CORRESPONDENCE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 219, 4 November 1874, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

[Our columns are open for free discussion; but ive do not hold Qurs'elves responsible for the opinions of our

POVERTY BAY VOLUNTEERS and the COLONIAL PRIZE FIRING.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Permit me through the medium of your columns to complain of an injustice that is done to our local corps of Militia and Volunteers in connection with the Colonial Prize Firing. We muster in this district about 300- men, who are supposed to require more proficiency in the use of their rifles than town Volunteers ; and to encourage this proficiency the Genera] Government has set apart the magnificent sum of £l6, while for the City of Auckland companies, numbering not more than 400 men, the sum of £lOO is given. Again, in the competition tor the Champion Belt, we are altogether baffled. In the first place, we are attached to Napier and Wairoa ; and the three districts combined, are to furnish one representative, while a loss number of men in Auckland send tour. But this is a trifle compared to the fact that the competition tor the Belt is to take place with the muzzle loading’Enfield, thus our Sniders are useless as far as the encouragement given by the Government is concerned ; and if we are so fortunate as to send the one representative, he would have to use the best rusty Enfield he could get, and compete with such an arm against 20 or 30 men, who have kept their Enfields for no other purpose than Colonial Prize Firings. This is authorised by the Defence Office, in the face of a severe test of the merits of the two anus, the result of which is, (vide appendix to regulations) that if the part-worn muzzle loaders are brought into competition with the Sniders, there will be little or no difference in their relative merits for accuracy. —I am, Ac., Old Shot.

Sir, —I utterly disclaim the interpretation you have put upon my words. I certainly did not to say that the 40 subscribers to the recent. Billiard Tournament were not conspicuous for sobriety. In my ignorance of the conduct of billiard rooms, I supposed (he thing was got up more for their amusement than anything else. —I remain &c., Morepork.

Sir,--•“ On Tuesday afternoon some twenty or thirty tawny landed proprietors performed several vigorous, spirited hakas on the triangular reserve facing the Albion Hotel. The ceremony lasted for some considerable time ; a trifling subscription from the pakeha bystanders, and the present of a case of grog from Enoka, the Assessor, induced them togo heart and soul into the spirit of the scene, and each performer endeavored to surpass his neighbor in hideous gesture, grimace, and contortion, greatly to the delight of the bystanders.”

It would be shameful to allow the above sentences, taken from a local in the P. B. Herald of Thursday last, to\pass unchallenged. It might possibly bo understood ata distance that its tone represented the feeling in which the disgusting display spoken of was held by the majority of theyjjyslanders, or by this community in general. Any one who has witnessed one of these hakas, and those who were present on Tuesday, wilPrCad with me, instead of the above, that—“ On Tuesday afternoon some twenty or thirty half naked (say euphemistically) natives, in the first stage of transition to civilization, male and female, young and old, performed certain exhibitions of indiscribable immorality called hakas, in the most prominent part of the main street of the town. The revolting display was

11 PU.IL W-/AX zvf tiUHarsixpi'nue otTTig oocaineci from the onlookers, by a Rangatira rhaori, who had charge of the hat. What little was so obtained was used in the purchase of grog, and that being added to a case of liquor, said to have been presented by Enoka, the intoxication caused incited each performer to surpass his or her neighbor in hideous and lascivious gestures and postures, accompanied and stimulated by a chant—the words of which were happily understood by but few—and varied by diabolical grimaces and indecent, suggestive contortions.” Such was the sight suffered to pollute the market place of a town, where, much more than any other in the colony, the reminiscences of savagery should be heart sickening, and its slightest display, needless and hurtful, stamped out. The permission of those, orgies was an insult to ladies passing along lhe street during their celebration. The exhibition was a pain to the respectable portion of the community, and its sanction was a grievions wrong to the operators. It caps the climax I hat a newspaper should gloss over the drunkenness, obscenity, and saragerv as a “vigorous, spirited ceremony,” and stigmatize the bystanders by saying that the atrocity “ delighted them.” I know that the bystanders were not delighted ; that among them were those whose clol h would be tainted by a tacit acquiescence in the sentence quoted, and who may possibly see their duty towards conservation of the morals of their portion of this community to consist with stamping out such revolting scenes ; it has been the endeavour of good men to do so even in the most remote and savage hapus. Sir, wipe out the slur which the above quotation would attach to us, and allow me to aslt the agrieved bystanders to take measure that they may not. be again subjected to such a hateful nuisance. —Yours, &c., Bystander.