Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-08-17
Shirts and Trousers Are More Deadly Than
Gin and Firearms.
FACTS FROM THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDS
WRITTEN FOE THE DrspArcH.i

As the Maori grass dies before the Pakeha
grass,
And the Maori rat dies before the Pakeha rat,
So must the Maori die before the Pakehal
The ship rat hes eaten MP the Maori rat,
timothy has killed out all the native grasses
of New Zealand and the Maoris themselves
are fast vanishing from the SOIL
FACTS BEAR THEM OUT.
This is true of the grandest and the
strongest savage race which Anglo-Sa1on
civilization has come into contact with;
even more noticeably is it the case with the
weaker races of the tropical islands. The
Hawaiians are vanishing with mournful
rapidity; Samoan heads are Topped of
irretrievably in petty revolutions fomented
by the foreign traders; England annexed
Fiji to her crown and within o year an
epidemic of the measles, hitherto unknown,
filled $4,000 graves; French rule has
decimated the indigenes of New Caledonia,
has well nigh depopulated the Marquesas,
has already blighted Tahiti and is reaching
out its deadly taint over the Paumotus.
Who is blamable for it? Is 1t the beach
comber? Is it the trader? Can 1t be. the
missionary?
One of the best informed men concerning
the islands thus expressed himself to a
Parliamentary commission IN New South
Wales especially deputed to examine into
the trade relations of that colony with the
islands,:
THE MISSIONARY THE DEADLIEST.
"Beachcombers are bad lot, but they are
only few in number and they are usually
eaten before they have had chance to do
much damage. The traders, too, are none
of the best; they introduce muskets and gin,
and it would be hard to tell which is the
more deadly, but it is to their business in
terest to keep the people alive and indus
trious. Hundreds of natives are killed each
year by traders muskets and traders gin,
but for every hundred thus killed there is
another hundred killed by the cotton shirts
which the missionaries insist upon their
wearing"
1t is not a pleasant arraignment Of q
commendable religious zeal, but it is un-
fortunately borne out by facts which may
not be disputed.
The ordinary course of missionary labor
is generally after this wise. In his hand he
brings the one and only mold for the
proper shaping of character; into that mold
must each benighted savage be thrust and
there squeezed into shape. In the pressure
some must be bruised so that they die. The
fault lies in total depravity, in original sin,
in everything but the model, that is perfect
in all its parts, of course.
SHIRTS AND TROUSERS.
The people who are by nature almost des-
titute of all religious sentiments are rapidly
taught the complete system of religion, their
heads are filled with puzzle quite beyond
their comprehension. Did the matter stop
there no great harm would be done, but with
this the missionaries are never content. They
labor to bring their wild parish into closest
likeness to the civilization which produced
themselves. Men who are bountifully fed
by the exuberance of nature must be set to
work, the complexities of government re-
place the simplicity of communal fraternity,
the light and decent waistcloIh, which Is
comfortable under vertical sun, is degrad-
ed to the symbol of barbarian and ciYiliza-
ton vaunts itself with the discomforts OF
shirts and trousers. With the new garb ap-
pears coughs and colds and rheums, never
known before, and the consequent increase
in the number of deaths makes good the
statement that the good things of the mis-
sionary kill each year as many islanders as
the evil things OF the trader.
This reads somewhat differently from the
annual reports of missionary societies, but it
is the well-matured Judgment of observation
which reverences too highly the ideal of
mission service to gloss over the conspicu-
Gus failures.
No life could be made more charming
than that on the islands OF the South Sea,
where life is q physical luxury, where toll
is not necessity. where the mind is capa-
BILE of the most ideal freedom of the body.
All this the missionary system turns into
hardship, and the missionary who might
make a noble work often mars all beyond
repair.
Yet the field is not all dark one. From
scores of such slipshod teachers it is pleas
ure to turn to tine memory of one who won
the martyrs crown. A few years ago no
man was better known to savage islanders
than Bishop Patteson. His diocese was
ocean girt, the episcopal palace was a swift
schooner and the Bishop lived afoat. He
made himself the friend OF the savage, he
put himself on his level and thought with
his thought. He was no rigid mold into
which all characters were to be cast. he
rather strove to inspire savage nature with
the desire to raise itself by natural lines Of
development When, at length, he came to
be killed, none mourned him more sincerely
than the men who, mistaking him for q
SLAYER, had done him to death before they
knew their error.
ANOTHER WISE WORKER.
Not yet dead is Rev. William Wyatt Gill,
who gave up fine position in England and
set out at his own charges to devote himself
| to those who knew not civilization. Raro-
tonga became his chosen field. As years
| went BY he saw his people making steady
progress to civilization which was not a
rigid copy of England or America, but q
natural outgrowth of the possibilities of
RarotoIn,ga itself. About him were schools
where the trained teachers were all Raro-
| tongans.