NORFOLK ISLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18772, 28 July 1924, Page 4

NORFOLK ISLAND.

HAILED AS A PARADISE.

CHEAP HOUSES AND FOOD. [FKOH OTTCt OWN CORIUJSPONDENT.] SYDNEY. July 17. Norfolk Island has so far outlived its grim history of human suffering, when criminals preferred death to imprisonment 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. 8. Edgdr, who in spending a year's holiday there, is tho enchanted visitor, and he describes tho fascinations of tho island in a letter to his brother, Mr. \V. H. Edgar, M.L.0., of Melbourne. Mr. Edgar purchased a comfortablo house and four acres of land for £270, tho day after he arrived. He found abundance of milk, butter, poultry and cream, and tons of fruit going to waste. Beef cost 4d a lb., arid 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 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 ho bought for a rental of 25s a week. He preferred to purchase, however, in the expectation that after improving ifc he would be able to sell at a profit after his 12 months' stay on tho island. Norfolk Island, which was discovered by. Captain Cook in 3774, is now administered as a territory of the Commonwealth. Its population, when the census was taken in 1921, was 717—339 malep and 378 females.