NORFOLK ISLAND.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18128, 18 July 1924, Page 11

NORFOLK ISLAND.

HAILED AS A PARADISE (iSOU OUB OWN COEBESPONDKST.), SYDNEY, July 10. Norfolk Island has so far outlived its grim; history of human suffering, •tylien criminals preferred death ;tp,> imr prisoninent there, to be hailed by a well-known Melbourne gentleman as a "paradise "worthy of the title of the Madeira of the Pacific." Mr H. S. Edgar, trho is .spending. a.years holiday there, is the enchanted visitor, and he describes xho • fascinations of the island in a letter to his brother, Mr W. H. Edgar, M.L.C., of Melbourne. Mr Edgar purchased a comfortable house and four acres of land for £270 the dav after ho arrived. He:found abundance of milk, butter, poultry, and cream, and tons of fruit going to waste. : Beef cost 4d a lb, and fish were cheap. A trumpeter weighing 81b was obtainable for Is. He describes the .climate as delightful, and prophesies that the island-will, become popular with tourists desiring to-escape the rigours of the winter in Southern Australia and New Zealand. ! Referring to the property transaction. Mr Edgar wrote that he could have secured the property he bought for a rental of 25s a week.' _ He preferred to purchase, however, m the expectation that after improving it he would be able to sell at a profit after his 12* months' -stay on the island. Norfolk Island, which was. discovered by Captain Cook in 1774, is now. administered as a territory, of .the Commonwealth. . Its population vhen .'tho census was taken in 1921 was 717 339 males and 378 females.