A NICE LOCALITY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1814, 13 April 1888, Page 3

A NICE LOCALITY.

The Tuapoka Mouth correspondent o' the Tuapoka "Times" writes : —

This place for the laat fifteen or sixteen yeais has been a real hotbed for reffianiami Men have been tied up in saoks and suspended over the side of a bridge 20tt or 30ft high ;• others have been stripped of their clothes and covered with sacks and bags in Robinson Crusoe faahion ; whilst othera have had their ears pierced and ringed with fencing wire. One man waa tied up under a dray, vrhan in a Btate of unconscious drunkenness, alongside a wild boar ; and when consciousness returned there was a great struggle by both man and beast to get away from eaoh other. But aa the diggings got worked out, and tho sawmills knocked off, the old hands were dispersed, taking their departure to other parta of tho country. For a few i ears the Mouth became a comparatively quiet neighborhood ; but reoently the slumbering fireß of rowdyism became infUmed la the bosoms of the youths, and ruffianism re-commenced. Bridles have been taken from horses ; eaddles have been removed or the girths dangerously slackened ; man have been attacked ; and even women have not been altogether free from interference. On the night of last general eleotion, one of the mill hands was aoiz;d by a lot of grown-up young men outßide the hotel and tied hand and foot to a lamp- oust. The same man was tied Up on another occasion and subjected to gross Indignitios. This time ho was met on the road home by about twenty larrikins who were well supplied with flix rop3, and the treatment he waa subjected to was poaitlvely cruel. Their viatim was a strong, powerful man, a match for any two of them, and had received several medals from the Humane Society for saving life. Still, hia life was made bo unpleasant by the interference of these blackguards that he was obliged to leave the district.