The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1880-06-05

HE INCREASING frequency with which the word
hoodlum occurs in our newspapers is per-
haps rather terrifying to the timid reader of re-
cent Californian history and, if this frequency
involved the prospect of future days, occupied by
sand-lot demonstrations, and nights made lively
by the cheerful sound of the revolver, then it
would be high time to legislate for an abolition
OF " hoodlumism.'
The element however which bears this title in
Honolulu is at present innocuous in its effect up
on the public peace, when compared with it's
lawless and brutal prototype in California. The
conditions of the two countries are of course diff
ferent. California has, from its birth into the
United States, attracted Adventures, good and
bad, from almost all parts of the world the tide
of immigration meanwhile has been so rapid and
constant that the means for its government have
been hardly able to keep pace with it, and So
ciety can scarcely yet be said to have settled into
normal shape. By degrees stern law, the only
power adequate to this result, will sweep out
those corners in which the hoodlum reigns and,
as he is nobody unless in a crowd, that will be
the last of him.
The youth who passes in Honolulu for a hood
lum is, in four cases out of FIVE, not half so bad
as he tries to make himself; and he is more like
ly to be amenable to public opinion than to re-
quire repression by law. OF course we do not
apply this strong epithet to the otherwise we'll
conducted young man who perhaps through a re-
vulsion of feeling from the monotony of town-life,
or being otherwise temporarily deranged, is i'm
PEELED to shrek and groan whilst ON his home
W ard way to bed, to the great discomfort of His
Majesty's slumbering lieges and the police. Al
lowance too, should be made for him who, re-
fecting upon the local dearth of musical oppor-
%tunities, entertains the neighborhood with fall
setto selections from a recent opera with such
variations as his refined and classic imagination
may suggest, meanwhile modestly yelling bis ia
Tents under a midnight sky.
But this Is not chronic hoodlumism and the
Honolulu hoodlum, if not of great inconvenience
to the peace of the realm, is nevertheless prepar-
ing to be so dreadful an enemy to himself and to
social happiness that every influence ought to be
brought to bear against his perseverance in the
career. The picture of a town in which virtue
and temperance will be derided and religion
scorned is not a fascinating one; but what is to
be expected if the rising generation is to see vice
of the most selfish kind winked at, and the prin-
ciples of manliness held as inapplicable to bust
ness or to every day life?
To the young the lecturing of their seniors Of
ten seems antiquated and inapplicable. Those
who possess most influence in juvenile society are
young men themselves and it is upon those
young men who by talent, strength or accom-
plishment are popular amongst their companions
that the responsibility very largely rests of ex-
erting an influence for good and bad, and of say
ing whether this community shall be as wretched
a place as possible or a place where social virtues
grow as fast as the population does.