MISCELLENEOUS NEWS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VII, Issue 1186, 2 December 1880, Page 2

MISCELLENEOUS NEWS.

The Hawera Star "thns- writes on. the subject q%. slip-panefei : — The Premier and the Native Minister, are about to travel from Ojmnake to New:; : Plymb.utli, ■ en \,route t<> Auckland. ; IK £ ls~ &»ifcl that' their main object* is.- to inspect the Maori fence and "to pass the' obstructions to traffic, if the slip-panels .are moderately easy to- take down or put np. A. long and painful experience of slip-panels has convinced, us that all the ' combined forces of the law, the Government, arid his Satanic Majesty would fail to enforce the re-erection of a set' of slip-rails on a public thoroughfare. The manly colonial spirit of independence objects to shutting a gate, and draws the line at slip-rails. As a {rule, the >noble? savage resolutely scorns to put up a set of bars for a Enropean, and even the Native Office could hardly expect the pakehas to be more .obsequious to , Maori claimants of confiscated land". If it has really been decided by the MinistfyHhat, subject to v the approval of the Premier arid' ; Nafive Minister, the Maori slip-panels shall be allowed to remain, then we would humbly suggest that the office of slip-: panel erecter be conferred on the most patient and, docile, man to be found in the A.C. It is, however, quite possible that in the whole of the ranks of that force, f none could be found willing to undertake so. base and humiliating a duty. . In his recently published book, "Recollections of Travel in New Zealand," Mr Crawford',, „F G. 5.,, late R.M. ;.pf Wellington,^ '^us forcibly pburtravs the evils'origmm'imism among the" .Maoris ;. — A^snb^ -.w^den^^mong tlio Maoris, affdrofa an s 6ppbrtunitiy of.^estimating th%t merits and demerits of communism,; and the admirers of that system>miglity ■witnadvantage;* atndy the resiJts practically arrived at in* th# old tribal organisation of New Zealand. No maii could ' fairly call his" pfojperfy.his own. I observed one Maori,- industrious than his neighbors, who owned a cow, and milked it, but the rest of the tribe helped themselves to the milk as a matter of course, and the owner thought himself lucky to be allowed to retain a small modicum. Not that ajl men are equal among the Maoris, as'gfeat weight attaches .^o'-the word and of the chief, but the difficulty of acquiring aud retaining

individual ptop'erfy under the old native customs is in practice so great as to paralyse individual exertion and? improvement. Living, feeding, and sleeping are very much in common. This may seem somewhat picturesque, but it is very damping to individual ambition, and seriously injurious to the progress of the community in what we call civilly sation. Communism may be sui' able at a certain stage in the life of a people, about 'the first advance' irom-- utter barbarism, but for a civilised community to adopt such,', a system would be absolute.retrogression. ■ A late report -says^that Jerusalem is now a j more cdmf^taible place to live in than ever' before." ' ' The report is made by Mr. Schicll, surveyor of buildings, who states that many ruing have been restored' and many new buildiugs erected, and that the streets are kept in a remarkable state of cleanliness for a city in the Holy Land. The town is lighted, too, and watered by the restoration of j the aqueduct from the pools of Solomon. Tanyards and slaughter-houses have been moved outside of the city limits and the sanitary department is in charge of a Dutch doctor. Bethlehem and Lazareth and other towns of Palestine are also brushing up and dusting off and making themselves fit for moderns to live in. Nazareth is even getting some windows put in. Palestine is evidently waking up, .but it can^'ardly ever catch"up/with the rest of * the. world, . after its long nap. One item ,pf information in the report is that thelJews. are rapidly increasing, in Jerusalem. A striking, testimony to the potent influence of the terrorism which has been inspired by the perpetrators of the murder of Lord Mountmorres in the locality of Lough Corib is afforded by the alleged refusal of the cottagers to allow the body to be brought inside their doors, even when there was still room to doubt if life were extinct. A constable in giving evidence as to the finding of the body, said the doctor who first examined if thought he detected a pulsation, and he directed thebody'toobe taken- into the nearest lious.e.; some jtnooc- three hundred yards fnrther;4wvMd?Qie road. The iowner of , the house; <» However, "whilst professing -sympathy-: tmthiLord' Mountmorres, resolutely refused to admit the bodjr, and he^was supported in his refusal by his wife and daughters, on the declared ground that -if they admitted the body, living or^deady; r '-'nothing be-' longing to them would-be alive that day twelve months." In other words they stood in such terror of the Vehmgericht by which the deceased -peer was done to death, that they preferred incurring the' odium of gross 'inhumanity and the cenr sure of public' opinion to braying "the vengeance of the secret organisation. ' ,