The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1872-08-03
Our HiIo Letter.

Hno. July oath, 1872.
To The Editor Of The Pacific Commercial advertiser
DEAR STR was at the Police Court the other
morning when one of those cases so peculiarly Haw-
saiian came up before the Hon. Judge for trial. The
charge was called moe mdu, which may be construed
jas hI6itudI RGughtiRess, and inasmuch as moe kOiohe,
pure and simple, is usually 4 difficult matter to prove,
another section was provided 10y our hungry law
glyers, so that what may by chance escape from the
fryiRg-pan shall most assuredly fall into the ire.
Cities of refuge and the horns of the altar were luxu-
ries sternly denied. / have known the same parties
acquitted of the first charge and then re-arrested.
tried and convicted of the other without being
allowed to leave their seats III the prisoner 8 dock, and
TO make matters worse, the counsel whose efforts
cleared them in the one case had TO preside as judge
and convicted them in the other. l doubt il any
other civilized country in the world is 80 rich in Gu
riosities of legal experience as this. In the case the
other day, the parties, boy and girl, had scarcely lett
the gates of childhood. The boy was an average
plantation lout of IL or so, stOid and sulky, thick
Tipped and dull eyed, and if civilization ever helped
TO polish him he must have been a terribly rough
stone at the outset. The girl, on the contrary, was
bright and remarkably good looking, with quite a
Grecian outline Of feature, and there was a 90 lurking
devil in her rowing eye dangerous to encounter.
She is a hslf-white, father dead, but as | understood,
she had been in servitude TO haOIss. The situation
seemed q novel one TO her ADD 1 thought she rather
enjoyed il as heroine Of the hour, bestowing her mods
aud becks and wreathed smiles" very literally
among the spectators, not at all disturbed by the
higher presences, for she favored our gallant Judge
with e wink and made wicked little mouths at the
sheriff. Several Swapping fellows" friends of the
family '-swore terribly on both sides, and one over
zeslous fellow whose testimony was given, &" not
wisely, but too well" on behalf Of the unfortunates,
being as 1 thought either bullied into equivocstion by
the juvenile crown man, received al arrow shot from
the bench which rankles in him yet. He was sum-
marily fined for contempt, and the prisoners we're
convicted. If I stopped here, Mr.. Editor. knowing
the people rs you do, their present and their past,
don't you think there is matter for reflection in the
simple story itself? But L have something more TO
say. l have in a former letter alluded 10 the zeal for
so apparent in certain quarters. The
vanity Of position and an overcoming conceit of bar
resterial power so observable in some Of these lesser
patty Of regret for wrong doors or conscientious
desire for Justice, that the question to be determined
is not so much guilty or not guilty" as whether
the prosecution cannot make it guilty whether or no.
l should think that the official prosecutor, after dis
playing his case by testimony and reasonable CON-
might rest, but this mania for all the
bitternesses Of law, examination, cross-examination,
objections, exceptions and everlasting
and parades Of low cunning and counterfeit
at best, which so pervade the educated
cusses " Of the Courts, is not justice, but q miserable
Of it. To change that subject-what is
is delivered over to the sheriff, by him to be placed
in q cell Of Hilo Jail, there and then TO be initiated as
JAIL bird by such hardened ones as she may happen
10 find there. VIII any Of our city philanthropists,
Of those especially who wall and whine over ga
wasting land, - feel interest enough to enquire what
become Of her? Will any Of her sisters in hui
manity but of chaster skin ever visit this young
in her pilikia, and discover, or try to
by what devious roads and bewildering by
she arrived at the end of her virtue and came
to be where she now isl Do any Of the ladies whose
lords are fortunately in such official positions as TO
them jurisdiction and intimate knowledge in
these unpleasant affairs. take sufficient interest 10