Burke Manuscript

Burke Manuscript: Page 248

Transcript

Hanson the lonely man of the Bush a man who had formed attachments to the Māoris and at his establishment made them quite at home. The present Isaac Wilson M.H.R. was then a boy scudding about amongst the Māoris and talking to them fluently in their tongue. His brothers, Tom & Edward, were made of the right stuff for pioneers and they helped to tear down the Bushes and no doubt have reaped a rich harvest from their industry. The Bushes were a rum shop then. Drinking, yes there was some. They made money did those sawyers, but they knocked it down like skittles. Old Gough, Turton of the Ashburton, Fred Hillier, Burridge, and lots more, some drinkers some the reverse, any amount of runaway sailors. The Pashby’s and Warings, [illegible] all prudent foreseeing men. An important personage then was Policeman Revell, now Magistrate at the Grey. His rule was despotic in Sandlot town. No publican dared thwart him and woe to the thoughtless being who committed a breach. Mr Revell you see all that time was laying the foundation of that well balanced judgement and legal lore which have since so distinguished him upon the West Coast Bench, and aided him in his encounters with Lawyer Guinness then as it were, only a toddler and Bickerton Fisher, schoolboy. Ned Pankhurst too, the old original of the present Tomkins Woodend house was a curious person in his way. Ned was double jointed and by thunder Ned was strong. It was an amusement with him to put his back under the body of a loaded dray and lift it. While for a good wholesome punching match Ned was always ready. He disappeared. He had the complaint that a good many suffered from. The curve in the little fingers. It was a common disease and for that matter is now. But his next Hotel neighbours were a different kind of cattle. The two brothers Cameron of the Creek, were a plodding, steady obliging pair of men and succeeded well, growing with the Country. The present Sir John Hall then R.M. and District Judge, I fancy, used to run up to Kaiapoi once a month to put them through, in the debt or peccadillo way. By Jingo, he was an active little man. And it was great to see him in state in the old shanty with his Māori assessor an old card with a figure head carved and wrinkled like a pair of corderoy breeches sitting alongside to adjudge Māori cases. Mr Hall always treated the Chiefs with great respect and was thoroughly friendly with them, thereby getting a good influence with the Māoris. For even in their then comparative savagery they were acute and shrewd. It was amusing to watch their dealings with the sawyers and splitters in the Old Bush. See what a thorough knowledge and identification they possessed of every tree. Let anyone who leased from them an acre or half acre dare to put an axe on a tree on the boundary, or over it. Or see them making a bargain with a splitter for a good shingle tree. Note the grasping acuteness! Or in another mood see perhaps 100 of them, men and women, threshing [continued next page]