The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1885-08-24
PREVENTION OF 0vERCRoWDlNC.

~
ing exploration of Honolulu to con-
vince anybody that extensive quarters
of the town are too closely built,
and that the buildings so huddled
together are in large proportion of
cases too densely populated. For
majority of the population the re-
viving and purifying influences of
the trade winds are neutralized by
these causes. Only the fact that
the teeming denizens of those quar-
ters spend the greater part of their
lives outdoors, doubtless, accounts
for the mortality of the city not
being abnormally large. That, how
ever, is an uncertain reliance, for
nobody knows the day or the hour
when an epidemic may visit those
swarming purlieus and kill off their
inhabitants like flies. This is not
supposition, but warning of expe-
rience fresh in our peoples minds.
This ever-threatening possibility
makes its facilitating conditions a
matter of the gravest concern to in
habitants who live in more airy and
roomy quarters, even to the utmost
suburban borders. Pestilence get
ting foothold in the crowded quar-
ters could not possibly be confined
to them, but would spread desola-
ton among the homes of all the
city. 1t seems a hopeless task to
suggest remedies for the dangerous
conditions in question, but neverthe-
less is it the duty of the public
journalist to point out the dangers
and give such counsel as he may for
their reduction. SO far as the ground
already built upon is concerned, the
application of anything like adequate
remedies must be q hcrculean task.
Yet if anything is possible to be
done, the community should bestir
itself in devising the most practical
BILE measures, so that another session
of the Legislature may not pass
without giving them effect. The
most feasible and least expensive
means that occurs to us is the res
friction of the number of occupants
of given dwelling space. Then
there should be check put upon
the area of tenements back of the
buildings with street frontages,
which did not have alleyways OF
lanes leading to them of a certain
prescribed breadth. Entrances tC
all such rear premises should be
ample enough to admit good SWEEP
of air and afford reasonable facility
for viewing yards from the mair
streets. There is one grand measure
that it is almost useless to suggest
owing to the poverty of public re
sources for local improvements. Ye
it may be worth while mentioning il
anticipation of an era of create
prosperity. 1t is the running o
broad boulevards obliquely acros
the more crowded quarters. Such
thoroughfare opened up from tn
bridge on King street TO, say, Emm
Square, would work vast trans
formation for the better, both j
sanitary and social conditions an
facilities for internal transit. Thi
is the way Paris and other cities i
different countries, following he
example, obliterated vast pestilentis
areas, by letting abundance of al
and light into them, and maxim
lots bordering them sought after a
the sites of respectable shops an
dwellings. Whatever may be though
of the last proposition and the pre-
ceding ones, there should be no ques
ton regarding measures preventiv
of overcrowding in districts yet ur
built upon. Streets surveyed Ion
ago, when ideas were more narro'