OUTRAGE AT REWA.

Waikato Times, Volume XV, Issue 1311, 23 November 1880, Page 2

OUTRAGE AT REWA.

_ ... „ .._ On Sunday night last an outrage was per petrated at Toko Toko, on the Rewa River, which in atrocity surpasses anything that hat> occurred since the massacre of the Burns family on the Ba River. At the junction of the back river with the main stream, there stands an accommodation house, the property of Mr de Wolfe, but latterly kept by a Mrs Williams, who, with tluee young daughters (the elde.it about U yen* old), has resided there for the past three ve.ir-*. Thehou<-o is the po^t-oincc of the Lower Tiuwa, nod, being directly on the main line of traffic, ir. i^ visited by numbers of travellers almost d-iily. It would therefoie have been .supposed that the lonely woman and her young 1 children would have been fire from harmful molestation. About half-past 11 o'clock ou Sunday night, after all had goue to bed, Mrs Williams heard voices outside, and called to know who wns there. Receiving no leply, and as the noi-=e .still continued, she 'o-e, and throwing on a wrapper, went into the front part of the house. At that moment the dour was burst in, and discovered » Fijian standing in the doorway, with a number of others at hi* b.ick. The front urin throw off his sulu, and entered the house, and with a scream which brought her children to her side, the terrified woman retreated into a passage leading to a back door. Then the window in the children's bedroom was bunt in, and a number of men entered by that and dashed their ulnas (short handclubs) into the beds where the girls had been sleeping but a few monibiits previously. In terror for their lives, the poor worn m and children hastened to escape in their night-dresses by the back door, and while doing so an oar was hurled spear fashion at them, and narrowly missed the mother. They fled out into the night and rain, and hid themselves iv the tall veico which grows near to the house, and nude their way to the native town of Toga Dravu, distant o\ cr ,1 mile, where they found shelter for the night. Upon their return in the morning the house was found a perfect wreck — doors and windows smashed in, boxes broken open, and furniture ruined. Five pounds were stolen from one box, and 16s of Government money which had been paid for postages also abstracted. The stamps were .-scattered about outside the home, and all the clothing had been carried away. A kunmla patch on the edge of the \eu;o scrub was trodden down by the feet of the miscreant!?, who had evidently been hunting for the fugitives, and had they but discovered thrill it is impossible to say what further horrors would have beeu perpetrated. Mrs Williams sent up to the police station at once, and Liter in the day a native sergeant arrived in a boat, which was conveying Dr M'tiregor and Mr John Berry down the river. Mrs Williams entreated these gentleman to come on shore but the doctor refused to do so, and passed on. Either the matter has been grossly exaggerated to us, or the conduct of these gentlemen is incomprehensible. Sub-in-spector Forster arrived next day, and is doing his best to discover the perpetrators of the outrage. It is devoutly to be hoped that his efforts may be successful. This has occurred, not in an isolated district on the outskirts of civilization, but almost at our very doors, in the middle of the populous Rewa district, where police stations, magistrates, courts and constables are even more numerous than they are in Levuka, and that such an atrocity could be planned and carried out with such unparalleled audacity speaks little for the moral effect all this machinery of government nas produced. This matter must be searched out and dealt with thoroughly, or there is no telling where such outrages will end.

It is reported that the Marquis of Lome •will resign his position in Canada next year in order not to bs separated from bis wife so frequently. At a recent meeting of the Cobden Club the French Ambassador paid, " In spite of all resistence the desires of the free-traders in England and France would be attained." The Chinese never punish an animal ; hence a mule that, in tbe hands of a foreigner would not only bo useless but dangerous to every one about it, became, in the possession of a Chinaman, as quiet as a lamb and as tractable as a doar. When a man agrees to deliver a letter to his friend's sweetheart and forgets about it and leaves it in his pocket where his wife finds it, he may just as well save himself the trouble ot telling her the fac ts. They won't be believed. — Bo>tw IW,