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Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXX, Issue 5458, 7 August 1929, Page 3

An object lesson to Pakeha Rugby players (says the Wanganui Chronicle) is provided by a team of Maoris who were travelling up-river the other morning to play a match at Banana against a Wainui-a-rau fifteen. Rising at 4 o’clock, they were to leave Waitotara by motor lorry, and arrive in Wanganui in tinie to catch the river boat, which it had been arranged would leave at 6.30 a.m. As the steamer would not arrive at Ranana until after 1 o’clock, the Maoris were faced with a seven-hour trip up the river before the match, which was set down to be played at 3 o’clock. The fact that the game would be played in the best of spirit, win or lose, is surely evidence of the keenness of the Maori to uphold the best traditions of the Rugby code, and all must admire the enthusiasm that impelled them to make the journey under such circumstances.

One finds cause for a certain uneasiness in regard to two cases that have occurred within the last two months in Christchurch suburbs in which a firearm has been deliberately discharged as . the sequel to a quarrel (says the Christchurch Star). In the first case, in which one man received a charge of pellets in the body, the Supreme Court took an extremely lenient view of the offence and admitted the accused to probation without even imposing a fine. In the more recent case, in which a gun was discharged at a comparatively safe range after a retreating motor-car, the magistrate may have been justified in merely binding the accused over to keep the peace, believing that the gun was discharged v/ith no serious intention ; but magistrates will have to watch this sort of thing very closely indeed, because it is leniency in matters where the damage done is of no consequence that leads to the indiscriminate use of violence.