"Robbie"

IN the Islands (NG and BSD the name of “Robbie” is legion. But in Sydney there is only one Robbie, so far as Islanders are concerned; he is Robert-Vernon Robertson (accent on the “bert”).

An ex-New Guineaite himself, he appreciates the problems facing the Islands’ stranger in Sydney, and he has the “open Sesame” for hard to-get bookings for air, land or sea travel, for theatres, or any shows, or what have you. He can plunge to the abysmal depths of the Taxation Dept, and emerge with a clearance in a fraction of the time required of the uninitiated. He can fossick out a dozen bottles of local beer from an apparent total aridity.

His snowy hair is hailed with de light all over Sydney. But every

one knows him and here he is.-

W.G.

Patrol Officer J. E. Wakefield’s report that “the notorious Kuku kuku cannibals of New Guinea are now, in fact, a kind and generous people with a wonderful sense of humour” was widely broadcast in Australia, and was received with signs of considerable astonishment by people who knew the little jungle-sneakers well in the days before World War 11, and who still carry the numerous marks of their treacherous arrows.