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Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 11976, 13 May 1914, Page 2

According to Mr Mitchell, who has been engaged- in the pearl-shelling industry at Thursday Island for the last 1G years, and who arrived in Sydney last week, there is in the finding of pearls an appalling destruction of human life. "The life of a diver at Thursday Island," 'says Mr Mitchell, "is about ten years. After that he is worn out—usually paralysed—and ho returns to his home. The work entails a tremendous strain on the system, and) unless a man is constitutionally fit, he has no chance of becoming a successful diver. Paralysis is common.'" The Japanese are the best divers, Mr Mitchell says, because they are fatalists, and fear neither paralysis nor death. In the season there are betweeu 2000 and 3000 men engaged in th*? pearl and boche-de-nier industries, repiesenting every nation under the snn, but mostly Jaapneso and natives from the local islands and from Papua.