The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1872-02-10
the Law.

Kterafi who undertake to write about these ISL
ands. Gail Hamilton "a nom de plume Is a lady
essayist who writes a great deal upon almost
every subject apparently that comes under her
notice, and while her lucubratiOns are readable
and good upon things with which she is con-
yersant, she naturally enough blunders sadly
when her pen is allowed to wander upon I'M
familiar ground. She is puzzled to know why it
is that the native race here is dying out, the
more rapidly since it received the Gospel and the
arts of civilization and curiously enough asks if
it is 90 good economy " to have a Christian peo-
pie here The Friend, in a few appropriate
sentences disposes of this anti-climax, having
previously undertaken to enumerate the causes
which have operated, and are still at work in
destroying the native race. 1t mentions the an
Gent wars, the disease which was brought by
Cooks ships, (the ravages of the last it is very
truly but only incidentally declared have not yet
been arrested) the small pox, influenza, and the
large number Of young men who have left the
islands and become seaInen. All these causes of
depOpulation are patent enough, and would be of
themselves sufficient to account for the sad fact.
But there is one other great cause of disease and
death which, while those previously mentioned
are either imperative at present or are diminish
ing under sanitary laws and regulations, is
rapidly increasing and becoming widespread.
We refer to the use among the people of intoxi-
eating drinks and we are not a little surprised
that our venerable contemporary, who has labored
for a whole generation in the cause of temper
ance in these islands, should nave ignored in his
list of :: the numberless ills that (civilized) flesh
is heir to, " this, the worst " i'll y that can beiall
a weak and susceptible race.
Shortly after the introduction of Christianity
in these islands and its adoption by the principal
chiefs, among the first attempts at law-making
was an ordinance forbidding the sale or furnish
ing of Intoxicating drinks to the people. The
companions and followers of the first Kameha-
meha, who after his death stood at the head of
the nation, were sagacious enough to see the
danger to their people which would result from
ardent spirits, and they endeavored by stringent
laws to prevent their manufacture or sale in the
country. But tho strong arm of foreign power
interposed in favor of commerce, and gunpowder
was the alternative of brandy.
Yet foreign powers, though they forced the
unwilling Hawaiian rulers to admit spirits into
the country, did not go SO far as to dictate as to
laws for the regulation of their sale, and consc-
quently there has always been a severe law on
the statute book making it a penal ofense to sell
to a native of the country.
How then, Gail Hamilton might ask, do you
tell us that the use of intoxicating drinks among
the people is / becoming a great and growing evil?
And she might in her simplicity further ask,
whether We had a police force in the islands, or
any courts to enforce the laws and she would
be answered that we were amply provided with
both, but that in spite of law and police, the
evil, plainly known and seen of all men, still
exists and grows. That the natives can obtain
liquors with no trouble whatever, either on Sun
days or weekdays, and that a drunken native is
a far more frequent sight in Honolulu streets
than a drunken foreigner. That cheap gin is the
principal drink in which they indulge, to what
extent may be approximately arrived at by ascer-
tanning the sum paid as duty or that kind of
spirits at the Custom House. That the police
make no effort to discover how or where the ma
tiyes procure the means of intoxication. regard
ing the liberty of the subject as so sacred that they
would find it inconyenient to see what every
other eye could see almost every day in the week
plain infractiOns of the law.
This much our inquiring friend might learn as
to the drinking habits of the natives in this city.
\ visit to the outer districts or on the other ISL
ands would reveal the existence Of private dis
tilleries of the fiery ~okolehao, and breweries of
banana, potato and cactus beer without number.
Are not all these facts sufficient to show the
existence among this people of a great cause of
disease and death, quite as potent and active as
any of those enumerated by the Friend.
\ vigorous, strict and thorough enforcement of
the existing laws by the police is the remedy for
this fearful state of things. Public opinion,
hitherto lax, is beginning to be aroused upon
this subject, and will demand in no uncertain
tones, to be recognized and obeyed, by those to
whom is entrusted the execution of the laws.
We copy the following from a late number of
the London Lancet, a medical journal well known
on both sides of the Atlantic. 1t needs no COM
ment of ours to give it additional force
There is a town in Ireland which contains no
public house. Bessbrook is the name of the place,
a manufacturing town near Newry. Its proprie-
tor, a Mr.. Richardson, with some members of the
Society of Friends, founded the Bessborough
Spinning Company, and erected spinning mills.
The factory has grown so large that it gives en-
ployment to 5000 hands. There are no police
in the place, Mr.. Richardson alleging that SO
long as he keeps out the public-house, they can
do without police but that as soon as the tap
room is introduced they will require the eonstab-
ulary. The operatives are models of sobriety
and good order. the town being wholly free from
the sad scenes which are to be met with in much
smaller populations. Would that We could
chonicle many more towns of the same kind; it
would conduce greatly to the lessening of disease
and lowering of taxes" 1
A REFERENCE to the election returns of this
city for a number of years past, will illustrate
very clearly the correctness of our statement,
that the abrogation of the Constitution of 1852
and the establishment of that of 1864, operated
directly to crush out the interest of the people