The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1857-06-04
To the Editor of the P. C. ADVERTISE

LIZ IS AdSOi VI viz - ~ 'NiHS
IR:-Chapter 35, Section 1, of the Penal Code
reads thus: g Whoever is found drunk in any street,
road, or other public place, from the voluntary use of
any intoxicating liquor" &c.
very much doubt the ~propriety Of making every
native policeman the judge of whether a person is
sufficiently IS drunk to come under the statute. I
have seen them arrest persons for merely having
drank LIQUOR, others because their breath smelled of
strong drink, and others again for apparently no other
reason than because they had frequently arrested
them before and had probably got into the habit of
it. Is it q crime to drink spirits? The statutes do
not make it such; the crime consists in the result
which may follow, viz: public disturbance. If so,-
and few can indulge in their use without getting more
or less intoxicated-is not government, in licensing
retail liquor shops aiding in the commission of crime +?
And is it not inconsistent to punish men by imprison-
ment and fine for doing that which you afford them
every facility for doing? 1 am no apologist for
drunkenness. I do not believe in allowing men to
make beasts of themselves outright, and outrage pub
lie decency, but I do think that when @ man who is
neither a vagrant nor q public nuisance, has, under
the direct encouragement of government, got himself
g elevated, - sc tight 9 tipsy,' or g drunk more
or Lesson brandy that has paid government So per
gallon duty, and is peaceably proceeding homeward
or s~hipward, that it does not conduce to the public
morals or answer any good purpose whatever to
pounce upon him with two stout g limbs of the law
bring him to the station-hOuse in anything but q po-
lite manner, lock him up in a cell with anybody and
everybody, and fine him six dollars and costs the next
morning simply on a constable's swearing stoutly that
he was onG.
These thoughts were suggested by observing the perfectly
"loose" manner in which the man-01-wars crew lately in port
appeared to enjoy the government facilities" for getting drunk,
their entire immunity from arrest by the, poice-and the
Polynesian's "appreciating" way of winking at the capers OF
slack ashore" We are visited annually by a great many
thousand seamen-"b hubber hunters" if you please, and they
spend a good deal of money on the aforesaid facilities" cut all
sorts Of amusing capers, but L never knew the Pokyn esian TO
crack a solitary smile over the whimsicalities Of these stacks
ashore" and ! hare known scores upon scores of them forced to
make the acquaintance of our police, while their dollars went
into the treasury, I suppose. Are our policemen Ike pictured
Justice, blind, and guided by the smell of blubber in the one
case, and repealed by the odor of gunpowder in the other!
This law Of .tdrunk" does not work well. "It is a poor rule
that won't work both ways. We have seen that the law is a
respector Of persons. We know from observation that after a
man has been locked up all night and made a public spectacle OF
next morning in the street and before the court, in rine cases
out of ten he returns eagerly to the intoxicating draught to drown
shame, and the ofener the arrest and exposure is repeated the
more callOus to the shame he becomes, but the farther from re-
form. defy you to show me a single instance Were q drunk.