Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 202, 27 May 1891 — Page 4

KA LEO O KA LAHUI.

"E Mau ke Ea o ka Aina i ka Pono."

 

KA LEO.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1891.

 

NOTICE.

  Copies of the KA LEO O KA LAHUI can be found every morning at both the News Agencies in town.  Price 5 cents a copy.

 

DETECTIVES.

  In civilized countries traitors are hung and spies are shot, and it has never been doubted that such is the proper procedure.  But here in Hawaii the moral senses are so blunted, that spying is not considered disgraceful; and a criminal who gives state's evidence is treated after he leaves the jail as an honorable man as if his crime and his treachery balanced each other.

  That men who have such records now stand high in social and political life is a sad commentary on our moral status.  If the great reform had failed the members of the league would have been trampling on each other to be first to make statements and confessions.  Many respectable people, some of whom are still in public office, thought best to protect themselves from the results of possible failure by spying for the government party.  In the Wilcox conspiracy, the participants began to make statements from the first organization.  Those who betrayed their companions are now highly esteemed, and very respectable.  But we propose to treat of this subject hereafter and give some instructive historical sketches.

  No road seems to lead so surely to preferment and public office as playing the spy for persons in power.

  A cringing, servile sneak is so humble and useful to the professional intriguer who rule the country that they reach a secure place in the hearts of their masters and the sympathies of all their fellow valets.

  We hear a rumor that a certain attorney who has heretofore devoted his mind to the legal acquirement of the property of the natives is playing the detective in order to win the favor of another amateur detective who is in position to put him into the cabinet.

  There is a fund known as the secret service fund that is largely used to pension off inconvenient adherents and to pay black mail with.  When any one has to be paid for secret services rendered, or charity demands that some member of the party be paid something to keep him out of the disgrace of manual labor this fund is drawn on.  We have dozens of men about town with no visible means of support who are thus in the government employ.

  The modern Mafia and the "dry hoondert Shermans" seems to give the government a good deal of unnecessary uneasiness.  Several very tempting offers of positions on the secret service, and salaries out of the "fund," have been offered to numbers of that society who were not looking for that kind of a job, while those who have attempted to give information have not been able to give more than one can get at their public meetings.  Recently the marshal has secured the services of a  professional detective who is supposed to be in the secret council of that organization; but the only result will be that the member who thinks to make money by detecting will be expelled by a vote of want of confidence, and the government money will be wasted.

  Is i not a public disgrace for the government to subsidize such a crowd of unsavory, malodorous specimens of total depravity.

 

MAMMARY GLANDS.

  We have heard some very severe criticisms on our passing allusion to semi-nude condition on which ladies go into polite society.  They say that KA LEO is acquiring a reputation for indecency, something we would greatly deplore if it were true.  We usually try to call things by their ordinary English names, and never pretend to ignore facts that are perfectly visible and tangible.  We are not a branch of the circumlocution office.

  But ts is generally conceded that certain orders of facts should be palliated; for that reason we have used an expression of Latin derivation at the head of this column more elegant than the terse English word.  We regret having offended any fastidious mind by saying that ladies go into society with their teats hanging out.  Still ladies do not seem to shrink from appearing in that condition.  It must be admitted that hanging out is not a delicate way of putting it, nor the exact truth.  For the benefit of our many readers who do not move in polite society we will explain.  Those glands are usually laid ou in the most tempting style on a kind of shelf of silk and steel stays, magnetised to increase the attraction, and garnished with lace and flowers most beauteously.  One who has the entre to the best society in Honolulu will find nothing concealed that is worth looking at and little left to the imagination.  Of course such society is very select.  It ought to be difficult to obtain admittance to places where ladies so expose themselves.

  Considered from a social or scientific stand point these displays have their uses.  The device, experience shows, does not add to the moral standard in society, but on the contrary it is calculated to lower the rules which should guide us in our duties in life.

