TAUPO.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 13, Issue 673, 15 April 1869, Page 3

TAUPO.

Despatches which were received yesterday from Taupo state that Mr Hamlin had not been able to communicate with Captain St. George or Poihipi's people, in consequence of scouting parties of rebels being abouo Ohipa and the neighborhood of Runanga. There was a report that a body of 200 Hauhaus had surprised a pa 5 miles from Oruanui, and cap tured 45 men, besides women and children. This, however, requires confirmation. We ha*e reason to believe that Colonel Whitmore's force will soon be at Taupo from ths We.it Cja*t.

Absconding Bankbitpt.—Air John Matthew, late landlord of the Traveller's Rest, Marton—wrongly described in the Bankruptcy Gazette as of " Wanganui* went to Wellington as a witness in the case of Jefferson v. Galpin, and took the opportunity of giving his creditors the slip by going olf in the Gothenburg for Melbourne on the 10th March. Tins is particularly a bad case, the bankrupt buying large quantities of (".utter from the settlers, selling at a profit of HI and 2d per lb. per cask, and giving only worthless promissory notes in payment to his victims ; he also borrowed £IOO of a neighbour, giving for it an unstamped I O.U. The liabilities are about £iOJ— the assets about £3O. The bankrupt also failed to account for some funds of the Ancient Order of Foresters, of which he was Treasurer. The bankrupt was formerly u c dor-sergeant in the (55th and afterwards a publican in Auckland, where he faded. At the time he absconded he held an office iu the Kangitikei Militia, for which he held He per day, 8J of course he is a deserter. It is rumoured that the credit <rs will take s'eps to have the absconder arrested on a charge of fraudulent bankruptcy.—Chronicle. HoW A fRISONEH WAS Til BATED.—It will be remembered thit several nonths ago, when the rebels were at Kakiramea, a settler called "Sandy" M'Uuloch was missed. It was at once assumed that he fell into the bauds of the Han-haus, and treated as the other captives—killed, roasted, and eaten. It his now been ascertained, frum one of the prisoners, that he was captured by the Ha uha us, and made to cirry potatoes, which he did for six days, when he refused to carry them any longer. Having shown his disinclination by lading down with his burden, he was then and there toin-hawked. —Evening Herald.

A Cf rioits Typographical Eerou.— A very curious error in priming bus been mentioned in 1/Illustration. The author of a book, a very celebrated French physicim, having reused a printer's proof of hi* work and wishing quotations to bu inserted after each paragraph, wrote as follows at the end : Four fitiir, ilfaut guitlemeter tons les alienes. [At the end all the paragraph* ouylit to bo furnished with turned commas] imagine his astonishment when he found printed ar. the end of his work when it was too late to be altered, the following: Pour fnir i ilfaut guillotiner tousles alieneas. [Ln order 10 iiiike au end ofihciu ail, mad people should bo decapitated (guillotined)J.

