Our Honesty Has Its Limitations

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 70, 23 March 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

Our Honesty Has Its Limitations

THE other day I took the return journey in Sam's lorry, past all those lonely cream boxes set in the midst of a wilderness one might have thought uninhabited. In the majority of boxes, sitting casually on top of cream cans, were little screws of paper containing an order and some coins. Sometimes it was not money, but its equivalent, a few dozen eggs, a sugar bag of gooseberries, some pound's of home-made butter, a sack of fungus. The moment seemed opportune to air my views and ask Sam for corroboration. Were not the people of the backblocks the most honest in the world?

By MLS.

The reply was disconcerting. Sam i waved a casual hand towards a kainga ' half-hidden in the bush. "See that bag ! of wool I picked up at Hori's gate? j Funny that he's never run a sheep on I liis farm yet." I digested this in silence, ; then ventured a defence of Hori. "I ' suppose if tho children pluck dead sheep ( ihoy consider themselves entitled to tho c wool, even if it's on someone else's ' place." "Maybe," agreed Sam tole- j ■antly, adding under his breath, "Not •, o mention half a dozen fat lambs in i he back of their truck to be sold lor A he Christinas market." '' 1: Repaid in Kind. \ "It isn't only the Maoris," ho went in presently. "After all, they was what e 'ou'd call Communists a couple of gene- 5 ations back, and, if Hori does pinch j rones' sheep, he'll always do him a good urn, send him over a bag of kumaras s rid a nice string of fish when he's been ii o the coast. The Maoris are apt to v o what they call borrowing your stock, " mt they make it up in kind, and a £ rise man leaves it at that. But the fc •akehas round here are pretty hot stuff, J aost of 'em." „ We paused here to pick up an order k or groceries and a pound note, casually tl rrapped in a scrap of dirty paper, ri That's Mrs. Mole's money. Won't avo a banking account, so I have to 'if ay all her bills. Often she leaves a d ver or so in the box for me." "She at h last has honest neighbours." "The X's y re her neighbours," answered Sam re- ii .ectivcly. I remembered the name, tl 'he brothers had been concerned in a lc ig sheep-stealing case six months be- tl Dre; they had not been convicted, but Si lie general opinion had been that they w

had Leon more lucky than tlicy deserved. Sam seemed to take a simple pride in the exploits of the famous brothers and began to tell stories of their prowess. Andy, he admitted, had cortainlv been a bit of a hard eas-j. Of course, he could never have pulled it ofT if that (log of his hadn't been a true silent worker, with as many brains as its master. Andy had been known to hint ill his cups that he could go to the paddock of any farmer about, muster them into a corner by moonlight, leave Dan (o hold them there while he picked out a dozen or so and put them quietly over the fence. ".And you asleep in your beds with only the" calling of the' nioreporks to disturb von." Several of his audience had looked sombrely thoughtful as they recalled a considerable and. unaccountable shortage last mustering. Just a Few " Pickings." The younger brother, Mac, was usually considered Andy's tool. To him fell the less spectacular if highly dangerous jobs of earmarking strange sheep or blurring brands beyond recognition. "When I considered it amazing that the brothers' misdeeds were so well known and that they had yet gone so long unconvicted, Sam said* that it : was the usual difficulty of securing evidence. Nothing, he told me, is as i ehanccy as a. sheep-stealing ease. Nine ] times out of ten the action fails, and • > oil ro let t with a slander ease on your 1 hands. If you escape that, you have 1 yet bad blood between yourself and a - neighbour capable and willing to re- ■, A cngo himself. Therefore, sooner than antagonist) a dangerous man, the i majority of the neighbours put up with i the loss of a few sheep yearly and , count themselves fortunate on the i whole. "And no one could call them bad chaps," said Sam surprisingly. "When Mrs. Mole was left a widow so sudden they saw to everything for her, dipped j her sheep, mended her fences—and wouldn't take a penny for it." When I ? suggested that they were probably paid 1 in kind, Sam was shocked. "They ? wouldn't have touched a hoof of hers, 7 not while she was so hard up. When her pa. died and left her a bit of money and 6 she could have a manager, why, then s things was different, of course." But I 1 Mrs. Mole don't mind if a sheep or two goes over that way in the year. She c knows they're her friends and tlicy saved tlio farm for her. Reckon they've the right to a few pickings." Having digested this in silence, I asked • if these were the onlv offenders in the ° district. "Not a bit 6f it. Why, Andy himself■ lost thirty ewes out of his own yards last shearing. Yes, taken awav 11 in a lorry in the night time—hut a there was so many marks with the H lorries coming mid "going for tlio wool " that it was no good trying to trace 'em. n So Andy laughed and guessed he knew where tb»v came fron>, and that ho'd £

make it up in good time—and I'll bet ho has." In short, as I suggested to Sam, it was a sort of game, and the devil take the hindmost. He agreed, adding that Andy's mistake had Leon trying it on Midi a newcomer, who didn't know his ways. That had ended in his "ottin" into Court for the first time. Xonc of tho neighbours, it seemed, would have dreamed of putting him up. They'd have known it would cost them dear in til" end and that the best way was just to wait your chance. It seemed unprofitable to argue the point, so we left it at that, liv and large, according to Sam, the district was a good one, kind and friendly to those 111 trouble. Tie was enlarging upon its virtues when we stopped at Dale's "-ate Here Sam searched his pockets conscientiously and at last produced fifteen shillings tied up in a piece of ra" -I should have left this last night," he told me, "but I clean forgot it. It's for some hens Mrs. Dale sold last week" "I expect she'll nave worried for fear it was stolen," I suggested, but Sam looked at mo pityingly. "Stolen? Who'd have touched her money?" lie r.sked "Weli you said yourself they wore a hard lot of eases 111 the district." "I in not denying it, but no one would touch a shilling that belon-ed to i neighbour." "Hut—sheep." I o U sp o ,i and Sam sighed. "You've "of «om»' queer idea*," he said patronising v. Can t you see that sheep's sheen and money's money?" He was so convinced by his own 10-ic that I felt the subject closed. °