OPUNAKE HOODLUMS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 475, 2 September 1909, Page 3

OPUNAKE HOODLUMS.

DESTRUCTION OF AN OLD RELIC.

There was some method in the madness of the hoodlums who fired off the old cannon at Opunake on Saturday night. The perpetrators of the freak of mischief were careful to use a good length of fuse, else there would probably have been an inquest to-day. The old cannon, as visitors to Opunake may recollect, stood at the foot of the flagstaff on the cliff. It was a relic of early days, forming part of the salvage of the wreck of the Tord Wolesley at Te Namu, a wreck that is remembered as the occasion upon which the Maoris were so hospitable to the ship’s passengers. Some hare-brained idiots evidently wanted to know what sort of a noise a cannon could make, so on Saturday night last they crammed this rusty old weapon with explosives, affixed a slow fuse, and fired it. The cannon exploded, and brought people out to see what was wrong, the general impression seeming to be that the town’s acetylene gasometer had exploded. Fortunately, the trouble lay elsewhere. The gun and gun-carriage were blown to smithereens, some pieces of metal being found in the main street of the town about a quarter of a mile away, whilst one piece, weighing several pounds, buried itself in the footpath outside a residence. It was fortunate that the affair happened late at night, for earlier in the evening it would have been almost impossible to have escaped accident from the falling debris. Detective Boddam happened to be in Opunake that night, and is co-operating with Constables Kelly and Hickman in investigations.