BRUTAL TREATMENT OF A WIDOW.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 227, 17 January 1885, Page 3

BRUTAL TREATMENT OF A WIDOW.

borne particulars have reached me from a country district, not a hundred miles from Waiuku, of inhuman treatment of a childless and lonely widow. Early one morning her house was forcibly entered by a ruffianly neighbour, who seized her by the hair, beat her brutally, and ran away. Covered with blood and bruises, the poor creature made her way to a settler's house, where her injuries were attended to. A summons was taken out against her assailant, and the case was heard before the 11. M., when the woman's evidence was corroborated by three other respectable witnesses, one of whom had seen the cowardly fellow strike her in the teeth on a former occasion. The charge having been established, the Bench, we are told, i; severely admonished the accused, and had a good mind to send him to gaol without the option of a fine for such a cowardly assault," but inflicted a fine of one pound and costs, in all £4 15s, or 14 days hard labour ! Comment is almost needless, but there must be queer ideas of justice in some of the out-districts when a brute who could be guilty of such conduct can escape so lightly. But the woman's sufferings did not end here. The house she lived in on the chapel ground she had occupied for a period of 19 years by permission of the priest and congregation. She had expended money in enlarging and improving the house. But one Sunday, while she was away at dinner at the house of a friend, a few r brutes entered her little cottage, threw out her furniture, put a padlock on the door, leaving her for three days homeless. It is said that a shining light in the church coveted the little piece of ground on which she had grazed a cow. However, her neighbours resented this act of tyranny, forced off the padlock, reinstated her in possession, and resolved to protect her at all hazards. When we read of things like this one is tempted to ask whether the age of barbarism has passed

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