SCANDALOUS STATE OF THINGS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1723, 12 April 1888, Page 4

SCANDALOUS STATE OF THINGS.

The Tuapeka Mouth correspondent of the Tuapeka Times writes: — This place lor the last fifteen or sixteen years has been a real hot-bed for ruffianism. Men have been tied up in sacks and suspended over the side of a bridge 20ft or- 30ffc high; others have been stripped of their clothes and covered with sacks and bags in Robinson Crusoe fashion; whilst others have had their ears pierced and ringed with fencing wire. One man was tied up under a dray, when in a state of unconscious drunkenness, alongside a wild boar; and when consciousness returned, there was a great struggle by both man and beast to get away from each other. But as the diggings got worked out, and tbe sawmills knocked off, the old hands were dispersed, taking their departure to other parts of the country. Eor a few years; the Mouth became a comparatively quiet neighbourhood; but recently the slumbering fires of rowdyism became inflamed in the bosoms of the youth s and ruffianism recommenced. Bridles have been taken from horses; saddles have been removed or the girths dangerously slackened ; men have been attacked ; and even women have not been altogether free from interference. On the night of last general election, one of the mill hands was seized by a lot of grown-up young men outside the hotel and tied hand and foot to a lamp-post. The same man was tied up on another occasion and subjected to gross indignities. This time he was met on the road home by about twenty larrikins who were well supplied with flax rope, and the treatment he was subjected to was positively cruel. Their victim was a strong, powerful man, a match for any two of them, and had received several medals from the Humane Society for saving life. Still, his life was made so unpleasant by > the interference of these blackguards that he was obliged to leave the district.