The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1885-11-17
MORE REASONING.

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ports to be an answer to q commune
cation Of Mr.. d. M. Crowley's;
and IL Nota Bene had limited the
scope Of his remarks to an exhorta-
ton intended solely for Mr.. Crow
ley's benefit, l would not interfere
in the matter, as 1 presume Mr.. d.
NJ. G. is well enough qualified to
take care Of himself; but when the
whole tenor of Nota Bene's letter is
really an attack upon prohibitionists
generally, l, as one Of those whom |
he is kind enough TO describe as
"the sincere and honest portion Of
the prohibition party" think it my
duty to claim the privilege of having
my "say" on the question. Nota
Bene intimates that his "sole pur-
pose is to steer his fellow man into
the path Of truth and correct under
standing" which is a very COM
mendable mission for any man to
engage in, but the method by which
he is going to execute his highly
benevolent purpose is the queerest
ever proposed by any man avowing
benevolent intentions. He deter
mines not only to open wide the
flood gates of ruin through which
the Hawaiian race is passing to-day,
but also to knock down every man
who attempts to close these gates.
His reason for launching so unique
a scheme of benevolence is about as
wise as the scheme itself. The best
he has to offer is that the laws of
Iowa, Maine, and other states are
not enforced as they ought to be.
An unanswerable reason truly! He
has evidently been consuming the
midnight oil in the perusal of anti
prohibition paragraphs in Harper's
Weekly, and the Cincinnati Com
mercial Gazette; but has he ever
heard anything of the decay of the
Hawaiian race, which probably the
journals named would tell him, if
he did not kow it before, is physic-
ally, and in many other respects,
one of the noblest, if not the noblest
of all the islands of the Pacific? If
he will look at the Honolulu Police
Court reports in the daily news
papers and note well the names of
the individuals fined and imprisoned
for drunkenness, he will find some
truths more startling in their direct
ness than he can ever hope to i'm
port from abroad, and that may
help to light his way into "the path
Of truth and understanding" 1t is
very fine to show up the short
comings of the administrators of
prohibition laws in Iowa, or in
Maine; but if he really means to
"let us reason again." 1 am ready
to reason right from book. A large
proportion of all the indictments in
our police courts consists of charges
of drunkenness, and still larger
proportion of the charges of drunk
enness stands against names Of
natives. I venture to predict that
Nota Bene will find, on Monday
next, in the police reports of this
city, an array of arguments in favor
of prohibition of the liquor traffic
that will need something more for
midable than blank cartridge fired
off from borrowed Iowa guns to re-
pulse. No man who is honestly and
sincerely solicitous about the future
of the Hawaiian race, not to speak
of other nationalities, will engage in
free rum and whiskey crusade ;
for of all the elements of ruin at pre-
sent forcing Hawaiians to extinction,
the liquor traffic is responsible to an
incalculable extent, for "the deep
damnation of their taking off," II
the unsophisticated native, whose
very docility of character makes him
an easy prey to the spoiler, were pro-
tected, as he ought to be, with a
strong wall of prohibition; his share
of the "worst crimes recorded in
the calendars of the courts of this
Kingdom would be small indeed.
This assertion, the calendars of
the courts are open to prove in
the face of all the fancy logic that
can be brought from New York,
Iowa, Maine or anywhere else.
Nota Bene's enumeration of crimes,
"the work, not of individuals crazed
by rum, but of those in their sober
senses simply proves that some
men are fools whether drunk or
sober-''only that and nothing
more" Lest / be left under the
ban Of not shaving the slightest
particle of intelligence" willingly
s'concede the fact" that all the
crimes in the category of human
diabolism and folly, drunkennesses
and the d Us excepted hope
he will concede the exceptions-may
be perpetrated by persons who
''eschew the use of intoxicating
beverages" but l beg to inform
him of the bold fact that 1 have
- L. <<o.t;x,a son Il or,t Co., -, - -.