SLY-GROG SELLING.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 228, 1 October 1897, Page 2

SLY-GROG SELLING.

THE KING COUNTRY RAID.

THE INFORMER BOYCOTTED

GROG STILL PLENTIFUL,

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

Otorohanga, Wednesday. The tiresome sly grog-selling cases have at last been finished, and most of the natives and the informers returned to their homes at the end of last week. Strange to say, more drunkenness has been noticeable since the police raid than before it. No doubt the informers arc much annoyed at so many natives being sent to durance vile instead of being fined, as in that case they wonld have received half of the plunder. The Maoris are also angry that they should have been sent to prison without the option of a fine, while all the pakelms were allowed an alternative, and state that they were always led to believe that there was only one law for black and white alike. On'lus return to Otoroliauga, Hinaki, the informer, received a warm reception. All the natives who had been aliected by the charges, men and women, assembled and mobbed him, and there would have been little of him left but for the intervention of the police. None of the Maoris would give Hinaki shelter, and lie and his wife and family are now the quests of the local constable." During the trial Captain Jackson gave Sergeant Cullen a warm five minutes ovei the action he had taken in the matter, when one of the European lady defendants fainted in Court. It was, he wiid, very wrong indeed lor a man logo about the country under a guise, and induce women and girls to commit crime in order that he might proceed against them. The representatives of the law ho; thought should endeavour to prevent crime instead of participating in it. Sergt. Oullen, as is well-known, passed himself olf as an insurance canvasser ; but the following copy of his card might prove of interest : — " Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society, Limited. F. Berkley, Canvassing Agent." The action he took will certainly not help to any material degree in extending life insurance business here. In fact, insurance agents had better give the King Country a wide berth for a time. Most tradesmen are quite content with small profits and quick returns, and this is just where the alluring nature of the slygrog business comes in ; the trade is a cash one, and the profits enormous. One Maori who had £3 to invest was induced to lay it out in liquor, with the result that he and his mate, meandering round with a bottle in one pocket and glass in the other, netted over £8 each the lirst week, and that certainly "knocks" farming. What we want is a licensed house at Otorohanga, and another at Te Kuiti, run on the Gothenburg system for choice ; but whatever the system let us have them, and he quick about it.