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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IV, Issue 100, 30 April 1869, Page 2

Unanswerable. — The Buller River correspondent of the Westport Times, writes: — *' One proof of the popularity of the question of separation is the fact of a Mr. Gourley having put on a boat at Hawk's Crag and calling it Separation." The storm of Sunday caused heavy floods both at Hokitika and Grey mouth. Fences and outhouses were blown over, and so hard did the wind blow that some portions of the Greymouth Tramway were covered with sand. The" Hokitika racecourse was encircled with water, a creek hoving been formed on the side opposite the Grand Stand. The houses in the vicinity of the cricket ground at one time had a foot of water in them, and the gardens attached were, in some instances, almost destroyed. In the town all the low portions were under water, and in Tan-cred-street the horses had to be removed from Cobb and Go's stables. The various wing-dams stood well, but the river made great havoc on the bank below the punt. — fVestport Times, April 29. Otago has beaten Victoria in another rifle-match, by 78 points. A new arrangement has been made in the programme of the Prince's route. The Galatea will leave Auck'.aud for Fiji on the 18th of May next, and will afterwards visit Tonga, Tahiti, and the Sandwich Islands, leaving the latter on the 18th July. Converted Savages. — It ia needless to dwell upon the derails of this sickening tragedy, (the Poverty Bay Massacre). As it has become the fashion, however, to be ashamed of any natural emotion of vengeance when the victims are white, and the murderers dark-skinned, it may be useful to carry in our minds one of the pictures which have been brought away from the scene of blood — that of Major Biggs lying dead and horribly mutilated on his own hearth, side by side with his butchered wife still clasping to her bosom her child " with the brains dashed out." It may do good to British humanity to have the "noble savage" thus brought to mind in a piece of genuine, work. Wehave been so much in the habit of late of prostrating ourselves before the "black brother " and disfiguring ourselves in his sight, that it is well to be reminded that even the " chivalrous Maori," noblest and best as he is of savages, and subject though he has been for a whole generation to the enterprises of the missionary, is but a savage after all — rather a worse savage, we are compelled to say, than he was before conversion. In his nnregenerate days he murdered, at least in all due form and after solemn warning, eating his victim rather out of vengeance than appetite. In his civilised state he murders craftily, and stealthily, out of pure wanton lust of blood, and deliberately pots his slain, for household provisiou. The Hauhau is a product entirely of Maori civilization. He is a type of the savage made perfect by the process which is culled coaversiou. — Standard.