A SLAVE’S PROPERTY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1575, 4 October 1905, Page 2

A SLAVE’S PROPERTY.

WHO SUCCEEDS THERETO ? XFen Press Aeiociation. 1 )' Auokland, last night. *' Who sucoeeds to tha property of a" slave ?” was to-day a question for deoision by Chief Judge Seth-Smith and Judge Jackson Palmer, of the Native Appellate Court. During the Maori raids upon one another, many persons were captured, and not killed or eaten, but were then made slaves. Often one of these slaves was a chief or the son of a great chief of another tribe. In course of time great friendliness would spring up between these slaves and their owner, aod the owner would often give a slave a tract uf land to live upon if the slave married one of the tribe of his owner. Then his children succeeded to his property in that tribe through the right derived from the person of that tribe who married the slave, but in the present case the slave, who had reoeived land from his owner, died without issue, and'his adopted child claimed to suooeed. The descendants of the owner of the slave, however, claimed his property beoause ' their people owned the slave and he left no issue, and that ths slave’s property belonged to them according to the law of the Hanraki die- f trict. The Appellate Court reserved its decision. |