Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 1989.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5434, 26 March 1889, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 1989.

THE MAORIS AND THE LAW.

In the brief address which Mr Justice Richmond delivered to the Grand Jury at the opening of the Criminal Sessions, he alluded to the fact that the four Maoris who were to be tried had been brought to justice through the instrumentality of their ■ :y:\\. This gratifying circumstance was certain to give rise to reflection in the mind of the Judge who is presiding at the Supreire Court here. When Mr W. C. Richmond was Native Minister there wore probably more Natives than Europeans in the North Island. The whole European population of the colouy in 1859 was under 80,000. The number of the Maoris at that period is very much a matter of conjecture. The Native population most likely exceeded (30,000, and then, as now, the North Island contained by far the greater number. _ Time has wrought a wondrous change during the past thirty years. The European population of the colony at the present day is over 600,000, and the Maoris in both islands number about 40,000, or one to every fifteen Europeans. In the North Island the invaders outnumber the children of the soil by seven or eight to one. The continuous change which has been going on in the relative numbers of the two races is the process by which the tfative difficulty has been settled. When the Maoris- fully perceived that there could only be one issue to the struggle for supremacy,it was feared that the ancient inhabitants of the country would elect to die out in "sullen isolation, " and a movement in this direction was attempted by various leaders, and at one time promised partial success. But circumstances have been too much for the Natives, and to-day it may with truth be said that the Queen's writ is aeknowledgtd throughout the length and breadth of this island. There is no greater evidence of advancing civilisation amongst a primitive people than obedience to law. This is not so much shown by the absence of crime as in the acknowledgement that the law of the laud is the great redresser of wrongs against person or property. That the Maoris of the East Coast regard the law as a protector is shown by their efforts in bringing offending countrymen before the Courts of Justice constituted by the supreme rulers of the land.

I A meeting of the J Battery members is

called for to-morrow evening at 7.30. The Harbor Board meet, tins evening, when Mr Bennett's motion ?'e letting the work by tender will come on for discussion. At the Police Court this morning a case of drunkenness was heard, and the accused person was dismissed. A strong southerly wind came up this afternoon, and thero is a likelihood of there being a welcome steady downpour of rain this evening. It is not considered likely that His Honor Judge Richmond will hold a late sitting of the Supreme Court after the six o'clock adournment this evening. To day's mercury readings in Gisborne at 9 and 12 a.m. were 56 and 63. At 10 a.m. at Auckland 59, Napier 56, Wellington 48, C Inistchuicl) 57, Dunedin 49, Invcrcargtl 53. To-morrow afternoon the boat-race between the Napier and Gisborne Rowing Club's takes place. The boats leave the shed at three o'clock, and the race should be finished by twenty minutes past. Spiritualism is the subject advertised for the Tent to-uight. Are its manifestations reliable, or are they, as some affirm, mere mechanical delusions? Do the prophieics point out its character and work ? And has it yet attained its full development? On Thursday next Messrs Baker and Tubateau, Napier, offer by auction 10,300 acres ot land comprising the Okahuatui No. 2a run. The land is situated in the Patutahi and Waikohu districts. 4000 acres of the property has been laid down in grass, fenced and' subdivided into paddocks. In the Napier Bankruptcy Court Mr Me Lean said some bankrupts did not seem to care whether they got their discharge or not. His Honor, in reply, said then at that rate there was nothing within the power of the Court that they did care for. Clauses that had been well tried in England were put through the New Zealand Legislature, only to signally fail. There were between 40 and 50 members and visitors present at the meeting of the Mutual Improvement last night, (the President, Rev. R. J. Murray, being in the chair) when an essay entitled " Feminine Dress" was read by Mr E. J. Spurdle, dealing with those parts of the fashionable young lady's attire which strike the masculine eye as ridiculous. An interesting discussion ensued. There was a large attendance in Court to-day when the Pook murder case was being heard. The prisoner Haira te Peri walked through the crowd to the dock in a bewildered state when his name was called, but soon obtained assurance. He was accommodated with a seat, and Mr Jones, Court Interpreter, informs him of the European evidence that is being adduced. His Honor informed waiting jurymen, after the jury had been summoned in the murder case this morning, that their services would not be required, at any rate till to-morrow mording. He would ask them to be present then, though probably they would then again get leave. When the jury was retiring for leave, His Honor intimated that they might not be able to get to their homes for some little time, and stated that_ every arrangement would be made for their comfort by the sheriff. At the Supreme Court this morning, Mr W. A. O'Mcara attended and explained that the reason of hie absence when called on to serve as a juryman yesterday was that he had not been properly summoned, the summons naming "Arthur O'Weara," whereas he was William Arthur O'Meara. In answer to the Judge \V. O'Meara stated that the error lay in that he was commonly known by his first name, William. His Honor said that might be taken as sufficient excuse, but if a man's second name was wrongly stated it was no reason why he should be exonerated. Mr O'Meara was dismissed. The enormous turnips exhibited in Mr J. Clark's butcher's shop is an evidence of the root crops that the flats of the Bay can produce. These turnips were grown on Mr G. L. Sunderland's land at Patutahi and were pulled from a field that had had no special preparation, The root of the purple top variety turned the scale at 19lb and the yellow top one at 16ilbs. This year there. is far more land in the district under root crops than formerly, and this owing to sheep farmeru recognising the value of turnips to help the stock through the winter months. Now that a start has been macto by some of the more observant settlers, each year will witness a larger area broken up and cropped with roots, and as the area under crop extends less will be lur.ird <>f lung-worm amongst the hoggets in t!;.- spring.

