A BAD PRACTICE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 373, 3 May 1866, Page 3

A BAD PRACTICE.

[To the Editor of the Hawke’s Bay Times.J Bib, —I see by a paragraph in year last issue that Mr J cbn Situ, of Mohaka, was Sued £5 and costs for selling grog to Natives. Now, Sir, that very practice is carried oh to a frightful extent in the Town of Napier, and that in the most barefaced manner, and yet no one seems to take any notice whatever. There is a law prohibiting publicans from supplying alcoholic liquors to persons of the Native race, —that law is violated, and yet no notice is taken! Is that the way the affairs of State are conducted ? If a white man gets drunk, and sits down in the street, he is collared immediately by one of those zealous servants of the law, vulgarly termed “ Peelers," marched or dragged off to the lock-up, and fined next morning. As for the Maori, he can get drunk as often as he likes, —he can gallop about the town, endangering the lives of her Majesty’s subjects,—but he is not taken to the lock-up,—or if be is, it is very seldom indeed; and then when he is, he gets off usually with a very mitigated penalty. All these things go to prove that there is “ something rotten in the State of Denmark," and the sooner it is remedied the better will it be for all concerned.I am, &c., NO MAORI. Napier, 2nd May, 1866.