- CONTEBTED SAVAGES.—It iTOcedleffß to dwell upon the details of this sickening tragedy, [the Poverty Bay Massacre]. A* it has become the the fashion, however, to be ashamed of any natural emotion of vengeance when the victims are white, and the murderers dark-skinned, it may b» useful to carry in our minds one of th© pictures which have been brought away from the scene of blood—that of Major Biggs lying dead and horribly mutilated on his own hearth, side by side with his butchered wife, still clasping to her bosom her child "with the brains dashed out." It may do good to British humanity to have the "noble savage" thus brought to mind in a piece of genuine work. We havo been so much in the habit of late of prostrating ourselves before the "black brother" and disfiguring ourselves in his sight, that it is well to be reminded that; oven the "chivalrous Maori," noblest and best as he is of savages, and subject though he has been for a whole generation to the enterprises of tho missionary, is but a savage after all —rather a worse savage, we are compelled to sav, than ho was before conversion. In his unregenerate days he murdered at least in all clue form and after solemn warning, eating his vietitu rather out ofvengeai.ee than appetite. In his civilised state he murders caftily and stealthily out of pure wanton lust of blood, and deliberately pots his slain for household provision. Tno Houliau is a product entirely of Maori civilization. He is a type of the savage made perfect by the process which is culled conversion.— Standard. The Native Difitculty.—A late issue of the New York Tribune makes soma remarks on the friend of the-savage policy, which are equally applicable in New Zealand :—The trouble with Peace Societies has been that they are too good for this world. We cannot say that the memorial on behalf of the Indians, sent, up to Congress by the Universal Peace Union, shows it to be any exception to the rule. A very humane and generous, but likewise a very unworldly, spirit pervades it. Nobody can read it without acknowledging the justice of its strictures upon our dealings with the Indians or smiling at the i.>mocence of its practical suggestions. " What diabolical inhumanity and wanton indiscretion, it exclaims,—•" Destroying the winter supplies of the Apaches, at the very time when they were most needed;" Instead of erecting fortifications in their very faces we should relieve their pressing necessities, furnish them with seeds, agricultural implements, tool?, and teachers!" Could anything be sentimentally more humane and practically more foolish? Imagine a member of this most excellent and benevolent Peace Union remonstrating with our A- my officers about the cruelty of destroyin" the supplies of the enemy ! Conceive Sheridan's rough riders stopped in the midst of a charge on a party of painted Apache or Kiowa braves, while some peaceful sergeant rides forward to ask tha savages if they wouldn't rather have some 6eeds, tools, and teachers,- instead of the impending carbine balls, and sabre cuts? The excellent members of the Peace Union do not need to bo assured of our entire sympathy with their general viuws on the Indian question, as we'll as with the humane purpose that prompts their present effort. But we must assure them that their error is tho grave one of being right Bt tho wrong time. We cannot stop in the midst ot a fierce fight with savages to talk farming at them—much as tho subject of farming concerns them. We are into a war, and must either fight our way through or submit to a humiliation in their eyes which will render subsequent efforts to control them by peaceful means futile. Having undertaken the taming rf our horse Cruiser, we must first conquer him, or he will onquer us. Kindness is excellent., but even on the Rurey plan the objects of the kindness must first be taught that it is backed by irresistible power. Suffrage for the Indians, railroad building, constitution amending, may come in time j the work now in hand is to enforce peace with a vigorously used army. The GUJJNEY Cask.—'"The greatest interest," says the Home News, "has been excited in the City, and in all mercantile, circles, and indeed far beyond them by proceedings which have been occupying the Lord Mayor for many days. The great and terrible crash connected with the names of Overend and Gurney will be too fresh in the minds of »U business men to make it needful to recall th.t crisis, the effects of which are felt to this moment in the commercial world, and in many a cruelly ruined home. One sufferer by the disaster resolved on personal vengeance. This was Dr Adam Thorn, And he, acting through one of the ablest London solicitors, a member of tho Hebrew fism of Lewis and Lewis, caused Messrs John and Henry Gurney, Messrs Bnkbei-k, Barclay, Gordon, and Kenuie, to come before the Lord Mayor, and stand charged with wilful fraud, in the matter of the civa'ion of the company which took Overend and Gurne/s bus:nes*, and which according to the accuser, bougiit bad debts, knowing them to be bad, the vendors knowing tho s ano and being insolvent. The case, which we have ttateu in the fewest woHs, was sustained by a vast amount of detailed evidence, and we refer to our report merely mentioning that the testimony of Mr lid wards, a-signee in bankruptcy is about tho most extraordinary revelation which a man of business has made for many a year. Hie best criminal banisters were retained for the defence, and made their speeches, the Lord Mayor and Sir T. Gab.iel, who Bat with him, took time to consider, and on Wednesday last the six city gentlemen were committed for trial, but they were. released upuu bail amounting in the aggro* gate to little lew tlum £150,000,"