There are duly qualified medical men in Sydney willing to acoept engagements at £3 per week. Dining the month of February about 2ooo acres- chiefly small grazing runs — were selected in the Hawke's Bay district. Tin- paupers in London (exclusive of lunatics in asylums and vagrants) number 1 00.70(3. The contributions of Freemasons for the year 1888 to the three English Masonic charities amounted to £82,91-4, being .£•21,855 more than in the previous year. According to Dr. Marshall, the eminent statistician, England occupies the lowest phici: and the United States the highest place in a table showing the proportion of murders to population. The Charitable Aid system, as at present in vogue, is b2ing criticised from one end of the colony to the other. It takes C. A. Boards all their time to keep down exes, and stamp ouL professional loaferdom. A t the inquest on the remains of a, boy named Sydney Stone, aged 9 years, who was drowned at Waterloo, New South Wales, it wu3 stated that a big boy threw a bottle into tho waterhole where Stone was bathing, and : )!d him to dive for it. The little fellow did s \ and lost his life. An accident happened on Friday ut the Henui iron workshops, Taranaki. Somewoodwork at the top of the cupola caught fire. A man named Rusden went up to tear it away, when the flames ascending from the furnace, severely burnt him about the face and arms. A well-attended meeting of Christchurch people interested in the West Coast goldmining companies decided Unit the present state of affairs connected with mining matters on the Coast was very unsatisfactory. Exception was taken to appointing brokers as legal managers. A match of bicycle v. horse, in which Davis the South Australian champion, was pitted against three horses in a ride of ten miles, was decidetl on March 2nd at Kensington Oval, Adelaide. Amid great excitement, Davis won by about fifty yards ; but his victory was due to the last horse baulking and throwing his rider, thus enabling Davis to make up his lost ground. The track, however, was very heavy owing to its newness, and this makes the performanancc a good one. By their victory in the Champion Pairoared Race at the Christchurch Regatta, the representatives of the Wellington Rowing Club have succeeded in winning the four amateur rowing championships of the colony. It is a remarkable fact that the four races should have been won by four members of the Club— Messrs T. McKay, T. Sullivan, \V. Bridson. and D. Ross — whose brilliant performance must, of course, stamp them as oarsmen of undoubted strength and skill.— N.Z. Times. The millionaires of the world amount to soms 700 persons. En land boasts of 200 millionaires ; the United States of 100 ; France has 75. Jay Gould is the millionaire of millionaires, owning capital to the extent, of fifty-five millions of money. His annual income is three millions. Mackay, the Bonanza King, comes next in the list, and Rothschilds figure in the third place. These three own 150 millions of money between them. Teupena Ngarino (says the Rangitikei Advocate), who has been considered a sort of eock-of-the-walk individual amongst both natives and whites for a good many years, called a meeting of his creditors the other day, and in a very generous, ofl"-hand way said he would pay 20s in the £, provided the creditors gave him two years' time to do so, and this without any consideration astointcrjst and security. Of course, the terms were not entertained. His debts amount to

