AN OKAHUNE OGRE.

NZ Truth, Issue 97, 27 April 1907, Page 4

AN OKAHUNE OGRE.

SLY GROG AND A SIDE LINE.

The Way to Coin Cash m the

King Country.

One of the hottest yet comes from Okahune. Appears that some time ago, shortly after last Cup time, so the story runs, a josser landed m that cheerful village m hunt of honest, toil. He got it all ri«ht with a gang m a cutting. When the job was through the wages didn't flan out too well, principally so his pals allege through this chap's lack of knowledge, of the game, or want of liking for hard graft, or want of something, anyhow they bumped him. But he got m with another gams. j working m a better face, ami by , dint of "graft" not the hard vaiv iety, but the yankee sort, he got to he top dog of that lot. But even that was a bit slow for him, and he must turn his ' hand to other - means of knocking out a crust and spending silver, so he began a trade m whisky at 15s a bottle. This proved good "business, and be began, to enlarge upon his operations, ami blossomed out into a miniature ' whisky merchant. He afterwards invested m a horse and cart and bejran to take excursions up the line to the outlying camps. On one occasion he disposed of a large cargo so effectively that on the 'Sunday the whole blanky camp got,- blue blind stick stone stark, '..paralytic.. "|irid , mad 3 hogs of themselves generally. Not only did the wen set drunk but a woman, and so frightfully intoxicated did she become and so abandoned to all sense of shame that she became the common property of riuite^. number of vicious brutes who were iso lost to all d°eent feeling as to take advantage of her HELPLESS, HOPELESS STATE, as to ravish her m a most disgraceful and degrading manner. This gave our hero a new idea. A woman of loose morals would: be a good property — a little gold mine m fact, and along with the sly-grog tirade should mean a very decent income. Accordingly, the investment m human flesh and blood was made and a prostitute from the sKnilh was., brought along and her services hired out to the navvies at so miuch a time, whilst her "owner" the man of the perambulating.' sly-grogiejery, raked m the spoil. This is* still gding on, so .this paper is faithfully informed by more than one resident of that district. The trade thrives. Tke navvies want their: whisky arid are willing to pay any exhorbitant price for it whether it lie sold by a licensed vendor or any other "sort of man. The lady is taken round on a side line as it were, and the owner of the combination is amassing wealth at suoh a rate that it is expected he will smjortlyhafve enough to come south and invest m some swell pub m Wellington. Of coursie, it is generally recognised that up m that wild rountry anything is possible, and, anything withiu limit i^B allowable', but surely the nolice of : even Okahune cant- keep their eyes clqsed for ever to a business of this glaring character. Maybe, by. the. time this is printed he' will hav# made things so hot that he'll have had to do a get, or maybe some* one will have given him the whisper to "go slow." Anyhow we trust - that after the publication of this article, he will have the sense, 'if not the <decency, to-'Vtake Awnull," -and— ( lf!he doesn't, the police wilL probably see that his next job is with ; the Government where the wage is a« : ; small as the hours are regular .5 .■ ■ ,