

When, after several weeks, no satis factory action was taken by Bergin, a warrant was issued on Mr. Nordman’s in structions, for the arrest of Bergin, on a charge of theft. He was arrested early in 1950, and released on bail.

Mr. Nordman and Mr. Henderson were both in Sydney in March last, and the hearing of a protracted case began. Ow ing to absence of certain witnesses, illness of counsel, and other circumstances, there were various adjournments, and the case for the prosecution had not concluded in August, 1950. The defence has not been heard, but it is understood that Bergin claims that he did not sell Nordman a particular machine, but simply a machine. That is denied by Henderson and Nordman.

MEANWHILE, Bergin has been in dif ficulties elsewhere. Towards the middle of 1950, he was arrested on a charge of improperly obtaining £lBO from certain showmen who, it is under stood, had been preparing exhibits for the Sydney Royal Show.

It is alleged that Bergin undertook to procure some exhibits (“pygmies from the jungles of Borneo,” or something of the sort) for the showmen, and they paid him certain moneys, on the understanding that he was going to the Islands to get the jungle men. It is alleged that he did not go to the Islands but turned up in Darwin, and that he failed to obtain any wild jungle men. (Someone has suggested that if Bergin had gone to the Bismarck Archipelago early in 1950 he might perhaps have snared a few very wild coconut planters, m whom Sydney Royal Show patrons

would have been interested.) It was stated, in evidence, that Bergin told the showman that his jungle-men had been procured from Borneo, but that he had been obliged to send them to the home of a planter near Rabaul, to be taught Pidgin and hygiene.

The charge was heard in August, and Bergin was committed for trial. The hearing of the charge brought by Nord man has not been completed, owing to the absence of an important witness.

Mr. Pat Byrne, Native Labour Officer at Lae, New Guinea, and Mrs. Byrne, are receiving congratulations on the arrival of another member of the family—born at the European Hospital, Lae, in August.