ANCIENT KORORAREKA

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4171, 11 August 1939, Page 4

ANCIENT KORORAREKA

THE BAY OF ISLANDS IN 1839. The old saying about giving a dog a bad name and hanging it is proved true by the nearly universal attitude to early Kororareka. That village, the favourite port of call of the whaling fleet in southern Pacific waters, is usually represented as a sink of iniquity unredeemed by any compensating virtue. One observer in 1839, Dr Martin, afterwards a member of Governor Hobson’s Council, did not wholly endorse the legend of this depravity. Though Kororareka had grown prosperous largely through the efforts of one man, a freed convict named Turner, the settlers of convict origin had already begun to leave the Bay for the South Seas under the influence of its increasing respectability. Another symptom of this was the firmation in 1838 of a voluntary body, the Kororareka Association, to keep order in the settlement. This body functioned fairly well—at least, its members several times felt it necessary to tar and feather wrong-doers. But the impartiality of its justice cannot at all times have been perfect, as one of the victims of this punishment was a trader who had come from Sydney to collect a debt from a prominent member.

Indications are that the Labour Party’s dance at the Oddfellows’ Hall this evening will be well attended, and decidedly entertaining.