The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1872-05-18
Our ITilO Letter.

HIbo, May Sth, 1872.
To the Editor Of The Pacific Commercial Advertiser :
DEAR SIR Summer has come, and melancholy
little Hilo,'' wet and woe-begone, resumes her dirty
habits, whilst rain reigns. I almost suspect at times
3hat there are no neTreS in this place,-no sensitive
ness,-no / ,-vugarly. no ETHEREAL co. 1t is es-
sentially and radically lymphatic, with an g exposi-
ton of sic p - brooding over it,-heaviest after din
ner (though abstineIt) and rises late in the morning.
A telegraph wire from the a~ntipodes would hardly
vibrate its brain, and although there has been a cor
vette in the harhor,-a Paunceforc at the Court
House, and 4 sharp tremor in our bowels suggestive
of eruptiOns, there is no ripple of sympathy or ex-
citement on the opaque surface, and such meteoric
events which elsewhere make ~splashes, fall here as .
spoon falls in q caabash of poi. Weary, stale. fiat
and Improbable, l might almost exclaim with old
D-n the boy he's asleep again -
Only LAW, seems TO make any stir or hustle in the
town, and the scene is local. | should say law, by
courtesy so called. Not so much in pursuit of JUS
tice either as u vehicle for spite and malice and
greed ,-taking advantage CT our unhappy statutes
to gorge and swell Herewith like venom-bloated
toads Go into almost any police or district court on
the island and take an inner peep at the Penal
Code" You may be sure that the two pages most
fingered and showing the ~dirtyness of frequent refer
ence are those wherein the statutes supposed to favor
LIST, Chastity, (unlicensed) ID, Sobriety, Iii
censed)
Are imprinted. whilst the remainder of that inter-
esting volume is comparatively clean. In either case
II believe) the informer,-and happily for the
country such characters are plentiful in the market,
if a constable, gets half the penalty and if an
outsider, one fourth,-the balance, including costs
of court, going to embellish the fine and penalty &C
count of the treasury ledger And the wages of
sin > being as We are told, "death," we are thus
enabled to account in a measure for the sort of
9 dead and alive prosperity which on very High
Authority We are lately assured demands the ma
tional gratitude.
Should you chance 70 visit one of our native lower
courts at a time when steam is on, one of three
things will happen to you. You will be either
1st, Amused ID, Instructed Sd, Saddened -
Which Of the three will depend on whether you are
lst, A Pharisee ID, y Sinner Sd, A Philosopher.
In the first event, rs n vacant hearted spectator,
YOU cannot fail to be amused st the readiness of
legal lore and display of exuberant oratory possessed
BY counsel. These attsinments, which elsewhere are
supposed TO be the result of much hard study, are
here intuitive, and the ioios buzz round each knotty
case, as flies round carrion. And as a rule. the
bench is about worthy Of them. and when we consi-
der that clients, having paid for i0r, make justice
quite a secondary consideration, perhaps 1t all falls
into the eternal fitness of things OF the sim
ner, I have nothing to say at present. He vii! as
suredly receive instruction. but your philosopher is
supposed to raise the surface and morslize on what
he finds beneath.