OLV OHAKUNE.

NZ Truth, Issue 127, 23 November 1907, Page 4

OLV OHAKUNE.

A LIBEL ON THE KING

COUNTRY.

An Apology That Did Not

Appear.

The Vigilantes on the Job.

Ohakune, if it can be called anything at all, is the capital of the King Country, and Ohakune, from | time to time has received m this paper a not inconsiderable attention, principally because Ohakune was no better than it ought to be. Ohakune is on the Main Trunk route, and it has been a very rorty place m its time, so rorty indeed has it been that "Truth" seriously considered whether it should not rank witn Sodom and Gomorrah. Ohakune, however, seems to desire to iive down its wretched past— a past of drunkenness and debauchery, a camp of sly-groggers and wickedness generally. Ohakune wants to get respectable too quick, and an opportunity was recently given the ! residents, respectable or otherwise, of- proclaiming •to the world that like Henry V., it had TURNED AWAY ITS FORMER SEL-F. How the opportunity was afforded can be easily told. In the Hutt and Petone "Chronicle," of October 31, over the signature of R. S. Pointon., Ohakune, October 24, '07, there appeared a rather sultry letter blackguarding the King Country up hill and down dale. The King Country got a bad time, and so did the people, as the following excerpt from the letter proves :—

There is a very rough class of people m the King Country Just now,, being mostly the scum o£ New Zealand with gaol-birds and

thieves, together with spielers who are among about four thousand laborers on" the Main Trunk line, robbins them of their monthly wages as they come along, and nothing is being done to prevent it. Illegal selling of liquor, also, is very rife.

As the writer set himself forward as being a resident of Ohakune it naturally followed that the Ohakuneites, respectable or otherwise, would hold a council of war. They did. They put on their war-paint and went out seeking the scalp of the scandaliser. Now, one of the prime movers m Ohakune' s

PROGRESSIVE PROGRAMME OF :. PURITY is a draper named Butler, who comes from Patoerston North, and he organised a meeting of the Progressive Association and it decided to go forth and call the enemy to account. Pointon was accordingly sought out,, and a riot seemed imminent. The letter was publicly read by Butler, and a motion was carried that Pointon would have to apologise through the columns of the Hutt paper and the following was the apology that was deemed sufficient. The apology, it seems, has not been published^ and Pointon agreed only to write it put because he feared trouble and was not prepared to run the risk of being involved m a riot. Here, anyhow, is the apology he was supposed to send along :— •APOLOGY.

In reference to my letter of 24th October referring to the township of Ohakune and its inhabitants, In which I stated that the country (Ohakune) is mostly populated with the . scrum. of New Zealand, gaol-birds, thieves and spielers, and that a moneyed person waited on me m my office m Ohakune, I beg to withdraw this vile assertion, on the character,, of the inhabitants of Ohakune, and -state that there is no truth m my statements, and that I possessed no office here. (Signed) R. S. POINTON. 15/11/'O7. Witness :- (Signed) E. Tackson. To C. B. Warnes, Editor "Petone Chronicle."

Pointon's motto, apparently, was that discretion was the better part of . valor, as there^ were 60 or 70 of Ohakune J s leading residents lined up m battle array and, covert threats of ducking, etc., were hurled about m a reckless, devil-may-care manner. A detective also gave Pointon

A WORD OF ADVICE. He told him that the Ohakune Vil-igante-r. intended to duck him m a creek, and that the best thing he could do was to arm himself with a revolver, and that two local constables would be on hand ro protect him should trouble ensure. Nothing, however, came of the threats and the individual who had dared to paint the. residents of the King Country as the scum of New ' Zealand lives to tell the tale.