What 'Cannibal Jack' didn't say

in his autobiography

By Robert Langdon

When the Rev. William Hadfield was serving as a missionary at Lifu in the Loyalty Islands in the late 1880’s, he met, during a visit to the island of Mare, an old trader called William Diaper, otherwise known as Cannibal Jack. Diaper had had a most colour ful career in the South Sea Islands.

“I do not remember much of our conversation,” Hadfield wrote some 40 years later, “but his personality made a deep impression on my mind.

I was surprised to learn during our talk that he spoke the Mare language (which I did not speak), also the three languages of the other two islands of the group (of which I spoke only two). I gathered also that Mr. Diapea [sic] was in low water as regards funds, and 1 was pleased to be of service to him in giving him a few light articles of clothing.

“I have no doubt that it was in thankful recognition of this that he asked me to accept an exercise book closely filled with an account of some years of his adventurous life. ... I could not find an opportunity of reading the manuscript at the time, but later when I had leisure, I took it up more from curiosity than from any expectation of pleasure. Although the handwriting was most trying and indistinct, I found I must finish it before laying it down. I was charmed, and at times thrilled as I ac companied Cannibal Jack from island to island.

'Course language'

“My regret on closing the book was that the writer had used such coarse language and described events in so realistic a manner as to pre clude any thought of publication [in those Victorian times]. ... I there fore stowed the MS away with other derelict material, where it would have remained in obscurity or have been destroyed had it not been unearthed and perused by one of my sons . . who clamoured for its immediate

publication. . .

As a result of the enthusiasm of Hadfield’s son. Hadfield interested a London publisher, Faber & Gwyer, in the Diaper manuscript, and in 1928 the manuscript was published

as Cannibal Jack: The True Auto biography of a White Man in the South Seas.

According to an introduction which Hadfield wrote for the book, the book was presented “just as it left the hands of Cannibal Jack, except ing one incident mentioned by him which the most friendly censor would hardly have passed”.

Hadfield gave no hint as to what this mysterious, expurgated incident could be: and Pacific scholars have long been wondering whether some priceless piece of South Seas lore was suppressed through the over friendly attentions of Cannibal Jack’s editor.

Veil of mystery

Now, at last, the veil of mystery may be torn down; the expurgated may become unexpurgated; the un known may be made known. For after a correspondence extending over several months, the Pacific Manu scripts Bureau, Canberra, has both located the present owner of the Diaper manuscript and has finally prodded him into digging it out from a mass of papers at the family farm.

The owner of the manuscript is Dr. lan Hadfield, of Winchester, Hamp shire, England, a busy medical prac titioner, who said in a recent letter that the manuscript is now in a very delicate condition.

IPs hoped that arrangements can be made for the manuscript to be micro-filmed in England.