Not many years ago, it chanced that a gum-digger accidentally found a merè ponamu in the bush. The first person he happened to meet was a Maori, to whom he showed his "find." The Maori examined it carefully, and questioned the digger as to the precise locality in which he had found it. He then asked the digger to sell it to him, which, after some demur, the latter eventually consented to do, the price he put on the "curio" being three notes (£3). The Maori went off to fetch the money; and by-and-by returned to the digger's camp with one or two of his compatriots. The sale was then concluded, and after the Pakeha had expressed himself as satisfied with the bargain, he was somewhat chagrined at being told that the merè was the long-lost weapon of a great chief, which had been unsuccessfully searched for during long years, and that, had he demanded three hundred pounds instead of only three, the tribe would have found means to raise it, so much did they prize the relic. It speaks highly for the sense of justice and peaceableness of the modern Maori that no thought of forcibly taking possession of the merè seems to have occurred to these men, although the digger was alone, and they were numerous. How different might the climax have been had they been Irish peasants instead of semi-civilized Maori! The Maori have no sense of honour, but they have a keen love of justice, which suffices to take its place. Manifestations of their principles of equity are often very amusing to us; but they might sometimes serve to improve the decisions of our law-courts, despite their crudity. They are generally based on the idea of utu, or compensation, and are deliciously simple. Thus, adultery is now punished among the Maori themselves in the following fashion:— The chiefs hold a korero, or palaver, over the offenders, and settle the amount of utu to be paid. The man has to pay a fine to the husband, father, or nearest relative of the woman; she, in like manner, is sentenced to pay a similar sum to the wife, mother, or nearest relative of the man. If a culprit has no property, he or she has to go to work among the Pakeha, or dig gum, or raise it in some such fashion. There never seems to be any attempt to evade a fine of this kind; it is always faithfully paid to the last penny.