The Case of the Missing

Milk Can A Deep Freeze Mystery from Rabaul

From a Special Correspondent COLYER WATSON & CO. have just in stalled, in Rabaul, a Deep Freeze unit. We can now rush along to buy the odd package of pork chops and apple sauce or steak and onions which we carry home, thrust in the oven to thaw out and hot up. and hey, presto, dinner is served.

Amongst other things, they have such items as shrimps, and green peas . . . and they also have milk. Large three gallon cans of milk.

Whether or not all this is going to be the complete answer to the problems of the tired, tropical housewife, and the stimulant to tired, tropical appetites, heaven alone knows. But it certainly is a step in the right direction.

But me, I settled for the milk. The idea is that you buy the three-gallon can, cart it home and stand it in a corner for 24 hours, by which time it has thawed down to iced, fresh milk which you can S^! H 2° your heart’s content. Anyone who has lived on powdered milk, and canned condensed or reduced milk. Will know what I mean.

I had a can of frozen milk delivered.

Unfortunately, there were some air company pilots staying in the place and. when they went off next morning, as well as their sandwiches, etc., they collected njy can of milk from the corner and took that with them, too. the ’drome, they decided that they wiA 0t £ no Y what was - and sent it oack to the taxi company. muc h sleuthing I traced it to “f,„ tax i co ™ pan y which by this time had letuined it to Colyers. w°l? e f rS w^ e closed for stocktaking; out, hot on the trail of my by-this-time

thawed milk, I got in through a back fence and demanded my milk. They hadn’t a clue as to who the original can belonged to—anyway, they had received back only half a can. It had been opened and half-consumed somewhere along the way.

But it just goes to show that one has to be right on one’s toes around here, even to live!

The native population of New Caledonia and the Loyalty group has increased by about 3,000 since 1939. The present figure is approximately 32,500. In 1887 the Melanesian population, terribly decimated as it had been by “reprisal” raids after the big native revolt, was estimated at 42.000.