PAST VOLUNTEER DAYS.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16415, 8 January 1919, Page 9

PAST VOLUNTEER DAYS.

TO THE EDITOR OF "XH* TBESS." Sir, —The notice of the deatli of Mr H. W. Vincent in "The Press" &<:ts forth that he, as a lieutenant of volunteers, could remember being camped'at Woodend to "watch the Maori pa." This' statement, I feel, reflects somewhat on tli© Kaiapoi Natives, and therefore I offer this explanation. The volunteers of Nos. 3 (Leithfield), 4 (Ilangiora), o (Kaiapoi), 9 (Woodend), and (Oxford) held one or two battalion parades at and near Woodend, and nol far from the pa. I remember Colon«>! G. Packe being in charge of one, and Captain Cracroft Wilson of another. The principal camp at Woodend was,or; the three first days of the Now Year. 1863, -when tents were pitched on a site near to the present monument at Waikuku in memory of tho first pa of Kaiapchia. Tho companies tvere undor commands of Captains «Besvrirk (o>, Haskell (3), Hinge (9) k Hebden (4). Oxford was absent. The muster of 120 of all ranks was reviewed by Captain Reader (shortly after lie left the colony). After some very simple movements and lunch, there were sports held, and in the night, -which was clear moonlight, an alarm wais given by tho sentry on the seaward: side east of tho camp, but it 'did not come from tho Maoris' side. Next day, in a pouring rain, Captain Cracroft Wilson and a troop of the Canterbury Yeomanry Cavalry took the camp bv surprise.. The latter event was amicably settled at the canteen. Thero -was a disagreement between the bush sawyers antr tho Maoris in 1862. but that -was before there ivorr camps, and Mr John Hall, Resident Magistrate, adjusted matters. At, a period later than , Woodend campiny times there -was a inassacre of Europeans in the North Island, with which home were too ready to allege sympathy would exist among the South Island Natives, but I am certain, after 35 years' - experience, there was never anv occasion to "watch tho Maori pa" "in the sense conveyed.—Yours, etc., J..L.W.