DIABOLICAL OUTRAGE AT WOODSIDE.

Auckland Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2332, 6 September 1877, Page 2

DIABOLICAL OUTRAGE AT WOODSIDE.

A SHORT time ago we drew attention to the circumstances attending the closing of the public school at Woodside, Groat South Koad. This school had been erected with

subscriptions laised in the district, upon a ! site given by a resident for a public school. | The land was vested by the donor in ' trustees. Subsequently, upon the appli- '■ cation of the trustees, the Board of Educa- ' tioa agreed to make the school a public school under the Education Act, built a teacher's residence out- of the funds of the ; Board, created a school district, and a j committee was elected amdteacherappointed ; in the ordinary course. Everything worked well enough, until a certain section of the ! trustees, personally antagonistic to Colonel ' Kooke, the teacher, endeavoured by various i expedients to oust him, in defiance of the school committee,, snd the wishes of the great majority of settlers in the district. The Board of Education built the teacher's house, relying, on the assurance that the sohooland land would be handed over in the usual way. But on making the demand for the transfer, the trustees refused to hand over tho building, raising a question of accounts. Instead of at once determining their position by a suit in the Supreme Court, the Board temporised with the trustees, and at length arrived at the peurile decision of closing the school, thinking apparently that the teacher would thus be got out of the way. The school committee, however, were not the incn to be domineered over in the performance of their legal duties as representatives of the householders of Woodside, by persons utterly unknown to the Education Act, and they very properly re-elected Mrs Kooke, an accomplished lady, and thoroughly qualified teacher to the charge of the school. But the school building has been kept closed, while the Board remains inactive, and all the children attending the school liave been crowded into a small room in the teacher's house. On the tenth of last month a further stage in this extraordinary story was reached. \ the trustees applying to the Jti.M. Court Papakura, for an order to oust Mrs Eooke, i the duly appointed teacher, from the house I erected by the Board of Education. We ! are not aware whether the Board took any i steps to protect the teacher, or left the ; lady to bear the whole brunt of it. The j part taken by the Board throughout has ', been singularly vacillating, and undignified, i and has placed the teacher and the^ school • committee in a false position and subject iu> continual annoyance. But latterly the ' lady has been subject to a species of persecution of a ttill more serious and diabolical ■ character, the perpetrators of which are, as i yet, undiscovered. Colonel Piooke having ! been forced from the district, the lady with j her children are living alone, and during I the last few weeks the dog has been ■ poisoned, the windows of the house smashed,and the hedge set onfire. Theseout- , rages culminated early last Monday mornI ing in an act of a most atrocious character. : At daybreak a loud explosion was heard i close to the house. and on Mrs i Rooke's going into the room used i for a school, she found it full of I smoke, which from the pungent smell | emanated from burnt gunpowder. Mr ! Burnside, who lives in :i cottage not many j chains off, had heard the explosion, and oil j seeing Mrs Kooke, he asked what had i exploded. She replied that sho did not | know, and the two together searched the I premises, Under the stairs leading to the j kitchen a piece of burnt fuse was disj covered, and the remains of a powder flask. i Evidently some cowardly ruffian had I lighted the fuse and left the flask to burst, either with the intention of doing harm, or with the idea of frightening Mrs Kooke. No trace has yet been discovered of tjhe author of the malicious trick, but Detective Grace visited the place yesterday, and we I trust the miscreant will be discovered, and brought to iustiee