Brave Volunteers!!!

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 3189, 26 April 1889, Page 2

Brave Volunteers!!!

Auckland, April 25. It is said that Mr Porter, licensee of the Kailway Hotel, at Mercer, intends to apply to the Defence Minister for compensation for damage done to his property, as he alleges, by several of the Volunteers who attended tho Easter encampment, In a letter to tho press Mr Porter states that when the train to Hamilton with the Volunteers reached Mercer a number of men entered the dining room, and, turning out the person who was in oharge, cut and slashed at everything on the table and carried away several articles. Some went into the bar, and a jar of brandy and some bottles of stout were,taken, whilst the other rooms were looted, glasses smashed and further damage done. The railway officials also complain (hat tbe windows and fittings in'the train conveying tho volunteers to Hamilton were broken.

A Hamilton correspondent writes: "What might have proved a serious' fracas occured on Sunday between a number of the Volunteers and some Maoris who were. attending the Salvation Army services in. Hoodstreet. The Maoris had come from their settlement in a wagon, jrom whioh the horses had been taken, and in which an old woman had been ■left sitting,' Some Volunteers having been marched into town.from the ohurcu parade, got round the wagon and ran it away, upsetting the old woman out of it. The old woman seized a tomahawk, and in. a mad fury attacked the Volunteers, who drew their sido arms and kept her off, literally at the point of the bayonet. A Maori on horsebaok, with an axe in his hand, came to her assistance, and was kept off also with sticks and any thing.that came to hind till their I fury had somewhat abated."