The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1886-12-14
a CURIOUS coincidence occurred las

week. On the same day appeared
both in the Ad0ertiser and GAZETTE ar
ticles denouncing the hula. The fact
has been commented on, and further
comment has been called forth by the
Bulletin expressing similar views the
same evening.
1t is time to talk plainly of the hula
There is no middle course. 1t is es-
sentially an immoral dance How
immoral only those who have seen it
can understand. 1t cannot claim for
itself a poetry of motion OF poetic
idea. 1t is nothing but pnre and I'M
mitigated filth. No man dare describe
it as it is. People vino have never
seen it, or who have only seen a few
girls sitting and rattling gourds have
no idea of what the dance means.
Even the mild hula exhibited to for.
eign ladies at royal festivities has a
suggestive meaning which they, for
tunately, do not understand. But the
hula sang pur, pure blooded, is diff
ferent thing. Its essential character
istic is vicious, even more than ordi-
narily vicious, and the mora vicious it
is the more it is applauded by those
who take delight in it. There is
vice of frightful type in European
cities, there is vice of even more
frightful type in Asiatic cities, but we
doubt if now in the world exists
more degrading, a more demoralizing
or more outrageous type than the
genuine hula.
The law has in past times inter
dicted this vice. In the face of the
strongest monarch that ever sat upon
the throne of Hawaii was the
law carried out. The arm which was
SO firm grew weak and the law was
repealed.
Are we going to be weaker than
those who have been before us? Are
we going to have our sons debauched?
And every man who has son grow
ing up in Honolulu, knows that his
son will be debauched far more by
seeing the RIGHTEOUSNESS of the hula
than he would be if he spent night
at the Jardin Mabille in Paris, the
Argyle Rooms in London, the Orphe-
um in Berlin, or the Mineralsky Wady
in st. Petersburg.
We do not pretend to pose as
great moral regenerator. God knows
we all have our failings, and must cry
''mea culpa," alas! my sin. We all
sin and it is good argument on the
other side to say to the foreign colo
mist here, take out the beam from
your own eye before talking about the
mote in that of the Hawaiian
True. But there are some things
that are so patiently wrong that even
the misquoted text above does not
apply to. The petty thief shrinks as
much from the murderer as the most
virtuous man does. SO the foreigner
on these shores, in spite Of whatever
vices he may have. shrinks from the
hula. As petty thievery is to murder,
so are small vices to the hula. The
ratio, as we have put it, is certainly a
strong one, but we do not believe it to
be one whit too strong. Is it not time
that our citizens should be called to-
gether and that an indignation meet
ing should be held denouncing this
hcentious and ignoble relic of barbar-
ism. 1t is a disgrace to our statute
books that the hula is permitted to be
licensed, it is a disgrace that it should
be one of the entertainmentssat the
palace as well as in the slums. Queen
Victoria has elevated her people. In
England, the men of 1888 would look
with establishment upon the men of
1886; the whole tone of society has
changed. Fortunately with thin
veneer of politeness we now have a
state of society which ostracizes black T
guardism in every shape, be it low OF
high. The same cannot be said of I
Hawaii within the last decade. The I
last ten years has, alasl been period I
of decadanee morally. Hawaii was |
on higher plane ten years ago She
has been gradually sinking.
1t is no use Hawaii posing as a
Christian State, or even a civilized
State, until the stain of the hula is re-
moved.
There is no middle course. The
hula must be done with, it must be
entirely interdicted if we desire to be
considered civilized.