MAOEI WHISKY VENDORS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6127, 14 March 1898, Page 2

MAOEI WHISKY VENDORS.

In the course of a charge of theft of liquor against a Maori at the Auckland Supreme Court on Thursday some evidence was given as to how whisky was trafficked ' in the King Country, which is popularly supposed to be a prohibition district. The ' liquor in question, a case of whisky, was ( alleged to have been stolen "by the prisoner from a hotel at Kihikihi. Thence he took it, according to the evidence, disguised as '. a swag on horseback, to Otoroiianga, where he sent it up by rail to Te Kuiti, ostensibly bound foratangi over the chief Wahanui at a settlement called Mongawhaanga, ' near the Mokau. It was to be sold to whoever would buy, for whisky is in great request at tangis. The police, however, intercepted the whisky before it was swal- j lowed, and it figured in the Supreme Court , marked " exhibit." According to the 1 Auckland correspondent of the Otago Daily ■ Times, a European witness, a settler at Puketarata, between Kihikihi and Otoro- ] hanga, deposed to meeting the amateur j whisky merchant on the road to Otorohanga with his bacchanalian swag. He (thepakeha) seemed to have divined the • contents of the load, for he said he asked Ngohengohe, the accused, to " shout." ] "Where was the liquor to come from?" ] asked the judge. " I don't know, sir," re- ' plied the witness, "but I have often had • nips from Maoris on previous occasions in ( the same way." The impression left on the Court's mind apparently was that Maori whisky vendors pervade the high- i ways and by-ways of the King Country" i offering passers-by sundry "nips" from 1 convenient saddle bags.