TEN THOUSAND LOVE LETTERS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 183, 7 September 1909, Page 3

TEN THOUSAND LOVE LETTERS

M MAORI "PRINCESS" AND HER [ SUITORS. SACKSFUL OK AMOROUS AITLKHTIONS. Bella Reretupou, a young half-caste woman of VV liakarewarewa, Rotorua, wlio was, a few years ago, celebrated as lite handsomest girl-giime ia the "evser village, holds tile "world's recoru '' lor oilers of marriage, says the \Veiilllgloll 'limes. Her Hhare was iinule the m-ip ing gn.und for Ihc wide world »■ billeisUoll\—over ten tilousand of them. There

is food here for the statistical fiend in working out the distance that would be covered if these ten thousand love-let-ters were opened and spread out end to end, and the exact number of loaves that could have been purchased for the unemployed of Wellington with tile post-age-stamps so recklessly expended on this half-ton of amorous literature. Bella's' wooers hail from all Englishspeaking lands, but chiefly from England and the United States. Tile history 'of the wooing is one .f the hugest jokes ever perpetrated on a too credulous world, for from all the ends of the earth poured these pro posals of marriage to a Maori "princess'' who had existed but in the imagina- j tion of a couple of humorous globe-trot-ters.

Bella lives in surely one of the queerest homes in the world. Her house is within the lines of the Maori settlement of Whakarewrewa. ami is built on sinter from which the warm steam continually rises. All around are the bubble and gurgle of boiling springs, the nlop of scalding tin} Ripple of heated waters, and the smell of sulphur while now and then from tha awar-by terraces of snowy silica the wonderful geysers burst forth and rain'their sparkling fountains of water and silvery spray a hundred feet into the air. To this romantic village of the puias there came one day, some years ago, two tourists from overseas. They were guided over the sights ,by Bella, and pronounced her the most charming "irl they had met on all their travels. They raved of her noble Spanish orbs, lustrous as the full-moon, her pearly teeth, her sinuous shape, graceful as the young girl Minnehaha, the "Laughing Water" of the Dakotas—to all of wliich Belli listened with demurely downcast eyet. They promised laughingly to send her a white husband, even if they had to advertise for one, and so Bella's amiable flatterers departed. The next act in the comedy of errors' was played in the land of trusts and and pine hams . The palefaces had hardly reached their lodges in the l>i" .camps of their kinsfolk before they eon° cocted a jocular hoax, whose efleet upon their unfortunate countrymen was nothing short of appalling. On the flimsy foundation of a pleasant girl-guide at Rotorua they built up and published a story of a Maori '"Princess," with an enormous fortune, who was pining for a white man to share her guilded lot. The fairy-tale ran through many of the newspapers of the United States; the English papers followed, and it appeared in a serious London weekly under the heading: "A HUSBAND WAXTED." The article set forth how that a brown Princess, "Mary Tonomaroanui,' of Maori Land, pined for a white husband. She had an income of £7OOO a year, and yould have tne unlimited run of the "Royal coffers" when old "King Paul," her father, passed out. There was a royal newspaper, too, and various other items of dignity and emolument.

Huge amusement greeted the publication in New Zealand of this farrago, flipped . from English journals, and many were the enquiries as to the identity of the "Princess." The £7OOO a year, alas, existed not.; old ''King Paul'" was a myth, so were his ''royal coffers" and the royal newspaper; and the fat kingdom awaitjng the coming of the white Prince was but a shadow done in printers' ink.

But all unwotting of this', the deadlieats and honest tradesmen of two continents besieged the mythical Princess with offers of their hearts and hinds. The New Zealand officials suddenly found themselves called upon to deliver piles of much-stamped letters addressed variously to the "iPrincess of Maori," "l'rineess Mary," or "Princess Tonomaro.niui." llv every English and American mail the epistles and photographs of Ivriters poured in, ami the post office people racked their brains in the effort to discover the titled maid of Mnoriland.

Tlie Auckland postmaster bethought him that there was a Maori lady. Mary Tuhaere, living at Orakei, near the city; she must be the "Princess Marv.'' Off the letters' were packed to her until she became frightened at the inundation of amorous correspondence for whose origin she could not account, and the alarmed tribe insisted that sheinunt put her foot down and cease to encourage such scandalous goings-on, especially in view of the fact that she had a husband already. So Mary's little pile Went back to the post office, and still the letters poured in. At last someone knew Bella, and the guides of the Rotorua Wonderland, had a -happy idea, Bella was interviewed, and admitted that she had given her namo to the tourists as Tonomaroauul, Then the fiat went forth: Bella is the Princess, And bv the cartload the letters were thrust upon the astonished girl, whether she wished it or not, until she at last accepted the situation and the billetsdoux..

The bulk of the applications for tnc vacancy of Prince came from democratic U.S.A., and were characterised chiefly by two tilings—the delicate, fashion in which the color question was skated over; and a businesslike hint at a small cash advance out of the royal cofTcrs.