Hawaii Holomua, Volume III, Number 261, 13 July 1893 — Untitled [ARTICLE]

The refusal of the gi»vernment to admit Messrs. Sirc’ it ir and \Valker to bail, iā simply an uut rage. These citizens were »rrested on a charge of crirainal conspiracy whieh iā not a capital oftense, but siraply punishable by a fine or imprisouinent. The evidence with whieh the governraent atlerapted to āubstantiate their charge was eo flimsy and absurd that even the prosfcCuting Attorney Mr. Hartwell was seized with that “tired feeling’' during the tnal. The learned At-terney-General enlarges in hiā usual brilliant, but sphinxlike raanner on something whieh he termed “an individual conspiracy” whieh evidently had so paralyzing an effect on the magistrate tna» he decided to hold the men. But that two citizens should be d!*prived of their liberty on the testimony of men like Topaz and Marraont, and to suit the eweet will of a lawyer like W. O. Smith, is a perfect scandal and deāerve« the strongest comment. \Vhat the deuce is our military government alraid of? Do these heroes who laid down their life on the I7th of January,and haveaccording to their own testimony, always stood ready to repeat that perforraanee ainee, really shake in their booU when Tom \Valker is at liberty, and whea he confldentially( II) tells everybody in a barroom that he is a match for any twenty P. G. soldiers and that he is ready to b!ow them all to h —. If the craven hearte of the mercenaries and their commaoder8 and the At-torney-Geoeral beat quicker at the terrible name of Tom \Valker why don’t they go out of the 8oldierhuaineea and so avoid heart-dis«ase, and nervcu3 pnstration, and reaume their ordinary occupations as managers of estates or lawyers, or venders of newspapers or vagrants. If on the evideuc« produced before Judge Carter the At-torney-General thinks that he has a good causeto deprive twocitizens of their liberty he must be a more bigoted,3mallminded,and meapahie man than even we ever have buspectedhimofbeing. Butif itsimply is his inhom inciinatipn to use his petty authority whieh makes him hoid those two men against all fairnes8, ju*tice, and eommon aenee behind the bars of Oahu Jail thtn he heeomee a greater ainner than ever they were and the Hawaiian people will some day make him answer for the outrage commilted in ita name. We wonder if tbe imported editor of the Star ever waa a soldier. If he waa he muat have made a very poor one. We arrive af that eoneluaion b'y peroaing last Tueaday’a 9tar. In oneeolumu he alohber» over the proviaional army - v f

uuder;he be«ding or*Good SoldierW Spirit” while he in *nother eolumn he Ull* tbat ”the *oidiers h*ve loel all confidenee in Lareen ae a comroander.” Now we tbuught that the fir»l duty of a soldier »»• blind obedience to his »upenor: »nd we are, iu apile o£ tb« vagariea of the Star,stiil flrmio tbe beiief tbat without 9ubiuilting to • rigid diselpliue no man makee a gocd soldier. Il' it is to b« the rule in th« uroviaion <1 army that the private« instead of obeying their euj>erior9 are to criticise their emnmamli and express oonfidence and nou-confi-dence in them, th *t 9»>-f tr uaeleaa bodv heeomea still roure useless and even a inenaee to the authoritiea. It inatead of entertaini"g the soidiers with sand-b;ig drills or * alluwing thein U* rest on the r>*yal beū« Field-Marshal S»»[>er would t *och tāemd aoipline aml oheiliene* he might yet make hinieell'entitled t > 8oni= confidence by t:ie ooumiunity—and t<> tne swlarv.