'PROFESSOR ' ATKINSON'S SLEIGHT-OFHAND THICK.

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 533, 9 March 1889, Page 3

' PROFESSOR ' ATKINSON'S SLEIGHT-OF-HAND THICK.

Bound over to keep the peace and sent to gaol in default ! What a prosaic ending to the Te Kooti scare ! Bound over to keep the peace, and sent to gaol like a common 'drunk' who has booted his wife or knocked down somebody in the street while ' under the influence.'

■# * * Had it not been for the lamentable weakness and incapacity of the Government there would have been no ' scare,' and Te Kooti would have been packed oil to the Waikato without being given ihe chance to create all the recent fuss and frighten the up-country people, amongst whom ha has been sojourning, out, of their wits. It is snicl that when the Roman leaders wanted to divert the public attention at election time from the all absording business in hand, they got up a sensation and boomed it for all it was worth. In other words, to employ a familiar illustration, they drew a red herring across the scent.

It really sounds as though the Major — beg pardon, the Premier— trembliug for the fate of his beloved Property Tax, had borrowed a leaf from the book of the Romans, and in order to draw publio attention from his pet tax, got up the Te Kooti scare. The hoary-headed old reprobate has been the Major's red-herring. Was it necessary that Te Kooti should have been permitted to make even the attempt to revisit the scene of the massacres with which his name must ever be connected ? Perhaps, however, the Atkinsonian policy with respect to the Poverty Bay murderer was carefully studied and thought out, and nor, the result of weakness or incapacity. 'Bio's' excellent cartoon in this isjua, may, after all, supply the right key to the whole thing.