FIJIAN SOCIALITIES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 70, 23 March 1874, Page 2

FIJIAN SOCIALITIES.

The bar in Fiji is composed of half-a-dozen properly qualified attorneys from the Colonies, and others who have been admitted to practice under the local rules. The arguments in the Supreme Court are generally conducted with decorum, and in point of ability they are equal to what is usually heard in Colonial district courts. The behaviour of the witnesses, however, is often of n kind to show how unaccustomed they are to the solemnity of judicial proceedings. A native witness, who had one morning kept the full court waiting half-an-hour for his attendance, when interrogated as to the reason of his delay, calmly replied that he had not finished his breakfast at the time the court opened. A white planter, much more emphatic in his way, growing restive under cross-examination, after a glance out of the window, which showed that the previously calm sea was being ruffled by a breeze, exclaimed, as he abruptly left the witness box, "Do you think I am going to stop humbugging here when there is a fair wind for Taviuni?" The native migistracy includes some men of intelligence but the Fijian police have not much power in their handa Some ludicrous instances have occurred of their idea of the relative importnnco of different crimes. According to the old law and custom of Fiji it was an offence punishable by death for a Kai it (a common

man or tlave) to eat turtle, a food which hns always been eacred to the great chie r s. Not very long ago, Loveever, an iunoviating Kai si, who hail heard of the new orJer of things and the blessings to be enjoyed uader the Fijian conslitution, accepted literally the declaration of the great charter of his King that "all men are equal," and dined sumptuously one day off n fine fat turtle. Tho terrible uews was immediately couveyed to this chief, who happened to be a mngiatratf, nnd tho man was at once arrested. Wheu the local magistrate's court next eat, there was a heavy list of serious charges to bfi dealt with, involving destruction of life nnd property, and the white justices wanted to proceed with these first, but the native magistrate would listen to nothing until theculprithe was specially interested in had been dealt with, for he eaid he knew of no crime equal in onormityto that of a Kai si who had presumed to eat turtle. There is also a remarkable judgment of a native magistrate on record. A chief was charged before him with asniuhing an officer of the Government. Jt was proved iv evidence that the officer had taken liberties with tha chief's wife ou three separate occasions, but the woman only complained fhe third time, and then beenuße the husband saw. The Fijian Solomon fined all three equally, There was wisdom ns well as origninality in this decision. Another native held a very peculiar view of the efficacy of the In w. He had two wives who were coustantly quarrelling, and he intimated that it was his intention to tnke them to court as soon as he bad saved enough money to pny their flues. The roving class in Lsvuka is not remarkable for temperance. An amusing etiry is told of an attempt to form a Temperance Society in Levuka, and how the members fell away — first the vice-president, and then someone else producing a medisal certificate that he must havo one drink of brandy a day. One Sunday evening the Rev. Mr Floyd, the Church of England minister, courageously addressed his hearers as " You gamblers and drunkards here to-night." The congregation, on coming out, nearly all agreed that their minister was becoming horribly personal, and that they would not tolerate it. The origin of this sermon was Btated to be the behaviour of the principal deacon who, the previous Sunday, juat after partaking of the sacrament, had gone to a neigbouring hotel, and there joined a euchre party which ended in a wild debauch.