Tahiti’S Bad Publicity

From Domestic Fight

TAHITI has had some bad publicity, and tourist-pro moters there have been caused some headaches through a current Court case in Honolulu.

The case arose over an American born woman, Mrs. Powell, slipping out of Papeete with her two children on December 29, aboard the Ameri can yacht Venturer, while a court case was pending in Papeete for custody of the children. Mrs. Powell and her British husband, John F. (Kim) Powell are estranged.

The Powells went to Tahiti in December, 1950, in their yacht Wind’s Will, and have been resident there ever since, Mr. Powell now owing some property there.

The Papeete Court some time ago ordered that the children (Kim, aged 4, and another younger child) be held in a Mission home pend ing settlement of custody. Mrs.

Powell alleged that it came to her knowledge that her husband in tended to seize the children from the home and take them back to their Tahiti country home. She con sidered that life for children is in sufferable in Tahiti: and, in the later action in Honolulu Court, pro duced two former Tahiti residents, a Mrs. Mitchell and a Mrs. Schultz, to support her. Some of the accusations: Billions of rats, billions of mosquitoes, no sanitation, and, according to Mrs. Powell, no doctors that she could trust.

As it was known that the yacht Venturer had cleared Papeete for Honolulu, Mr. Powell flew there via Fiji immediately and secured a writ of habeas corpus. Both parties have now been warned by the Honolulu Court against attempting to remove the children from Hawaii before the case is settled.

Meanwhile, Tahiti’s Tourist Bureau is doing all it can to point out that there are millions more rats and mosquitoes in San Francisco than there are in Tahiti.