A Maori Title.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 788, 3 April 1905, Page 3

A Maori Title.

Tlie following is takeh from the Newcastle-on-Tyne Daily Chronicle : —The Maoris are logical rcasoirers, good debaters, fond of contentions, and as well up in the genealogy of their families as a Scotch Highlander and as stubborn when their rights are infringed upon. At a land court a middle-aged Maori had Just finished a long speech, claiming that his name should be inserted in the grant, to the exclusion of an Did gTiszled Maori, who had sot [fuietly by without moving a muscle jf his countenance ± and heard thg lounger roan ask' in the course lis harangue, with much gesticulates, "Where are my ancestors buried >n this land, where I was born and Jrought up ?"• When he had ended, )he old Maori rose, throwing oil 1 ivery'thing but a waistcoat, and, roundling across the room, addressed )he court in this wis©—Vl have lisfc;ned with disgust anil contempt to 'his tuturu (nobody). What claim an he have to this land ? T con[iiei'ed long ago the people that •ved on it when he was a chijld : and

tne mistake I made was in permitting him to live. And he asks,' Where an his ancestors buried ?' 1 tell him and show him. Here—here " patting his stomach with his left hand'. "'Hi.' ancestors are buried " here. I ate them —and that is my title to the land."