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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 895, 17 December 1870, Page 2

The Wellington Veteran Volunteers paraded on the 9th inst. for the first time in the new regulation uniform The Post says:— -" It consists of a grey tweed jumper, a cap of the same, and blue trouters, with scarlet at the head, and brown leather leggings. The facings are left to the companies to decide, and in the case of the Veterans are of light blue, a baud of the same being round the French peaked cap. The new uniform, although not so showy as the scarlet hitherto in vogue, is evidently much more serviceable, and looks very well indeed. The jumper does not, however, look quite so military as a tunic." The Evening Post says;—We have been shown specimens of various articles manufactured from New Zealand flax by the Richmond Flax Company, in tbe Nelson Province. These consist of mats, matting for floors, rope, bags, and woolpacks, all excellent of their kind, and quite equal to any imported articles of a similar class, The matting is much superior to the ordinary coir matting in common use, and the bags and wool-packs are, to say the least of them, quite as good, It is really a pity that we should go on sending money out of the country for articles which we can manufacture ourselves, and of the raw material of which we possess a. superabundance,

VAX.UB OP MAORI TESTIMONY. The Evening Post, 7th Peceuaber, contains the following:—The Supreme Court was occupied till a late hour yesterday evening,.in hearing the case of Thomas and Robert Goodison, charged with stealing fourteen pigs, the property of Koreneho Tapu. The witnesses were the same as those who have already figured so often in the prosecutions against the Goodisons, and their evidence was even more unsatisfactory than usual. They prevaricated, contradicted what they had said when examined before the Magistrate, denied that they had ever made statements which were contained in the depositions signed by themselves, and generally behaved in such a way as to render it impossible for any jury to place reliance on their evidence. One woman flatly admitted that she had sworn falsely. Several witnesses were examined for tho defence, and the jury, after a short absence, returned a verdict of not guilty. In reference to this case, the same paper writes:—We would fain hope that the Province has seen the last of those causes eelebres, Goodison trials. Nearly, if not quite, all the members of that family have at different times figured before the Courts oa various charges ; and with 9uch pertinacity were those charges preferred, that it seemed to be an imperative necessity on the part of the police that, for the well-being of Wellington, convictions should be obtaiaed against them. They may have sinned, but they have also been sinned against very heniously ; tbey have received great wrong at the hands of the Maoris, for which the Government is either unable or unwilling to afford them any redress, and it is impossible for any one who lias taken the trouble to\ watch the affair —which, in oue shape or another, has been kept before the public for the last two yearsto deny that the Maoris have been unduly favored by the authorities. The repeated prosecutions of the Goodisons have worn for some time very much the appearance of " persecutions," and we trust that, after this last extraordinary pig-stealing case, which has demonstrated the value of Maori evidence very clearly, the family will be allowed to be at peace.