"TIN CAN MAIL."

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 65, 17 March 1936, Page 9

"TIN CAN MAIL."

BOOK TO BE WRITTEN. FOUNDER AND , CARTOONIST. PARTNERSHIP OF ROMANCE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SUVA, March 9. Mr. C. S. Ramsay, the hero of what is known throughout the world as the "tin can mail," on the little volcanic island of Niuafoou, is busy writing a book. He has been joined in the work by his friend, Mr. Charlie Plumb, New York cartoonist. Their partnership is in itself a romance. They met when a tourist liner called at Niuafoou and Ramsay delivered some 30,000 stamped envelopes bearing the emblems of "tin can island." They became warm friends and when Ramsay's employers shut down their business in .Niuafoou Ramsay migrated to run an avocado pear ranch in sunny California. He left it to take up a position at Pago Pago for Burns Philp. Here he was lately joined by Plumb and for a month they got busy sketching the plan of a book on Niuafoou, full of stirring events. Then Ramsay had to come to Suva for an operation and Plumb came with him. The operation was successful and the two men, full of .bright thoughts and plans, set out yesterday by the freighter Nordic for Nukualofa to complete their romance of the most spectacular island in tlife South Seas. For years Ramsay, who was a trader on Niuafoou, often swam out with the mail placed in a sealed tin can to the passing steamer, but when one of his native helpers was taken by a shark the mail was carried out in a canoe. This is done at great risk as there is no safe landing place on the island.