  For the purpose of rescuing mankind every journalist, writer, preacher, and the lecture room, should not spare the modesty of anyone who will tolerate such indecent exposures, and instead of people being offended at the application of plain honest English words against the misapplication of our persons, we hope they will be appreciated.

  The morals of the age is not what it was a century ago.  The ancestors of some of our lady friends would be horrified to see the semi-nude state in which their descendants appear at a ball room and other like places.  We hope our readers will gather honey from what may appear noxious and bear with us, for our motive is to improve the state of society and save our future from the insiduous encroachments of our lower natures, and in using severe and unvanished terms we hope.  "To point a moral, and adorn a tale."

  If the innocent and refined can do these things the mention of them in plain words can raise the blush on no chaste check.

 

LA GRIPPE.

  This disease has taken earnest hold of our community, and a number of deaths have been the effects thus far.  During the past week the death rate has been increasing, judging from the doleful sound of the church bells as they peeled forth their mournful toll.  The sickness is not near as severe here as it is in the United States or in Europe; but poverty and lack of means to employ medical aid operate against the poor, added to the treatment which they receive from the Board of Health makes them resigned and indifferent.

  The Board of Health should in instances like the present engage extra medical service.  The two men on the Board, whose philanthropy and christianity have been heralded long and loud, should urge the appointment of an extra physician on occasions like this.  But so bigoted and worldly minded have christian charity been exercised of late, that there is no possibility of inculcating anything good into the Board that would be accepted, unless, as we are inclined to suspect, the worldly prospects of some of the members or their friends are advanced by it.

 

THOSE FILTER REDS.

  For many years past the necessity of filtering our water has been a question of the utmost importance.  It has presented itself before us after every heavy shower of rain when our water taps give forth a fluid resembling thin pea-soup.

  As a sanitary question, the filtering of our water from the grosser impurities of animal and vegetable life will materially lower our infant mortality - at all times too high.

  Former governments recognized the need of a filter system, and Minister Thurston caused information to be obtained on the question and a sum to be placed on the estimates, which was voted and is available.

  There is on view in the window of the Hawaiian News Co., on Merchant Street, a photograph of the filter plant erected for the city of Oakland, Cal.  Those of our readers who are familiar with Oakland, know that before the filter system operated, the water supply of the city was true to its swampy origin insipid and permeated with vegetable spores and generally bad; whereas, since the filter system has been in operation the conditions are reversed.

  Mr. Caldwell, the eminent engineer of the Hyatt Company, - who are the sole inventors and patentees of the new filter system-visited Honolulu in February last, as the result of a promise that bids would be called for immediately in reference to our filter system.  He left the bid of the Hyatt Company ready sealed.  In this connection, it may be said that the Hyatt system of reservoir filtering is recognized as superior and economical, and being patented, bids are-as far as the Hyatt systems is concerned - beyond the reach of competitors.

  There is such a fund of information at hand on the subject, collected by the former Superintendent of Water Works, that there need to be no delay in arriving at a decision; and no a day should be lost in going on with the urgent business of trying to keep the animalcule and vegetation of our water supply in its proper place and of carrying out the decision of the Legislature.

 

ON DIT.

  That the great opium catcher, Mr. Wm. Place, late of West Point, says he will astonish Wailuku, and the old bones buried around the Sand Hills of Kahului, some fine day.

 

  That Cleghorn ought to make another appointment like the Port Surveyor of Kahului, and then be appointed out of office himself.

 

  That our articles discussing the necessity of republicanism as the most natural from of government, in Hawaiian, has led to a covert attack from the Hawaii Holomua; but it finds the Hawaiians somewhat inclined for republican doctrines, and some have withdrawn their patronage to that paper.

 

  That the yelling around the palace yard at all hours of the night is a disgraceful nuisance.  What do those tin soldiers think they are doing anyway?

 

  That our daily contemporaries give two columns to a report of a ball game which every one in town who takes the slightest interest in the matter saw for himself.

