LIFE AT OTIRA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 177, 31 August 1909, Page 4

LIFE AT OTIRA.

A CLERGYMAN'S PICTURE. SOME EXTRACTS. It. is really not an attractive picture that Mr. Mules painted of life at Otira (alluded to in yesterday's issue), as these extracts will show. He is taking his readers on a round of his parish:—

Next home. Been tlfere before. Little two-roomed galvanised-iron hut. Husband, wife, and six children occupy it. .... The woman—been dragged up. Had no training. Cannot keep pace with the work. Too much washing, and mending, and cooking, and three infants to keep at home all day. The others are at school. One of them, seeing the father lying in a ditch near' home, remarked: "'E's only drunk." And this same man is also a hardened gambler. .... I call on another. Nice home, well-built and large. Woman wellspoken and courteous. Also Church of England, and you are pleased. You pass one day and hear someone swearing, with words of a new vocabulary. Enquiries point out the fact that she has been married twice, and now lives with a man not her husband. But the men. I have never seen such low, filthy scenes as some I've witnessed during the past year. I have never seen such lofty, noble examples of kindness and goodness as are shown by some of the same actor; as in the former scenes. Among my ix hundred men are many "come down in the world," and many are on their way up. Often 'have I seen men who have been on well educated. They have learned how to go to the devil faster thiiii their neighbors. 'lt doesn't leave a good impression in one's mind actually to hear a man in his drunken verbosity recite a jumble of Latin, Greek, and English—■with Maori thrown in to leaven it. I had read of such English public school boys and Home university men. I never thought I should ever meet them face to face. Have you ever tried to get such an one to give up drink, gambling, or immorality? Try, and see where you yourself stand on the moral or religious plane.

The next: I was holding a service in a boarding-house. They were late in coming along, so I went forth to seek. 1 heard a row and found a drunkard assaulting a woman. The reason was that the woman, on her way to the service, called at the man's hut to find her husband. She found him—getting drunk. She let loose her wrath, and the other threw her out.- She went home sobbing. After service I went to call on the man A. I arrived just in time tn tee him getting rid of the husband B. They came out of the hut together. B. landed on his back, A. on top. But B. had an ear of A.'s in each hand, and held. He had also landed a right on A.'s profile before the descent; so Hie scene -was lurid. Well, one at each corner, and a fifth to carry, the impedimenta, we took him home. All had to go in to supper, and the finale came when—'bang! bang! Mrs. B. fell in a dead faint on the floor. A little water, and rest, and we left. TS., too. was once a Sunday school scholar of my brother's! The population is a very floating one. I should think, without any exaggeration, more than eight hundred men have come' and gone during the past year. One catches glimpses only and knows rot the real man.

The general tone of Mr. Mules' article, however, is not at all represented by the extracts quoted. He has much praise fothe brave people whose lives are reputable, and who are in the majority.