WAIKATO.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 900, 23 December 1870, Page 2

WAIKATO.

NATIVE MATTERS IN THE UPPER WAIKATQ AND KING COUNTRY. MAUNGATAUTARI. iTRQM A. CORRESPONDENT 0? THE N. Z. HERAXD.] Dec. 9. There is great ezcitement amongst the whole of the King natives on account of the murder of Mr Todd. In reference to that sad event I can positively state: Ist. That Mr Todd was surveying within the confiscated boundary line. 2nd that lie received no warning until the night before his death, and then only by an old Maori woman enigmatically'telling him that a gun was waiting for him. 3rd. That the murder was committed as a take, whowhai—i e., challenge to fight — and nor, us your Government contemporary, the Southern Cross, slanderously insinuates, either on account of a personal quarrel or of a woman. 4th. That the Hauhaus are fully determined not to give up the murderers. Even should the Government succeed in their attempt to patch up matters, it is simply a question of a few weeks or mouths before other outrages will be commited. HARAPIPI. [from the n. z. herald's own correspondent.] Dec. 13. Since the murder of Mr Todd, the surveyor, in the Pirongia mountains, we have been going through the pleasure of Maori panic,-—one of the pleasant things that a settler in the Waikato has to put up with once or twice in a year. It is now some time since the last one, and we were beginning to think that they were a thing of the past, but find that we had reckoned without our host, as we are now in the midst of another. All sorts of rumors and reports are flying about as to the movements of the natives beyond the frontier line, but as to the truth of any of them, I cannot answer. We are told by friendly (or so-cailed) natives that in the course of eight or ten days there will be more murders committed, and that the settlers had better sleep with one eye open. The settlera at the foot of Pirongia, namely, Harapipi, are specially mentioned and warned to look out. The natives that murdered Todd are said to be still lurking in the ranges, and it is reported that a settler has seen two Maoris, near the same place, but I cannot hear that any steps have been taken by the proper authorities to rout them out or capture them. I suppose they are waiting for a few more people to be murdered. Another report is that the tribe that the murderers are of is building a pa about twelve or fourteen miles above Alexandra, and that all the king natives that are for fighting are mustering there. A small detachment of the Around Constabulary, consisting 1 of six men and a sergeant, has been seat over from Alexandra to this place to garrison the blockhouse. A-lmost all the settlers, with their wives and families, sleep in the blockhouse every night, and everybody is in an st%te 4 hopiug for the

best, but thinking of the worst, and such things will be, and cannot hejp being so, as long as we have such neighbors as Hauhaa Maoris; in fact, the Waikato will never be any good while such is the case.