Hooligans

Fiji Has Thieves and Hooligans

AN extraordinary amount of petty thieving has been reported in Fiji in recent weeks.

The police are active and alert, and quite a number of thieves— youths mostly—have been picked up and gaoled; but the trouble lies m the number of newcomers who seem to be drifting into crime.

A young Fijian who was sent to prison for several weeks had apparently just grabbed at anything lying around loose —articles in stores, bits of equipment in kitchens, cloth ing left lying beside swimming pools.

Ram Jag, of Lautoka. awakened on New Year’s Eve to find that his two cows had been taken away overnight.

Pastor P. D. R. Wenker, a Latter Day Saints missionary, went fora swim on New Year’s Day, at Wami yabia Beach. Whence returned to his clothes his travelling money Fijian, £5 Tongan, and 50 Lb dollars) had disappeared.

There may be more in this than just an epidemic of sneak-thieving.

Old residents of Fiji fear that present-day conditions in the bigt,er towns —especially Suva and Lautoka -are breeding a race of young hooligans among Fijians and Indians.

The first sign of this kind of social

degeneracy is lack of respect for other people’s property.

There was evidence of this un desirable element in the behaviour of the sugarmill strikers in Lautoka and Ba last month.

Miss Ginette Retard, daughter of Mr and Mrs. J. Ratard, of Santo, New Hebrides, will be married in St Patrick’s Church, Sydney, on February 8, to Mr. Frederick J. dark There will be a reception, later, at the Starlight Room of the Hotel Australia.