COLLISION BETWEEN CRAIG’S AND HARRIS’S MEN AT WHANGAPOUA.

Thames Guardian and Mining Record, Volume I, Issue 23, 2 November 1871, Page 3

COLLISION BETWEEN CRAIG’S AND HARRIS’S MEN AT WHANGAPOUA.

ONE MAN DANGEROUSLY WOUNDED. News reached town yesterday via Coromandel, of a very serious affray which has occurred- at Whangapoua between men employed by*Mr. Thomas Craig and a party in the employ of Mr. C. A. Harris. The fight is another of the. many phases developed by the well known,-and ap* parently interminable, case of Mohi v. Craig. It appears that Mr. Craig had instructed his men to take possession of certain logs (the ownership of which is the question in dispute), which his men had packed off the beach. In. accordance: with these orders Craig’s men, accompanied by a number of natives, and under the charge of Mr. Gibbons, went alongside a raft of logs, with some of Craig’s chains and anchors, which were in the possession of Harris’s men. A conflict ensued, in which. Harris’s men broke up three of Craig’s boats, compelling the attacking party to return to the shore. In the scuffle some of Craig’s men were thrown off the raft into the water, but the most serious part of the affray was caused by natives who formed one of the resisting party. This scoundrel was armed with a pike-pole, and'stal>bed"one of Craig’s men below the heart/ The wound is of a very serious character, and would, it was feared, prove fatal. It is stated that the native who was guilty of this act had once before wounded a man at Opitonui Creek. Immediately upon the state; of affairs being made known at Coromandel, “Mr. Craig, who was there, procured the services of Dr. Pa3 r ne, who at once proceeded to Whangapoua .to attend upon,the injured man.— D. S. Cross.