The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1869-10-23

number OF vessels were lying in port, fishing and
coasting schOoners and, "a looked out upon
the uncongenial surroundings among which the
man Of gentle imagination had moved so long, q
sen captain came up stairs and called out, with a
manner Oddly compounded OF bluffness and tim
idity, "a Here, want to get clearance for this
afternoon"
- Wait below n few minutes, - said our eicerone,
like man who was sure of his position,-for it
was now past business hours, and there was q
lady in our party, whose curiosity might there
fore first be satisfied without offence to the law.
"a Wait few minutes, and I'll clear your
schooner
So the bluff captain went down stairs; and
the obliging official showed us into another
room.
az Here -aid he, taking up large stencil
plate, shaped like a trowel, and provided with O.
wooden handle, IS il Hawthorne's stencil"
This was the identical implement which, in
Hawthorne words, Z" had often conveyed the
knowledge Of his name into lands where his
writings had never been so much rs heard Of"
The Implement was worn and rusty, and bore
evident marks Of having imprinted the famous
literary name upon many a bale Of commodities
more perishable than books.
ss This room,r said our informant, is the
room in which Hawthorne claimed to have found
the old manuscripts upon which the story of the
Scarlet Letter was founded
"But there was no real discovery Of such a
manuscript" asked I.
"No; that part OF it was pure felton,
Are any Of the Custom House officials Of
Hawthorne time still remaining here?''
They are all dead. The last one went not
very long ago.
Can you tell me which one OF them it was
that Hawthorne described as the old gournand
Of the Custom House. - the man in whose
memory the favor OF 50 many dinners fingered,
and who recollected the overriding of n turkey,
some fifty years ago, as one of the ealamities of
his life? 20 asked.
THAT was Mr. Lee" and he showed me the
old Collector signature, directly above that Of
his satirist, upon the same piece OF paper. 1t
was pinned up against the wall, and exposed to
theft by the first autograph hunter; the stencil
plate. too, was quite at the mercy OF the public;
for the greatest carele-sness of historical and
literary relics IL noticeable in this rather un-
rcverential country.
- Lee and others in the Custom House took
great offence Mt Hawthorne caricatures Of them"
continued our guide. al knew the parties well,
and think that Hawthorne exaggerates their
peculiarities-'
In n subsequent conversation with literary
gentleman Of Salem, the latter assured me that
had Hawthorne lived in Salem at any time after
the publication OF the a. Scarlet Letter." ne would
have had to take aogging from this Lee or from
some of his friends. 1t seems that the eater OF
I suspect was after all pretty truthful. drawn in
the Introduction to the Scarlet Letter. The
man should have been thankful to Hawthorne,
rather than angry with him, for conferring upon
him an Immortality which his exploits could
never have procured without a historian.
A Mr.. BirchmOre was another of the Custom
House victims OF Hawthorne's sarcasm. Doubt
less this gentleman would have served upon the
fogging committee, had Hawthorne again visited
Salem.
1t was at once interesting and sad to see how
utterly invisible to these men was the bright
spark of HawthOrne's genius. They did not
even perceive the distinction that their fellow
official had conferred upon them; Hawthorne
was simply scribbIer who had drawn their fine
portraits without permission, and therefore a
more of Salem after leaving the Custom House.
The original Hawthorne house is no longer
standing, and the room where he wrote so many
years in obscurity, when he was at last able to
record in his diary these simple words,
"In this chamber Famc wou,p
no longer attracts the curious The few vestiges
of Hawthorne that / have recorded are nearly all
that the traveller Of to-day will End in Salem.
The old Town Pump, which he has described, il
still extant, and pours forth It's limpid stream az
Of yore.
The Witch Trials have left their most volumin-
Gus records in Salem. ! came away from the
Custom House, and examined at length in the
Town Hall, a large volume of the original docu-
ments, the manuscripts history of these trials,
bearing dates in lo90-169l. Many Of them are
the most touching records of innocence, character,
and culture, pleading in vain for life, and sacri-
feed to the brutal ignorance and superstition Of
the prosecutors. In one Of his brilliant sentences,
perhaps one Of the truest he ever uttered, Macau-
lay said: s'The Puritans hated bear-baiting,-
not because it gave pain to the bear, but because
it gave pleasure to the spectators" In reading
the heart-sckening accounts OF these trials, which
disclose the last horrors and crimes which an
ignorant faith and an ignorant religion are capa-
bic of perpetrating. one feels that the Puritans
were fond Of hanging their townsmen, their
neighbors, friends, and fellow church-members,
for the same reason that they were averse to
bear-baiting, - because it gave pleasure to the
spectators" 1t Is pathetic to think how, when
all Europe was awakened to light and growth,
when England bad had Milton and the Reforma-
tion, when France and Germany and Holland
full of intelligence and toleration, the very
seat and fountain of New England orthodoxy was
defled with such horror and outrage as these re-
ligious trials and that as murder is still part
of the FJian, 30 it WAS then n part of Puritan
religion.
saw the " witches pins" half dozen old
fashioned pins, sealed up in n glass phial, and