HISTORICAL NEW ZEALAND. "THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT."

Otago Witness, Issue 2661, 15 March 1905, Page 80

HISTORICAL NEW ZEALAND. "THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT."

By Ro. Cartuck.

Our Jack is a. '"John" — a Chinaman. He is a gocd-natured, obliging creature — j straight as a die. He has resided for a quarter of a century at Popitiki, a native settlement in "Pateison Inlet (Stewart Island). He follows the =raft of the fisherman, with a boat managed all by himself. He is otherwise a "managing man," and has managed things to <;ocd pecuniary account. This is his dwelling, and if we except a few paraphernalia peculiar to the Flowery Land — knicknacks stiiking to the almond eye — no one would bs outraged to learn it was domestication at the hands of a thrifty European housewife. '"Kapai the Kore.ro, John" — may your pigtail never grow less. The "building" was originally a boat, the brig Flying Scud, as the name .engraved on "the "stern plate still attests. It is a story of the sixth decade — a. terror in seafaring vicissitudes and harrowing 1 details. A Sydney seal poacher, the Grafton, got in among the sealeries 'at C'arnley Harbour, Auckland Islands. Meeting with ill success, bad* weather, and being equipped with faulty gear she was driven on shore, and becanie a total wreck.