The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1871-03-25
PACKS Oh JACKS.
What Had Ah-Sfm in His Sleeve IA Com
fcaI D5scussiOn.

If the maker of a nations songs is a great
benefactor, surely the man who disturbs or alters
them assumes a very grave responsloiiity
America has several national songs. "Hall
Columbia % I" Shoe Fly" 1.-The Star-spangled
Banner. Sc John Brown, ''~.' Yankee Doodle
! and 6 The Heather Chinee,' constitute the chief
lyrics of this Republic. They are universally
accepted, recited, quoted, sung, and the people
care very little who make their laws, in COMPARE
son with their concern about the preservation OF
their songs.
The most celebrated and popular of our ma
tional songs is " The Heather Chinee. In that
remarkable lyric, America pours out her ridicule
upon the narrow bigotry that would drive the
spensiye and child-like Oriental from our
shores. 1t grasps the mighty subject of Chinese
cheap labor " with a mastertul hand, ana scons
at the ruin - that General Thomas and Judge
Kelly profess to dread as the consequence OF the
Introduction of Ah-Sin and MS unsophisticated
fellow-countrymen into the workshops of the
United States. The g Heather Chinee has
become a household god. With sudden bound,
Ah-Sin has seated himself, with Z" his sleeves
which were long" upon the throne of American
popularity, and he grasps in his taper fingers the
~Fscepter of the national poet. Longfellow, Bryant,
Hopkinson, Key, Drake, Julia Ward Howe,
Whittier and all the rest fall back respectfully,
as the Neathen Chjnee comes, across the Sierra
Nevada, with his "'ways that are dark and his
tricks that are vain" and "plays it )" upon that
typical American, William Nye, in a way we
despise,'' bat which we can got but 4" admire
likewise"
And now. into this song of the times comes an
audacious interpolator. One rise up and 50 inn
proves" upon the Heather Chinee. A new
reading of one of the most touching passages is
put forth, and it remains to be seen whether a
great people will tamely permit its national lyrics
to be Z tempered with. The author of this
g emendation =" is known, but we shall not now
expose him. He is already paying some portion
of the penalty of his ~rashness, and is shut up IN
his house, partly in consequence of a fall on the
ice, but principally ON account of the febrlie
excitement following his treatment of Ah-Sin.
Truthful James sang of Ah-Sin:
ain his sleeves, which were long,
There were twenty-four packs"
But this. bold emendator thus prints the passage
ain his sleeves, which were long,
There were twenty -four jacks :"
and the worst Of it is that this gloss has just
enough virtue in it to commend it to a considerable
class of American people, and there must inc
vitality spring up a bitter party division in the
world of song and letters, between the Packites
and Jackites. For there is much to say In
defense of Jacks. Like Ah-Sin, we do {" not
understand - euchre, but - Jacks" are certain
cards which exercise such a controlling influence
over the destines of that g small game that
there would have been nothing improbable in
the statement that twenty-four of them had been
discovered in the flowing sleeves of the deceased.
Ah-Sin! Thoughtless Athenians, always desir-
ing to hear some new thing, will plunge into this
new theory, regardless of history, deaf to the
voice of that Truthful James who gives us his
pledge that be estates only facts AAh-Sin
might have had twenty-four : Jacks in, his
sleeves, bad be been SO minded. But it must be
remembered that Truthful James was an eve
witness of the whole scene. Although not a
participant in the combat between Mr.. I'VE and
Ab-Sin, he was present and assisted at the post
noY4ens examination, which revealed the presence
of wax on the taper nails OF the deceased. He
was evidently a calm, dispassionate witness, and
his testimony can not be successfully impeached.
He has, given that testimony, not only through
the medium of the OUerl0nd Monthly, bat in an
authorized edition of his works, Just published
by that most reliable house, Fields, Osgood & Co.,
Boston, and he emphaticaliy declares that
1.-THE floor it was strewed.
With the cards that Ah-sin had been hiding
In the game he did not understand"
Here is the general statemen of the very large
naasher- Of esN4sslod- oardo. And ti,ou-sfowing
how carefully Truthful James collected the
material of the aggregate contents of the sleeves,
so rudely scattered by the onslaught t. of the manly
defender of high American wages
"There were twenty four R0cks.n st. 80 NJ
Truthful James anticipates the doubts of the
incredulous. He admits that g it seems coming
it strong" but he boldly asserts that he Estates
only facts and these fancy commentators are
silenced, plausible as their case appears at first
sight, by the official statement OF the affair.
He would have pleased euclire-players better,
had he spoken of lacks" but he preferred
loyalty to history above the ailurements of fame.
IS Jacks would have preserved the u~nities, but
Packs " pays honors to the v~erities. Truthful
James may be tempered with. He may be
persuaded or bribed to declare that he wrote
g Jacks But it will be a base subterfuge and
afterthought, and Mcssrs. j.. r. Osgood & Co.
must stand by their own record, and not permit
the nations songs to be thus triaed with.-Phik-
adefphia Bulletin. ~ ~ - -