The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1872-01-13
Sunday Night i'm the Coffee
Shops.

Sunday Night I'm the CofTee
Shops.
After the preaching is over and the congrega-
ton dismissed at the church on Sunday evenings.
the great place of resort for the young Hawaiian
vagrant is the coffee shop. These tea and coffee
shops are numerous, and are all kept by Chinese
that is, those which are resorted TO by the ma
tives. Take your stand on Nuuanu street, above
Hotel, about half-past 8 o'clock of a Sunday
evening, and you will see the street crowded with
young people, mostly men and hali-grOwn youths,
with here and there a female, pouring along to-
wards the coffee shops. Let US enter one of
these, and sitting apart ut a little table, we have
ample time while waiting our turn to be served
with coffee and cake, or bread and butter,-price
ten cents,-to use our eyes and ears in noting
the company's peculiarities. AT a long table,,
running the length of the room, are seated some
thirty of the male class vagrant, as we shall
term them, non-producers, who never do a days
honest labor. They are clean and well dressed.
Fine white linen coats and pants, occasionally a
black frock coat, of the latest style, unezception-
able boots or shoes, and fashionable neck-ties.
The wearers of these fine clothes never earned
themselves a stitch. You are struck with the
oSGN 'NN NOACAo "a $780, H"N
terms in the h~abiliments of these native dapdies,
and their demeanor is generally pretty quiet,
with but little of the rowdy cast. Ut is the
pure natives of whom we speak now-the half
whites and the 4" Thoroughbred whites of the
rising generation that are to be seen on these
occasions, form . class by themselves, of whom
more anon.) Singly or in pairs, scattered among
the crowd, are the fair and frail of the Honolulu
d~eni-mOnde, and if you have an eye for feminine
toilets you will be surprised to observe the re-
markable taste with which they are dressed.
Costly silks and laces, the %jauntiest of hats, the
nattiest of close-itting boots and immaculate
stockings, c~hignons, waterfalls, cheap jewelry,-
behold the Hawaiian girl of the period, as she
appears in the coffee shop of a Sunday evening.
Be not too inquisitive to know whence comes the
money to pay for all this fnery. How different
from the water-nymphs that disported around the
ships of Cook and Vancouver! A perfect Babel
of voices, everybody talking and nobody listen
ing, while the hot mixture dignIfed by the nam
Of tea or coffee extravagantly sweetened with
sugar, is slipped with great gusto, and the plates
of bread and butter disappear with marvellous
rapidity. AS one party is satisfied and with
draws to the street, another files in, until a hun
dred or more have been served, and John China
man accumulates a handsome amount of dimes.
But in the crowd there arc frequent impecunious
customers, and Johns wariness is all needed to
keep the count, while not unfrequently a = bum
mer" escapes without paying. In the street in
front of the shop, a large crowd is gathered, and
one cannot get along without elbOwing. And
here if you understand the vernacular, or if you
will use your eyes to interpret actions, you will
learn quite enough of the morals of the young
canaiHe of Honolulu to convince you that there is
work here yet for a corps of missionaries. In
all these promiscuOus gatherings of youth, how
ever, with it's abandon and license and evident
immortality, you cannot but note the universal
good humor, so characteristic of the race. But
witness the advent, not infrequent, of four or
five half-caste or white youths of the rowdy sort,
who mostly train" in company, into one of
these crowded coffee shops of a Sunday evening,
and the harmony and good humor of the scene is
pretty sure to be upset. Smelling Of gin or bad
whiskey, loud and imperious to John ChiDaman.
they swagger and swear and pour out a mixed
Hawaiian and. English vocabulary of foulness,
and bully the company until the shop is emptied
of the would-be quiet customers. This is the
worst sort of Honolulu non-producers and idlers,
for you must know that the Migrants are not
all natives. Boys will be boys is the depre-
catory remark we sometimes hear when youthful
wildness is spoken of, but the depth of moral
degradation and the height of vandal r~owdeism
towards which some of the class of youths to
which we allude are progressing in our midst, is
positively alarming to contemplate. We deny
the assertion that " boys were just as bad forty
or fifty years ago" Look at these cofee-shop
pictures-and they are very far from being over
drawn--and then say, what material is this out
of which is to come the future useful and re-
spectacle citizen, the careful husband and father,
to help build up and constitute the state?
We shall be accused perhaps of unnecessarily
exposing if not of exaggerating the evils OF
vagrancy in our midst. II is better however to
uncover the ulcer, rather than that it shall eat
its way unseen and unchecked into the life of the
nation.
In bringing to notice the great amount of
vagrancy existing among the young men of Ho-