FOR OLD TIME’S SAKE.

Grey River Argus, 27 June 1922, Page 8

FOR OLD TIME’S SAKE.

(By “Old Boy.”) The next street to which we shall ruler is WERITA STREET. This small cross street leaves Mawhera Quay at the Union Bank corner. At one time several lawyers (Parkins, Nowton, Warner, etc.), had their offices here and the street was once compared to a blackberry bush—the silly sheep ran to it for protection, but were sure to leave some of their wool behind them! In the earlier days, before the amalgamation of the Union Bank of Australasia, it was the latter’s building which occupied the corner site, the Union Bank being next door on a section now vacant. .Jimmy Johnston’s Melbourne Hotel occupied the site of Kettle Bros’, shop. (Jimmy was the town’s “heavyweight” publican —he probably weighed about 19 stone.) Coates’s store (now Parfitt’s) was not 1 built till some time after the great flood of ’72. The most conspicuous building was Nancarrow and Henderson’s auction mart and shipping offices—still in use by another firm. Werita Street was greatly used on occasions as being the principal means of access to the Volunteer Hall, whoso main entrance faced this thoroughfare. Irrespective of the “fossil history” of its name, Werita Street claims distinction as having in it, in the shape of Messrs Hannan and Seddon’s office, the first brick building erected in Grey mouth. This was designed by that fine convivial old spirit, the late J. W. Eiseenhardt, whoso fa vourite song most old boys remember (“When I sing “Tiddley Vink” you sing “Pom-Pom”). The builders of this imposing edifice (no irony tn the generation which watched its erection) were Messrs Walton and Murray—the former, “the grand old man” of the Jockey Club, is still with ns, hale, hearty and respected. The bricks were locally made for the same firm. Previous to the erection of the brick structure, Mr William Perkins, then the leading lawyer of the town, and afterwards Crown Prosecutor, carried on business in a tiny wooden building of only two rooms, on the same site. In the outer office, the more burly figure of his lawclerk, James Footp, a high authority on local finance whether public or private —protected bis diminutive chief (“Little Pyrks”) from unnecessary or unwelcome callers. Mr Perkins was not much seen where merchants and others most did congregate. When ho oppenrod in a public house there was generally supposed to be “danger in the air,” but he was a great lover of Nature. He had an edition of Puller's Book of Birds, with its magnificent coloured plates, a publication T have never had this pleasure of seeing since. It was this early-dny professional lawyer and amateur naturalist who first introduced frogs (known as the whistling frogs) to the Coast. Some may think he was the reverse of a benefactor to us in doing so, but his main object —the abatement of the mosquito nuisance—has been accomplished. Mr Perkins (who afterwards returned to Tasmania, where ho died) when a bachelor, built the first house (first in point of both time and space) on Alexa ml er Terrace behind the Railway Station. Ho afterwards married, and had erected for him a private residence which was then the finest in Greymouth. It is now the residence of the Marist Brothers. The name Werita commemorates the greatest Maori chieftain ever in these parts since the coming of the white man. Werita Tainui was head of his -linn —a sub-*ribe of the Ngatitoas—when Brunner came to the Coast in 1849. He well and truly ruled his people till long after Greymouth had become a firmly established municipal ity and important gold and coal port of this district of which at one time his tribe had been the proud possessors. Ho was “Old Tainui” to Reubeu Waite, and he was of course “Old Tainui” when he died about 16 years afterwards, about 1880. Tlis real age no one knew, but he was undoubtedly a centenarian at his death. His grave at the quarry, opposite the Cobden Bridge, is marked by a plain iron cross surrounded by a few railway sleepers. The spot is known to few, and of interest to fewer, yet it marks the site of a Maori cemetery in which lie the bones of numbers of the tribe. In my young days the cemetery was on a small terrace perhaps 10ft above the road level. The actual burial place was a cave, a natural shaft or vertical opening in the limestone, like so many to be found on the hills at the back of our town. Tho bodies were lowered into the eave much as we lower the coffins in our European cemeteries, ex- ' cept that the rope of flax ran over a rounded beam—a fixed windlass as it wore—across the opening. Werita Tainui was the last to be buried in the place. \\ hen tho writer once proposed, at a certain meeting, that a little care might be given to tho spot and a little interest kept alive as to its significance he was scoffed nt. “Let the Maoris do it! ” he was told. Ho is still of the opinion that the place should not be so neglected—that for “For Old Time’s Sake,” if not for historical purposes, the resting place of the Maoris I should be made more prominent than it is.