A Perilous Swim.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 39, 1 March 1884, Page 3

A Perilous Swim.

On Saturday, February 2nd, four of the employes of the Deuba Sugar Company started from Deuba in a small open boat with the intention of going to Naviia with a stiff breeze aft, and the boat jibed and capsized. Fortunately, three of the men were powerful swimmers, but the fourth was not able to swim at all. The others, however, managed to unship the mast, and to this they lashed him, and after an immersion of some six hours, he was washed ashore. The other three men, together with a Polynesian boy who had accompanied them from Deuba, stuck to the boat, and they, too, after having been in the water for eight hours, safely reached the shore, though, of course, thoroughly exhausted. The whole affair was witnessed from the shore by natives, and a canoe was I at once put off, not to rescue the drowning, but simply to ascertain what amount would be paid for so doing. The drowning men offered £5, or at the rate of £1 per man, to be put ashore on the canoe ; but the amount was not large enough, and the gentle Christians put back without having lent a helping hand. A Fijian was recently fined £50 for supplying spirits to a half-caste. The fine was paid. On February 9th, Chief Justice Wrenfordsby sentenced Sila, a native, to death for the murder of Mr Hulton, a sugar planter.

A Homicidal Maniac. The affair concerning Captain Petrie and others of the Windward Ho has been under thorough investigation before the judicial commissioner. The charge was wilful murder. A recruit had been seized with frenzy while the vessel lay at anchor off one of the Solomon Islands last December ; had seized a hatchet and fearfully hacked and chopped amongst a crowd of Polynesians who were on deck with him ; the deck looked like a butchery when the captain ! came up armed from below. Seeing Petrie and his weapon, the madman sprang down into the hold, where some of the unfortunates he had already slashed had taken I refuge, and were trying to extemporise a barricade. The homicide had already re- 1 ceived two wounds from a man he had attacked on deck, but so dangerous was he still with spears and poisoned arrows that he easily collected in the hold that the captain signalled back his boats, held a council of war, and at last, out of sheer necessity and for the saving of the wounded who were in the hold with him, ordered the man to be disabled with a rifle shot. He was then approached, and bi'ought on deck. He died next morning, and was buried at sea. His Honor the Judge, in consideration that eight or ten men had been wounded by the frenzied man, and that the lives of some sixty persons were placed by him in extreme peril, discharged the accused. Captain Petrie's humane conduct and extreme care of the dying and wounded was testified to during the investigation.

For the Albert Licensing District nine persons were nominated, but a dispute has arisen as to who is qualified to vote, as the Rodney County Clerk issued a notice to the Returning Officer (Mr J. Shepherd) that he must not allow anyone to vote who had not paid the county rates, whereas those who have paid the Road Board rates claim the right to vote. The question has been referred to Mr Coleman, solicitor, who has been requested to give his opinion on the

subject. London has more Scotchmen than Aberdeen, more Irish than Belfast, more Welsh than Cardiff, more Roman Catholics than Rome, and more Jews than the whole of Palestine.