TITLE TO LAND BY DIGESTION

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2719, 7 October 1887, Page 2

TITLE TO LAND BY DIGESTION

" A newspaper called Overland con-jT. tains the following,liumurous yam The Maoris aft. logical reasoners,y good debaters, fond of contentions, andA - as well, up in the genealogy of families as a Scotch Highlander, aufflßF. as stubborn when their rights are®:-:, infringed upon,. At a ' Court, a middle-agd Maorrfflfu just tiQißhcd.inii.king a Ions; speech, claim* * ing that biti.niimo should bo inserted :<•; in ;the'grtot;to the exclusion of that of I & aubid grilled Maori, who had-sat 1 Quietly by,without moving a • muscle of I ; v iiis couxiteu.inoo, and heard the young - man ask in the courso of his harangue, with much gesticnlating: ' " Where are my ancestors buried but on this land, where I was born and brought up?" When ho had ended, the old man« oater rose, throwing everything off hut a waistnloth, and bounding across mie room addressed tho court in this wise: ." I have listeuod with disgust and ' contompt to tho words of this tuturu ,(nobody). What claim can he have to' y the land! I conquered long ago the 4 people that lived on that land whon lis \ was a small . child, aud tho inistake I ( then.made was in permitting bim to ~ live 1. And he where are his ancestors buried-)'I tell him, and show him. Here.l • here I" his stomach with,.bis left baiX.ip'His .ancestors are buried bore. I ate them, and thatis my title to the laud." : No bettor or stronger title to nativo lands oan be before .Native knd.Courts than the above, described - as "Title by digestion,".