Polynesian., 1862-06-07
Ghe polpnesian.

Thoughts the System OF Legislation
Which has preUaed the Haoui,qn Islands for the last
tortg years on tie eriis that haze arisen from Il and
on the possible remedies for these eus-by DR.. JOHN
RAE, of Hama, Maui author Of NEW PRINCIPLES OF
PoLITICAL- ECpNoNY, &C., &C., sc. GCOatinued.l
HAMA, MAUI, April 3, 1862.
Two or three years ago | chanced to be at a
small village in one part OF this division OF the
island in a house in which were good many na-
tiyes, among the rest a very young man who told
me he was quite seriously affected with 1t. Some
thing in the vsage of the lad struck me as II had
seen him before, and | asked him who was his
father. He uttered the name OF Il man, whom the
clergyman OF the district had made known to me
as OF worthy character, at the time [ was engaged
innoculating for the smallpox, when that maiady
was raging in whose house had lived few days,
and with whom and his wife and family had been
much pleased. l therefore inquired how the old
man was s'Oh,'' he replied 90 he IS dead
g Dead | said q" of what did he die I" ''Syph-
Ills" Il am sorry to hear it ami your mother
how does she get onl 81 She also is dead"
g And what was her complaint - ''Syphilis."
60 This is melancholy news to me; you will have
to take care of yourself or you also Will die.
q" Oh yes,'' he said with smile, g perhaps shall
die too On this an elderly man present took up
the conversation. s' 1t is Il remarkable clrcum-
stance' he said 81 that if the foreigner bring US
anything that is good, we have always great deal
of trouble before we can get the good out OF 1t.
Now, there is the wheat at MakawaO, 1t Is Il good
thing, but see what a world of trouble 1t ls. One
has to get oxen, and yokes, and bows, and q plow
and harrow, labor the land SOW the seed, reap and
thresh the crop, before he get anything from 1t.
To be sure, you get at last MANY dollars. But see
what trouble it is Now, if it be a bad thing
they bring in it to spread itself without any
trouble at all, no one knows how. There IS the
centipede they brought us. A few years ago 1t was
l I -
turn over a stone without finding one beneath 1t.
Il is the same with this disease. l recollect when
it was seldom, and only here and there, that In
these parts you heard of it. Now you can scarce
enter a house where some one is not sick of 1t"
And truly it is to be found everywhere, and
among ages, and in positions In which one would
least expect to meet with it. The general license
of manners explains this frequency of occurrence,
as this frequency affords too convincing proof were
proof wanting, of that general license. recollect
at one time counting, in a neighborhood by no
means populous no less than thirteen patients,
within circle whose radius did not exceed quar-
ter of mile, and In OF these could trace the
infection either to Honolulu or Lahaina. There
were besides others sick Of the complaint within
the same circuit, who did not apply to me. During
the few months that supply of medicines from
the Board of Health enabled me to dispense them
almost gratutously, had nearly sixty patients in
this complaint, most of whom were In my lmme-
diate neghbOrhOod, or only two or three miles oil,
while my patients for other maadies did not ex-
ceed ten or twelve In my opinion, one half the
deaths are caused by it, either directly Indirect
ly. Some are visibly carried off by it alone. In
others it turks pretty quietly like an insidiOus foe
within the system until accident disease inVades
some point when it rushes there IN force and lends
its too powerful aid to the attack OF malady
which the constitution would otherwise have been
able to shake off. In this reckoning | count the
young children. Parents may be comparatively
healthy the vigor of mature age enabling them to
combat successfully the vestiges of the maady ex-
isting in their systems and the symptoms of which
appear only occasionally in blotches and scabs ;
but the children of these weak, puny, scabby,
and either die of this simple cachexy sink un-
der diarrhOea or something else or, finally, reach
| ing the age of puberty, though some times with
distorted visages or MANNED limbs, and acquiring
at that period additional robustness, are able then
| to offer more successful resistance.
If this opinion be correct, we have here an enc
my quite sufficient to destroy the race. No nation,
however prolific, can withstand drain on 1T dOub-
| ling the natural rate of mortality.
| am now to place before my readers the conclu-
| sions at which | have arrived concerning the
amount of decrease in the population OF the king
| DOM NV estimate of this is far higher than the
common one. 1t is founded chiefly on observations
made on this island but it is reasonable to suppose
that, with the exception of Oahu, the decrease Is
| about equal in all, otherwise population would
have flowed in to supply the void.
A fondness for geological pursuits, and for look
ing at the face of nature in all her aspects have
made me considerable of wanderer over the less
freouented parts of the island. L very early
struck in these my rambles with the frequent traces
| of human habtation in places now remote from the
abodes of man, and led TO speculate on the extent
| to which the ancient population had exceeded the
| present. That readers, unacqualnted with native
| customs, may the proof on which such specula-
tiOns rest, | would observe that, for purposes OF
cultivation if the land be stony, the stones are re-
moved from the surface, and piled here and there
in heaps or else deposited in rows. the intervening
spaces forming what are termed beds, very anala-
! gOus in appearance, though generally much larger
| than our own garden beds. Wherever, therefore,
| the land is stony, former cultivation Is easily
traced, and something of its character discovered,
and truly it is often astonishing to mark with what
| tolsome industry it must have been pursued. In
nv own Northern Scotland have seen Englishmen
stop and look with mingled wonder and admiration
at the toll which had been bestowed by peasants
who had there come into permanent possession oil
! little lots of land, In removing the stones from
them Why" they said, 60 these stone dy kes,
as you call them, which those men have piled up,
seem nearly as large the little plots they di-
| vide"
The industry of the Hawaiian peasant had been
! far greater for the masses of stone which he has
raised to the height of three four feet in order
| to Law bare a small surface to be wrought into
mould by the unheeded toll of shoulder and arm,
with his pointed stick, 4" 90, often greatly ex-
ceed in size the little bed he has laid open to the
day. Here, then, we have what may be called a
fixed faet-a fact concerning those old times fixed
in stone for our eyes to look at, and make veri-
table estimate of what in some respects, they were.
| draw from it three obvious conclusions. 1st.
Land in those days must have been of great value,
else so much labor would not have been expended
to get at such small patches. ID. Being OF this
great value, all land capable of being cultivated
must have been So 3D. Ii must have been care
fully cultivated-that is, all the skill of the day,
and every labor that would increase the crop, must
have been bestowed on it.