between L3OO and L4OO. An accident occurred at Invercargill dur ing the athletic sporls. The jetty is in a very dilapidated condition and undergoing repairs, and while the spectators were following a swinvning match a plank broke under a boy and he dropped through into the water. Mr Jones, a chemist, seeing the boy was sinking, jumped in and supported him till Mr \V. .Brass, one of the swimmers, came to his assistance, and the boy was got into a boat greatly exhausted. Mr Brass was presented with a riug by the club for giving up his chance in the race to rescue the boy. Mr Jones' action will be brought under the notice of the Humane Society. A tramp with a small swag made a descent last week on the farm of Mr Hently, at LeestOn, Canterbury. Relieving that everyone was away in the paddocks he entered the place, rifled the p ckets of Mr Hently \s clothes, searched through the cupboards, iv fact, every part of the house where valuables were likely to be contained. In the midst of his search he alarmed Mrs Hently, and on finding that he was discovered, at once beat a hasty retreat, carrying away as much booty as he could lay his hands on. He is now doing a month in gaol. In consequence of the revelations which have been made for some time past in connection with the formation, management, and actions of trading companies, especially those engaged in land transactions in Victoria,the Victorian Government have deemed it advisable to propose some amendments of the legislation referring to such companies. In order to ascertain fully the directions in which the amendments should proceed, the Attorney-General has communicated with the Chamber of Commerce, asking for an expression of their views on the matter. A case, Bank of New Zealand v. R. C. Fraser, waa heard at the Auckland Supreme Court last week before Mr Justice Gillies and a jury. This was an action brought by the Bank against defendant, a farmer at Tauranga, to recover £560 5s 6d, amount due under guarantee signed by defendant and four others who were members of the Tauranga Jockey Club, the guarantee having been given to secure advances made by the Bank to the Club. The defendant admitted signing the guarantee, but setup the defence that it had been agreed that he waa not to be liable upon the document until it had been signed by other members, who, however, did not apply their signatures. The jury returned a verdict for defendant, and costs were allowed upon the highest scale. On Sunday morning last (says the Oamaru Mail) Mr David Grant, who, as is well known, lost one of his arms in a desperate encounter with a shark while bathing at a place a little to the north of the woollen mills, was at the same place indulging, together with a companion, in a similar pastime, when they both found themselves seriously menaced by one of these monsters. He and his companion had taken a dive into the briny, and had retreated to shallow water, when Mr Grant espied one of his old friends about a yard from his companion. He gave the alarm, and sickened at the narrow escape from imminent peril, they as hastily as possible beat a retreat. They then became conscious that quite a shoal of these fish were disporting themselves in the vicinity, and that they ventured into water that was at times scarcely their own depth. The particular fish that the two bathers had just dodged actually leaped out of the water in its attempts to get at them as they retired. Mr Henry Davey, a well-known Melbourne chemist, was found dead under most mysterious circumstances last week. He left an old friend late on Wednesday night, in the best of spirits, at the corner of Swannton and Bourke streets, and nothing was seen of htm until he was found dead in his shop in Elizabeth 3trcet the following morning. Hu was found in a small dispensing room, lying on a table. He was completely dressed, with the exception of his coat. He was lying on bis right side, with his legs drawn up. His head was partially over the end of the table, which was somewhat short for a man to lie upon. There were no signs of violence or disturbance of any kind. The position of the body was as natural as though in healthful sleep. There was no tumbler, phial, nieaunrt\ or any other vessel from which poison could have boon taken. The external appearance of the body clearly showed that if suicide had been committed it had not been done in a violent mannoir. The pott morion examination revmled no traces of an internal disease or ;my other positive cause of death further than that it was due to asphyxia. The various internal organs have been sent on to Mr C. R. Blackett, Government Analyst, and the result of his researches will bo anxiously awaited, as it must either clear the mystery surrounding the case or still further increase it.s intensity.

They have been experimenting with a new powder at Yonne. It increases the velocity of tlie bullet one-fifth ; it is smokeless, and can be steeped in water twenty-four hours | without incurring the slightest damage. I The New South Wales Board of Railway Commissioners recently requested each of the employes to send in a statement of his private liabilities, and justified their action by explaining that complaints had been received that certain officers of the department re fused to pay their debts. A lady in New York has opened a subscription list to procure ten millions sterling with which to rebuild Jerusalem and Solomon 'a Temple. She thinks her project has special interest for Jews and Freemasons, and her sanguine anticipations of a flow of money into her hands has been most bountifully encouraged by the receipt of seven shillings and sixpence. Society is not too credulous about great restoration projects at a distance with other people's money. A Napier paper says a severe {outbreak of fever has occurred. There are thirteen cases of typhoid in the hospital, ten of which are from Napier, and there are several cases which have not been reported to the authorities. One doctor has from fifteen to twenty cases of mild and incipient typhoid on his list, and there is a general opinion that if the hot. weather continues a number of deaths will occur. Some of the cases now under treatment at the Hospital are of a very severe nature. One death has already occurred. At the Midland Railway sheds, Richardson, says the Greymouth Star, a dozen men are busily engaged in putting together the carriages received per Waimea. Already two out of the seven are nearly completed, one of which ia a composite carriage 46ft in length. It lias patent spring blinds and a lavatory, etc., while the shining brass work about shows that no expense has been incurred in the construction. The floor of the carriage rests upon 36 gutta-percha blocks, whi:li will do away with that perceptible jar that one feels so much on the Greymouth carriages. There are five locomotives ready for work in the same yard. There arrived in Napier by the Tarawerr. on .Saturday a middle-aged man with three, children from Queensland. This man has cast himself upon the local Charitable Aid Board, and the circumstances of the case show that the Brisbane authorities have shoved him upon the Napier Board, without any claim for that whatever. Whilst iv Brisbane he applied for charitable aid, but the Benevolent Institution there rather than support the man preferred to pay the passage of himself and family to New Zealand. He has resided ten years in Wellington, and j has never been in Napier before. He stayed in Brisbane for six months, but now that he is in Napier he claims the support of the Charitable Aid Board here. The Board will probably have something to say about the matter at the next meeting. A most anomalous provision of the Lunacy Act (says the Auckland Star) has been once more brought before public notice in the case of Ralph Fenwick, a person of unsound mind, now in the Auckland Lunatic Asylum. Mr Justice Gillies, after personal and public examination of Fenwick, found that he was capable of managing his own affairs ; but the statute which gives him power to make that adjudication does not permit him to order the release of the capable individual, unless he can also declare him to be of sound mind. This he cannot do, having been satisfied that Fenwick labors under one delusion. The result is a dead-lock — conflict between clause 179 and clause 180 of the Lunatics Act, 1882 ; and both clauses being tqually powerful, nothing short of Parliamentary action can end the strife. In the meantime Mr Fenwick, who has con-

