EAST COAST.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1086, 4 August 1880, Page 2

EAST COAST.

[FROM OUK OWN" (.lOUKIWPOMOENT.I Thkre is really very little news up this way to send you that would prove interesting to your readers ; indeed, if a v newspaper correspondent on this Coast depended on his contributions to the Pross for a livelihood, nules3 he drew largely on his imagination, and copied extracts from other papers lie would have but a sorry time of it. The Miiories have been fortunate enough to secure a very fine whale recently. _ Two boats were out after it, one belonging to Waitotolci, and the other from WJiareponga, the former boat harpooned it, and the latter assisted iv towing it. There were eighteen men in the two boats, and they had a rough job to get it on shore. They got fast, to it on SYiibiy, 16th inst., and siftur taking them a considerable distance to the northward it, died and immediately sifter sunk, ami remained sunk for the next three d;vys. The Maories stuck to it, however ; aud on the Monday following they succeeded in towing it near to where the}' wished to laud it (i.e., nearly midway between Whareponga and Tupuroa) ; but their troubles were not yet over, as it was blowing hard from the S.E., and there was such a heavy surf rolling in that i they dared not to attempt to tow their heavy .-burden^- in, and they remained outside tiie. line of breakers all Monday night. Tlieir relatives on shore were keeping up a vigorous tangi being in fear that the crews of both boats would perish. On Tuesday the sea moderated, and they succeeded in towing it opposite to their trying-out station. I believe it has already yielded about three tuns, and they have not finished trying out yet. The Natives expect that it will yield between four and five tuns of oil. Several parties are going to try and purchase the oil, but the Maories are thinking of shipping it to Auckland themselves. There has been a great deal of sickness amongst the Natives hereabouts lately, the old people being the principal sufferers. , In fact some of them will not outlive the winter. Though they had an abundance of food last season, they are running short now at one or two settlements owing to their prodigality at tangis, at which times their wastefulness is proverbial. I note from your late issues that there is every probability of prolonged litigation in reference to Read's estate, &c, Verily the community of Gisborne though (if I may use an American term) only a picayune one delight in going to law, and. there is more litigation among them than in many a place with treble the population. To one at a distance it appears that nearly every one was against his neighbour, and of them it might well be said-' ' See how these Christians love one another " — ln my humble opinion the Arms Act ought to be considerably modified if not altogether repealed. Costly trials of indi/iduals take place under it, and after " Much ado about nothing," fall to the ground. It is of course fresh in the memory of your readers that Mr. Robert Cooper was tried in the Supreme Court at Wellington for a breach of the above Act, and other persons were also tried for being concerned iv the same affair, and they were all acquitted, as they fully deserve to have been. Those cases arose through the purchase of a gun from Messrs. Parnell and Boylan, by Tuta Nihoniho. The persons tried were put to serious inconvenience aud trouble, to say nothing of the heavy costs, and all for what? because the above named native had bought a gun worth £8 or £9, and at the very same time he had in his possession a double-barreled gun, which cost £30 in Wellington, and which he through one of the Cabinet Ministers who were in power at the time. Comment is needless ; but if that sort of thing is not " straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel " then what is 1 Besides the Act itself reminds one of the old saying about "shutting the door after the steed was out," inasmuch as it is notorious that the Maories were well armed long before the Act was passed, and since then they have always found ways and means to obtain arms and ammunition, not finding it hard to evade the Act. There have been numbers of cases tried similar to the above, and they have ended in a similar manner, after costing the persons tried much loss both in time and money.