HIGH JINKS AT MANGATAINOKA.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 91, 2 August 1895, Page 3

HIGH JINKS AT MANGATAINOKA.

Constable Cooper bad a merry time of it yesterday morning (says the Pabiatua Herald). About 8 o’clock be received information from Mangatainoka that some men bad charge of tbe town and weie making things hum all round. He inane diately started for the scene of operations and on arriving ai Mangatainoka he found that some swaggers bad broken into Mr "Wagstaff’s brewery and bad stolon a largo quantity of beer and carried it to an empty house situated about the middle of the tow a, of which they had taken possession, and wore having a high old time. When they had finished one lot of beer they would proceed to the brewery and carry back another supply, and so things were going on under full swing when Constable Cooper arrived on the scene. Their being four of there gentlemen the constable thought it wise to take Mr Barrell, J.P., with him. On going into the house he found those gentlemen were a gang of old gaoi identities, whom he hod driven out of Pabiatua on Friday night last* They threatened and bullied, cursed and blasphemed, but they found they had the wrong constable to bully, With little ceremony Constable Cooper bund’ed them into Mr Wagstaff’s cart, which he took- the precaution to have in readinecs, and drove them straight to the Pabiatua cells. They are dcsciibed as the roughest and most desperate looking batch that has ever been lodged in the local lock up, and Constable Cooper deserves the highest credit for the manner in which he handled them. A little bungling would have led to serums trouble. The inhabitants of Mangalainoka during Saturday night and up to

Sunday morning were simply at t.ie mercy of a band of gaol ruffians. The language and abuse dealt out to passers by, both men and women, by these halfmad brutes was simply indescribable. Eveiy week brings stronger evidence that the people of Mangatainoka need resident police protectic n. It is reported also that about dark yesterday evening two_ girls were chased by a man in Margatainoka, who threatened to assault them. The girls screamed, and the pursuer becoming alarmed struck into the bush. Constable Cooper, together with Messrs Barrell and Polglase, were told of the matter just afterwards, and they searched the bush round where the man entered, but could find no trace of him. The girls say he was a man well up in years, but can give no further description of him. The police have no further clue to his identity.