 

   That while our people are very squeamish about words, they never criticise the disgraceful display of photographs that are exhibited in the streets and windows, consisting of Samoans and Gilbert Islanders in a state of shameful semi-nudity.  A dealer in curios exhibits a photograph vile beyond the most prurient imagination.  Art may excuse our dealers for displaying etchings and lithographs of ladies posing to show their shape, but obscene photographs have nothing to temper their indecency.

 

  That Charlie Mahope is to be decapitated, and Charlie Mamua is to take his office.  We are sorry, but too late to be able to help our friend.

 

  That Mr. and Mrs. Campbell returned in good health, having enjoyed themselves hughty during their sojourn abroad.

 

  That the orders to the American steel armored fleet in the Pacific came in about the following way.  "They are to take the Itata, provided they can do so, without manifest injury to their own ships.  If, in Captain Remy's opinion, he can forcibly seize the Chilian vessel without distruction to officers and men, then the Itata will be brought back to an American port."

 

  That the road to the Volcano will be built mahope, as his Excellency does not bind himself to take the lowest or any bid.

 

  That a lady 100 years old, committed suicide because her friends wished her to live in retirement at the Poor House.

 

  That the Boers are to turn around and whip the money-loving Englishman, if they interfere with them.

 

  That Marshal Wilson left yesterday for Wailuku;  he may possibly return to Honolulu, with his commission as His Excellency the Minister of the Interior.

 

  That Hon. Cecil Brown returned by the Australia, increased in weight, and ready for the next campaign.  Things have changed since the gentlemen as here last, but not for the better.

 

A ROMANCE.

(CONTINUED.)

  The interpreter interrupted them - "Here take your contract." he said, "and go on through that gate."  "Go on the boat." said the man in the box, "send the wahine around the other way; we don't want to get them mixed."

  Faza drew back and joined Moromoto.  They went around to the other side of the second pen, there was a gangway to go on board of the steamer.  They went on board.  He sent a waiter for the luggage.  The immigrants were going into the hold.  They saw Nyama go in with others.

  "Oh! Let me go down to him." said Faza.  "No" the escort said, "I will go down and bring him up."  He descended a narrow stairway; at the bottom he found Nyama bent on coming up but prevented by a man who guarded the way.  There was a lively altercation, but the man was immoveable.  He would let no Jap go on deck.  So the officer had to return and tell the little woman on deck that she must go below to see her husband.  They went down and Faza went in, but the man stopped Moromoto.

  "You better not go in if you don't want to go along.  I might not know you from a Jap when you wanted to go out.  No Jap leaves this steerage."

  Moromoto pressed a little package into her hand "give that to Nyama.  I will see if I can get you out of this place," he said, and left her.

  She saw Nyama sitting on a fish-keg not far from the door.  She ran to him and laughing and crying told him what had happened since he had been arrested.  Nyama listened sullenly and gravely.  She held on to his hand.  It was so nice to be near the dear fellow; she would not let him go.  After a little he told her to sit down on the keg.

  "Oh, there is only one.  You sit down - I will sit on your lap,"  said the lady with a blush and a persuasive smile.  Every body will be looking," he replied smiling back and squeezing her hand.  "I am not tired," and he put his hands on her shoulders and gently forced her to sit down.  How delightful was the thrill of his touch!

  "Oh yes," she exclaimed, "here is a package for you, Moromoto just gave me. 

  He took it and unwrapped the several papers and at last came to a nest of coin - five twenty-dollar gold pieces.

  "Well, what a fellow! he knows I would not take his money, - but it might be useful for you, dear I think I have about fifty dollars left - I suppose I will not get any more from my father.  Well I will pay it back to him."

  They talked on and on absorbed in each other.  The steerage was rapidly filling up with people, dirty and tired from their long journey, carrying their blankets and cooking utentials.  Still they kept coming.  Many were reading and discussing the "contract" they had received.  At last there was barely standing room.  Suddenly the hole in the ship's side was shut and it was almost dark.

(To be Continued.)