The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1878-09-14
THE PACIFIC
Commercial AOOertlstr
SATURDAY,. SEPTEMBER Il.
LETTER FROM WASHINGTON.
lFrom oar special CorrcspoaaeaLl
WASHINGTON. d. c., July 18th, 1878.
NAYS AND RINGS.

- ~ 49, -1
WAVES AND RINGS.
None can doubt our grace as a people-tha'
is, if the old standard be received, = the line o.
beauty is a curve, - if they simply read the head
ing Of our kilograms in the daily papers. There
is nothing direct, nothing bold, but everything
is in " waves or rings" For example, we
have . hot and cold waves announced as regu-
lar ~Tisitants by the weather reports. We have
- waves Of excitement in the money changers
world-WalI Street. We have rings. All, le;
US not speak of our rings. In the early days Of
the Republic anything of the ring or link style
sayored SO strongly of chains that it was distaste-
full to the men whom modern slang-eDdowed
politicians are apt to style g narrow-gauged.
The Franklin dollar, with its linked old Thirteen
States, was adopted as an appropriate model for
the earliest issue of our one-cent piece. By ac-
cident the dies were broken, and from different
sources came letters of rejoicing that " the chain
cent could no longer be issued. But to re-
turn to our curves" 1 think we are begin
ming to carry our grace to affectation, and the
effect will in a few years be felt in our language,
into which may be introduced as many salams as
the Gaulic tongue now contains.
SCARED.
Even an epidemic is spoken ofa a (" wave OF
fever There has been within the last fortnight
two excitements in New York over the announce
ment first that there were several deaths at the
Brooklyn Navy Yard of yellow fever. This
Southern scourge is not often seen in the North
New York has had several rights, but nothing Of
a serious nature since 1922. Philadelphia has
reason to remember its ravages in the latter part
of last century. In 1893 it was so violent there
that three-fourths of the inhabitants fed from the
city; and even the United States Mint had to be
closed for want of workmen. In New Orleans,
La, or Savannah, Ga, " Yellow Jack" as it il
Familiarity termed, is an annual IS guest and
not greatly dreaded, save by g the strangers
within the gates" who. mine cases out of ten,
die if attacked. The second fright these money.
making, money-squandering Manhattanites have
suffered is from two reported lepers at Black.
wells Island. The two sufferers say that they
contracted the disease in Cuba. There is nc
doubt that they are actual cases of leprosy,
elephdntiGSIs GrGcOrum. One is an old man, and
said to be utterly Frustrated by grief at the
isolation and hopelessness of the loathsome
disease. The other, a young Cuban mulatto, is
chatty and cheerful. 1t is said by good authority
that this distressing malady was never fully
authenticated, or rather developed here before
Very stringent measures are being taken to pre-
vent its spread; but our medical men are such
novices in this horror that much is to be dreaded
before they attain that experience necessary Il
guard the public from the disease. The In
habitants of the Hawaiian Islands doubtless ap.
preciate a fright of this nature, as in a recent
paper from Honolulu (the ADvERTIsER) L note
considerable remembrance against the least re-
missness or failure to enforce the law in regard
to leprosy.