The Editors' Mailbag

Convicts and Missionaries

Off the Papuan Coast

The death of Mr. Wally Maidment, of Daru, Papua (October PIM, p. 27) recalls for an elderly reader, Mr. A. Minshull, now of North Queensland, some events at the turn of the century, Mr. Minshull also had some in teresting things to say about the early days of the LMS in Papua.

His mother was a schoolteacher on Saibai —an island that belongs to Queensland but is only three miles from the coast of Papua.

During his schooldays he was once invited by the Rev. Mr, Dauncey to make a two months tour of LMS mission stations in the mission’s vessel Niue. Mr. Maidment was in Daru at this time and had opened a store there with Mr. Luff.

While the family was on Saibai, the Minshulls were the first to learn of the murder of the Rev.

James Chalmers and his companion, Tomkins, by Goaribari natives.

The native skipper of the Niue, v/ho had seen it all happen, called in at Saibai and Minshull’s father sent him on to Thursday Island as quickly as possible.

Less welcome visitors than the missionaries on Saibai, were escaped convicts from the New Caledonian penal colony. They had stolen the Governor’s whale boat, and got as far as the remotest of the Torres Strait Islands somehow without mishap.

“My sister, who spoke French, advised them not to go near Thurs day Island or they would be arrested,” writes Minshull. “What became of them we never learned.”

A Tudor Did

Not Sleep There

One of the letters this month was directed to Editor Tudor, and caused considerable mirth, although the incident referred to was not regarded as funny at the time that it happened.

The letter was from Mrs. Marie Hendrick, who with her husband Bill, is now managing hotels for the Northern Hotels chain in Fiji. At the time of the incident aforesaid, they were managing a hotel in Port Moresby (Moresbyites will remember them in the 1954-56 period, and would probably like to know that they have now been in Fiji for a couple of years, with a recent three months break in the USA and Canada, looking over the hotel business there).

Mrs. Hendrick recalls herself to la Tudor by saying: “I shall never forget the night Blank Blank dis turbed the peace a bit and you were so upset about it yet so sweet to me . . .”

Tudor remembers the night very well, although Mrs. Hendrick is wrong on two points: It wasn’t that particular Blank who disturbed the peace on that occasion (although knowing him, we are sure he is quite capable of it); and Tudor wasn’t sweet to anyone that night.

The Blank who created the dis turbance was a very drunk Patrol- Officer and his half-dozen friends who moved their party up to the top lounge (off which all the bed rooms open) when the bar closed below. About 2 a.m., Tudor created quite a disturbance of her own, by screaming around the establish ment in her night shirt, bashing on doors, looking for the manage ment. She finally located the Hendricks, in an apartment down stairs and demanded that they come out at once and restore peace.

This they did. They dispersed the party and persuaded the Patrol- Officer to return to his room.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

Those were the days when not only were you expected to share rooms, but when things got really willing, a mattress was put on the floor between the two beds. The Patrol- Officer had a mattress on the floor and he spent the rest of the night either trying to erect the mosquito net that was part of the equipment or becoming entangled in it—and the racket went on, and on.

One of his room mates was the Rev. F. G. Lewis, then a Mission member of Legco. Throughout the fracas, he lay calmly in bed and read a book. This, Tudor thought at the time, to be remarkably poor spirited of him, but on reflection afterwards decided that it was not only Christian fortitude on his part, but the result of long years in the country: If things had been let be for only half an hour more, the whole party would have collapsed into drunken stupor, and peace would have been restored.

Tudor returned to bed and spent the rest of the night seething and writing imaginary articles, with flamboyant headings like, “The Night-Life of Moresby”: or A Tudor did NOT Sleep Here”. She never has had to stay at that pub since—but only because kind friends have rescued her. And she has never written that article, either, because she is always scared that some day she might have to go back and stay there.