The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1875-04-03
IMMORAL


Ma. EDroR-Is he daft. OF has his i'll temper
got the better Of his coed sense3 In your issue
of the P. c. ADVERTISER Of Saturday last You very
properly called public attention TO a certain class
Of literature in circulation among the Hawaiians.
Every word of that article Is true. How does he
meet you? Does be face the question? No
With Ill disguise he seeks to divert attention from
the point at issue. First, he gives q brief account
OF the correspondence in the two native papers
which has resulted in the unearthing Of this reek-
ing literature, and declares that the "vapquished
In that correspondence seek aid and comfor in
your columns" Who are the vanquished? Do
the vanquished fee to a newspaper for aid and
comfort? The newspaper of to-day is giadiato-
rial ground-it is the battle-feld-no place for
rest or comfort. II is on that battlefield that the
great strife between purity and corruption is wag-
ing. And 1t is on that arena that the friends of
the HaWaiians are contending for a purer, a more
healthy and a more e~levating literature. No COM
fort there but the comfort of an honest purpose
and duty done.
But he goes on to give a history of the kUoko0.
1t seems it is or was a cooperative concern, in
which more than two hundred natives are en-
ployed. So much the worse. Two hundred ma
tiyes helping to support and circulate demoraliz-
ing literature. What are they but corrupters of
their race? To be sure they may do it unwit-
tingly, but they are not the less corrupting be-
cause unconscious doors. He pleads further, that
he has sunk from FIVE hundred to a thousand
dollars some years - all for the sake of educating
the Hawaiians in this line. Indeed. But what
is confession witho ut repentance? And that
style of education 'bas been well sustained. -
So the results would seem to Indicate. But why
not spend a part Of that '' five hundred to q thou
sand in drawing from the pure, living fountain
of English literature, instead of hiring men with
polluted imaginations to coneoct the n~astiness of
Robiana Lo and Raiana HUI for twenty-five cents
a column? Would it not pay as well?
We are informed that g some contend that into
these (newspapers) nothing must be allowed to
enter but what squares with the shorter catechism
or the Prayer Book Who contend thus? Can
he answer? Let the sneer pass.
These are all miserable subterfuges and eva
sions of the point at issue. He is charged with
circulating in the columns of the RuOkod a kind
of literature which is of a demoralizing character.
l hold him to the point where you have put him.
He cannot get away from it. Now for the facts.
On the same day on which you published your
article calling him to account, his sub. adyertises
the l~icentious drivel of the story on his first page
in the shape of an apology therefor printed among
his notes of the week. l seldom look into that
sink of pollution, but having read his advertise
ment, l turn to look at his wares, and read that Raj
ana HUI, the hero of the story, has become infamed
with lust for a beautiful woman who plays the
piano. She is supposed to be pure, for every i'm
proper advance is repulsed. So. at length Raiana
Hu transforms himself into a rat, passes through
the parlor where the lady sits playing the piano,
enters through a half open door in the lady's bed
room, and secretes himself under the bed. At ten
O'Clock that night-the writer is precise about the
lady retires to her room, and the man
dofs his disguise, and-let the curtain drop.
Now what shall we say of the man who publishes
this stuff on Saturday to the natives, and on the
following Wednesday says to the English speak
ing part of the community: tsThere has nothing
appeared in print which need alarm anyone or
offend the most sensitive? When you bear in
that this kind of reading has been supplied
to the natives for more than ten years, and that /
more than two hundred persons - have been en-
weekly in circulating the same, can you
be surprised at the debauched state of the people