Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-07-05


HoNoLULU, June 20, 1882.
The last week has been lively one in
Honolulu, and one to be remembered for
many years. 1t may provethe commercial
red letter week in the little city's history.
No less than five ocean steamers have ar
rived-the Pacific Mail steamers city of
New York and Australis, British steamers
Monarch and Boutwell, Castle, and the
Oceanic's newly-leased steamer Suez, sister
ship of the British steamers-the Australia
and Suez being from San Francisco, the
New York from Sydney, the Monarch
from st. Michaels, and the Boutwell, Castle
from Portland. Heretofore our intercourse
with the world has been carried on by sail.
ing packets, which, before the trades or
with free wind, make splendid time be-
tween here and the Coast, and were so
remarkably regular that they seemed nearly
all that could be desired. The Pacific Mail
Company's 4,OO0-ton iron ships brought
monthly mail from California and the Colo
MES, while the sailing vessels brought us
intermediate dates from the Coast. Now
weekly mail service and commercial in
tercourse with the Coast is almost assured,
and people are walking the streets with
their eyes and mouth in wide open amaze
ment, and their eyebrows twisted into twin
interrogation marks, as though just wax.
ened from long slumber to gaze upon
busy world instead of the sleepy hollow by
the Punch bowl where they lay down some
years ago.
THIS PUNCH BOWL
Is an odd one, with corrugated sides and
Olympian dimensions, filled by our blonde,
impotent goddess. Pele, with bona fde
fire water" Its saaward rim is sur.
mounted by the Hawaiian battery of rusty
guns ard the national standard, which has
never been called upon to face anything
more hostile than Pacific zephyrs and the
pelting of summers shower. Few pre-.
tend to see the city's or Kingdoms destiny.
To many present prosperity is like the in
hation of a soap bubble that all too soon
will break. That there exists an unhealthy
imitation of values, based upon over.esti.
mates of benefits accruing from the reci-
procity treaty with the United States, is a
patent fact, and in the event of that in.
strument's termination, a reaction the min
iature of that succeeding the late rebellion
in the United States will be sure to follow,
when many will be driven to the wall.
Whether or not the country will survive
the shock depends upon such variety of
contingencies that representations are
vain. Wise legislation would go a great
way toward hopeful readjustment of af-
fairs, but the bulk of the Assembly is COM
posed of poi-fuffed poltroons and addle-
pates. Here are samples OF what they
waste weeks in arguing, petitioning
and resolving: That aboriginal
Hawaiian parents sending their children
to school be exempt from school tax that
those having five children or under be ex.
empt that those having no children be
exempt that Hawaiians be allowed unre.
stricted use of spirits that dogs, except
those imported by foreigners for their own
use, be exempt from taxation, because they
have always been favorite article of diet
with the Kings people that "cognate
race" be introduced that young and good
looking unmarried women be brought to
the country, and that unmarried men be
allowed one each to wife that husbands
of leprous wives, and wives of leprous hus-
bands, be allowed to marry again without
ceremony of divorce that hospitals be
established on all the islands, and that only
doctors of benign countenances be ap-
pointed therein, ferce.faced physicians be-
ing taboo that all Government physicians
except DR.. Fitch be discharged fthey being
persuaded that he can cure them of lep-
rosy) that natives on plantations be al
lowed holiday ON Saturday that recip-
rocity with the United States be continued; /;
that the Sergeant-at Arms furnish carriages
for members to visit the Lunatic Asylum,
Reformatory School and Prison. The last
resolution afforded them