THE PATETERE BLOCK.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2261, 1 July 1881, Page 3

THE PATETERE BLOCK.

[By TeIiEGBAph.I [feom the own cobbbspondbnt of the "PBKBS."] WELLINGTON, June 30. The Patetere papers laid upon the table today were very voluminous. There is nothing of very great importance in them. Sir G. Grey's'last letter to the Colonial Secretary is dated January 7th. It is very long, and is principally directed to pointing out the necessity for dealing with the land in a manner for the general advantage. It soemed wrong, he says, that the Government should join in trampling the laws undor foot by Bhowing any persons, however powerful and wealthy, that the Government would aid them in acquiring property and wealth as a consequence of illegal acts. He thought, the facte&tab* lished that by the conditions that had been agreed upon by the Government with private parties regarding interests in land at the time that all tho rost of tho Queen's subjects were shut out from acquiring those interests. The concealment from the public of the Government intention to remove the proclamation gave the Fatetere purchasers great and unfair advantage over others. Tho ultimate issuing of the proclamation removing the first proclamation without notifying that large portions of tho beet part of the land had been already acquired from tho Natives, was misleading and likely to be productive of disappointment and expenditure to many perflocs. He recommends that the Government should, during the session, introduce a Bill to provide that, upon its being established to the satisfaction of the Supreme Court, that any lands claimed have been purchased by any_ person or persons from Natives, end which are in their possession, have been so purchased by unlawful means, the Court shall thereupon declare suoh alleged purchase to be absolutely void, and such lands shall become public lands, to bs dealt with as Parliament may diroct. The Colonial Secretary, in reply, says that the part relative to tho suggestion dealing with wrongful purchases is the only practical suggestion that Sir George Grey had to make, and in regard to this it appeared to him that the Supreme Court in its ordinary jurisdiction already had power to deal with illegal purchases, if properly brought under its cognisance ; therefore legislation in that direction was unnecessary.

A NEW MAZEPPA. Lamar boy a are nothing if not imitah. x " If they were to hear of a man being grovDu up in a threshing maohine they would at once run one of their number through a fanning n)ill to "see how the old thing worked." One of the boys had been reading Byron's " l&azeppa," and he got three or fsur boys in a barn down in the south-western part of the town, and they conoluded to play "Mazappa." from what we oan learn —not having been provided with a complimentary—the play was rather more startling than inetructiTe. They got a cow and about 40ft of clothes line, and a No. 7 boy with red hair and a freckled nose to do the Mazeppa part, while a gentle youth of twelve or thereabout wrappod a saddle blanket round his head and, as the jealous Sheik, shouted "Bring forth the hoaa!" They " fotched" her. In truth she was a noble steed. A heifer of the muly breed, and wild—wild as seventeen kinds of Rocky Mountain William goats. They got her on the barn floor and tied the boy on with the rope and turned her lo se. She took in the situation aid seemed to realise that her credit as an actress was at stake. Her acting was splendid, and brought down the house—by sections. Whenever she ran over one of the boys you could hear the applause for four blocks. Although the audience all Jhad parquet and pit tickets they thought they could look at the play better from the gallery, and so they slid into the hay mow and tried to crawl out through the roof while the old cow was churning about fourteen years' growth out of Mazeppa and bawling like a steam Oalliope, while Mazappa passed most of the time yelling like a pig fast in a fence. The play would probably have been in progress yet but for the faot that the neighborhood thought that a cyclone was wrestling with the barn, and rushed in and got the now up in the corner and amputated the boy. The show wound up with that thrilling piece of music entitled "Sounds from Home," whioh was well played by an improvised band of several parents, several boys, and soreral leather straps. The boys say that the musio made by the straps was thrilling in the extreme.—" Barton County Advocate."