siderable property in England, and is quite fit to manage it, must do his management from within the walls of the Auckland Lunatic Asylum. A correspondent writing from Elsie Station, Northern Territory, under date Deo. 12, states as to the Chinese question :— "The Australians are persecuting their own fellow subjects. Nearly all of the Chinese in Australia are natives of the Straits Settlement, which have been under British rule for two generations. If the Australians do not understand this the Chinese do, and they say that the Australians are beginning to dismember the British -Empire, and in time China will have Hongkong back. Another statement they make is that there are so few subjects of the Emperor of China in Australia that they can afford to look on and wait." The writer concluded by saying that lie 1) id seen the Chinese in Australia, in the Dutch East Indies, and in China, and the more lie saw of the Celestials the more he was convinced that they will bo the masters of the southern portion of the world. " Close them out of the territory, and the territory will close itself out of existence." Mrs F. L. Blanchard, the Hon. Secretary of the Colonial Emigration Society, b", Adelphi terrace, reports that the work of the Society, of which H.R.H. the Princess Mary Duchess of Teck is the President, lias done good work in the past year. It has emigrated 3jO single women of various grades, from the high-class governess, the trained nurse, the first hands from millinery and dressmaking establishments, to the mother's help and the general domes.tic servant. These have gone to various ports in the Australian Colonies, New Zealand and Uanucla, some by the free passage given by the Colonial Government, some paying their own passages, and others being assisted by the Loan fund connected with this Society. Ten families have also been helped out by this fund, and good news has come within the year from previous recipients of help,and the best part of the money lent has been repaid with grateful thanks for the prosperity it has enabled them to attain in their adopted country. It is said that a recent entertainment at Reefton has a somewhat unique sequel. It •was in favor of some local charity, had been well worked up, all the best local talent were available, and it passed off with eclat. So successful was it that the ambitious conceived the idea that with some slight alterations and a dance to wind up, it would run a second night, and made arrangements accordingly. But they had reckoned without their guesta. When the curtain was raised the house revealed itself — " a beggarly array of empty benches," only those immediately connected with the show being present. Robbed of the proud privilege of being able to entertain the public, they set to work to entertain themselves, which they apparently did with marked success by converting it into a sort of "free-and-easy," in which pipes and "long beers" were distinctive features. One of the local papers mentions that the pecuniary result of the show was decidedly unprofitable, but leaves something of the shadow of a doubt in the mind whether the adjuncts — if " long beers " and pipes can be so described — were provided for out of the admission money. During Mr Gladstone's recent visit to Naples a correspondent of the ' Rifonna' had a long colloquy with him, in the course of which the latter told the right lion, gentleman that his progaganda in favor of Home Rule for Ireland awoke disquietude in the ranks of Italian Liberals, who wero amongst his most fervent admirers. They feared that an Ireland so ruled would become a mere instrument in the hand? "f the Pope and of some enemy of England. Gladstone replied that he did not share tho,o fears. The Irish, he said, hare a profound sentiment of Catholicism, but it has nothing to do with politics. He pointed out that for political purposes they had chosen Protestant leaders, beginning with Mr Parnell. Mr Gladstone then discoursed at some length on the events of Queen Mary's reign in Ireland and England, and said the great mischief was that the history of Ireland was not well known, assuring his hearers that even English politicians knew absolutely nothing about it. In reply to some rather pressing questions respecting his former sayings and writings on the subject of the Papacy, and his recently published words respecting the Roman question and the Pope, the right lion, gentleman asserted that his opinions were unchanged. He considered temporal powei'jincompatible with the unity and liberty of Italy, but the person of the Pope was very near his heart, and lie desired to sec him Burronnded with all the respect, prestige, and guarantee of his authority.