The Editors' Mailbag

ad Old Days in Tonga

Notes from that remarkable com mdium, the diaries of Mr. F. T. oedicke-van Asten (formerly of onga and now resident in Auck nd) show that the now highly vilised Tongans were not so de mdable a century or more ago. hey attacked the following ships:— iO2 .. At Tongatabu . . Duke of Portland 104 . . At Tongatabu . . Union 106 . . At Haapai . . . . Port au Prince [22 . . At Eua Supply 124 .. At Vavau .. . . Rambler In 1860 a vessel described as an merican ship went to Ata, Pylstaart land, and kidnapped many young mgans and took them as slave orkers to Chile.

mbarrassing Reputation

Because they have a big house id are noted for their hospitality, r. and Mrs. A, E. Baker (who )re residents of Fiji for many years, ior to World War II) have gained embarrassing reputation. Islands >itors seem to think that the Baker ime in Wahroonga, Sydney, is a •ardinghouse, and when they en unter the accommodation problem Sydney, they make urgent appli tion to Mrs. Ruth Baker.

“Please tell the Islands folk,” says rs. Baker, in a note, “that this NOT a boardinghouse,”

emories of H. R. Wahlen

Here is an interesting note from rs. E. Moltke, of Norfolk Island: “I was very interested in the ides about Mr. Wahlen: a son his was here for some time, work ; at the airport (Works & Hous -5). This son, a pleasant man, d me about his father when your it article appeared. He himself s born on Honolulu; lived in S. nerica; and was educated in irmany, at Hamburg, where Mr. ihlen now lives.”

jar Old Officialdom!

Our par (Feb. PIM, p. 63) about i engineering device of John Lynch dw of Bulolo, NG), which takes •e of railway breaks-of-gauge, has )ught an interesting note from Mr. nch himself.

He says his patented device will t take care of all gauge breaks— ly the change-over from 4 ft 81 in.

SW) to 5 ft 3 in. (Victoria). He

submitted his device to the railway authorities. Its use was estimated to cost £1,000,000. To convert Victoria to 4 ft 81 in. would cost £300,000,000. By using the device, Riverina wool could go to Melbourne instead of Sydney, saving huge sums in freight A truck of fruit could go straight through from Brisbane to Melbourne. But the engineering panjandrums of Australia turned it down. The soundness of the plan was proved when it was adopted and successfully used between France and Spain, where there is exactly the same break of gauge as between NSW and Victoria, “You were wrong in saying 1 propose to ‘resume the fight’,” says Mr. Lynch. “The spectacle of what happened to the inventor of the Owen gun, and many others, con vinced me of the futility—especially of a person without a degree or diploma—of fighting official ob stinacy. I’ve had my share of fight ing. The ideas are there for the

taking—just as they were taken by the Spanish-French railways.”

Worried Look on a

Pleasure Trip

A Santo, New Hebrides, reader writes us concerning the paragraph about Mr. Abe Saffron of Sydney nightclub and NSW Royal Commis sion on liquor fame (It was reported that he was cruising in the Pacific “on business”).

Reader writes: “Just to keep the record straight—Mr. Saffron was a through passenger on a French copra boat which called in here en route to Tahiti. His stay in Santo was there fore coincidental and his trip, he in formed me, purely for pleasure. He was accompanied by his wife, an infant, a worried look and a dog with a somewhat bizarre coiffure.

“While he stayed here, the custo mary rumours floated around, as they do with everybody who stays in Santo for more than a few days. As recent newspapers in Santo are an exception rather than the rule, his passes with the Royal Commission were only very vaguely known. Mr. Saffron