Hokianga November 1, 1873. My Dear McLean, I have just heard that my salary has been raised, and, as in duty bound, beg to return thanks in the quarter I know they are due, I am going to be extra good for a long time now that folks are good to me. I have nothing to report except that if all your schools are going on as well as that at Wirinake there will soon be no Maories in New Zealand the small thieves are running about chattering English in a way absolutely unnatural to my eye and all have slates slung to their wrists exactly in the way their great grandfathers used to sling the mere I can scarcely realise the whole business for the progress the desperate young villains is absolutely astonishing you know I am a sort of Jack Cade, or have been, on the subject of educating Maories, but I actually could not help the other day expending a mighty sum in lollipops for the diminutive Imps. I can scarcely believe I can ever have come to perpetrate such an act, I only hope that they will not, as is usual with natives, soon get tired. If they don't some of them will discover the longditude and I know that as soon as the melons are ripe they will all go in for conic sections. I am almost murdered with continual work and writing so you will excuse haste. I am Yours faithfully, F. E. Maning.