TEMPERANCE WORK AMONG THE NATIVES.

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 4, Issue 191, 29 July 1896, Page 2

TEMPERANCE WORK AMONG THE NATIVES.

The current issue of the Graphic contains un excellent portrait and a short biographical sketch of Mrs James Duff Hewett, a lady whose indefatigable efforts in instilling temperance principles in the minds of the natives are worthy of all commendation. Mrs Hewett was in Rotorua, it will be remembered, a few weeks ago, and it is satisfactory to learn that she then induced many of the natives, women more especially, to take the temperance pledge. On her return to Rotorua after a snort absence she was gratified to find that her efforts here had not been wasted. The circumstances which led Mrs Hewett to take up work among the Maoris are interesting. She came to the Colony in 1853, and at an early age was married to Mr James Hewett, of Wanganui, son of the late Colonel Hewett, whose name was the last to be erased from the list of officers who fought at Waterloo. A year after her marriage the Maori Wht broke out. The conflict ushered in for Mrs Hewett a seven years of hardship such as it has been the lot of few people to bear. Having lost all her property and undergone ono misfortune after ano f her. her troubles culminated in the terrible death of her husband, who was .miong those who were killed by the natives. Left with four small children, three of whom are now settled in the Colony, Mrs Hewett bravely faced the world, and notwithstanding the many troubles she herself was called on to bear, devoted herself all the more eagerly to the service of her fellows. It was in Levin that she first became interested in the Maoris. There she saw the terrible change wrought among the natives after a public house had been set up. The poor Maoris fell easy victims to the temptation thrown in their way, and the little village became degraded by the presence of drunkards. Mrs Hewett determined to start a crusade against liquor in the interests of the Maoris, and from that day to this she has never swerved from her resolve or grown cold in her work of reformation.