The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-02-10
PROGRESS IN HAWAII.
The Marked Changes of the Last
Eleven Years.
SUGAR PLANTERS IN TROUBLE.
Suffering From Effects of Mckinley Bill
Natives Dying Out-Civilization
Too Much for Them.

III. ). Brodie, OF Honolulu, is at the Grand
hotel. He is q Canadian by birth, but eleven
years ago he went to the Hawaiian islands.
where he has practiced medicine ever since
During the last two years, however, he has been
travelling quite extensively in Europe and
America, and he has not been in Honolulu
since December Possibly he may settle per-
manently on the Sound. During a talk on the
present and the past on the islands, the doctor
said that at present times are very dull
and business there is much depressed. The
Mckinley bill has caused the trouble" he added
Formerly sugar imported into the United
States paid two and half cents pound duty,
except that from Hawaii, which was admitted
Tree. That gave the planters there an advantage
over other countries of just the amount of the
duty, or $50 a ton. Under the change the price
OF sugar has fallen of from about 500 q ton to
$i2. The truth is that under the present condi-
tons the planters cannot raise sugar at the lat
ter price. Isuppose that not more than one
fifth of the plantations will pay expenses this
year; the rest will fall behind. The result of it
all Is that the sugar-growers are now signing for
annexation to the United States, SO that they can
get the benefit OF the bounty OF two cents a
pound"
The doctor says that the prosperous times on
the islands were in the old whaling days, when
hundreds of sailors would spend in few weeks
their whole seasons earnings. "Nearly every
one" he continued, "has a silk dress or two
bought with the money SO abundant then, and
some have whole pieces of satin and other fine
fabrics not yet made up"
During the eleven years that DR.. Brodie has
lived in Hawaii he has seen marked changes
there. "At one time" he declared, ''about every
native belonged to the Congregational church.
The missionaries of that sect, who camo first
on the ground made what might be called
clean sweep. Going to church was
the proper thing and everybody went. STILL the
religion did not seem to strike very deep root,
for the natives did not let it interfere with their
pleasures. They are a generous, kindly people,
but, like children, easily led.
"Lately the Roman Catholic missionaries have
been working very hard among them, and 1
should judge that nearly half of the population
now belongs nominally, at least, to the Roman
church."
DR.. Brodis believes that the natives, like the
aborigines OF this country, are suceumbing to
the destructive influences OF civilization. "In
ten years. he says, "the kanakas have fallen
off about 5000. One cause of their
decrease has been the change in modes of
life. When they became converted they all had
to wear black suits to church. Now, the air
was damp, and men perspire freely, SO that the
simple islanders were very uncomfortable in
their heavy clothes. As soon as church was
over they would throw Off every stitch they
had on and cool off by lying under a tree or
plunging into the surf. or course heavy colds
and consumption followed
"Laziness and drink are also finding their
victims. The people are leaving the country
and crowding into the cities and living in
houses Not only do they abandon their out-of-
door life, but they do absolutely nothing to
keep themselves in good physical con-
dition. You cannot get natives to work
Oh the plantations. II man has little piece
of ground. he will let it to Chinaman and live
on the rent. II he has no income OF this sort,
he will work for day or two every week around
the dock. Two days work by one man is usu-
ally enough to keep his family for the seven.
This gives a man five days to spend in lounging
and drinking.
"The scourge OF syphilis was brought to the
islands by Captain Cook or Vancouver; and,
since chastity was then almost unknown, the
disease spread like wild fire, and its seques are
still to be seen in Hawaii.
"Leprosy was brought there in 1850 from Asia,
and owing to the habits OF the natives many
have succumbed to it. A man does not seem to
catch this plague by simple contact with a
leper, but by getting some of the poison into a
scratch or open sore, or by breathing some of
the germs into his lungs. The natives
are fatalists, and they believe that If
they are doomed to have the leprosy
they will have it anyway, and II they are to es-
cape they will escape. So they take no precau-
L u
rest try to keep him in the house with them.
They will smoke, passing the pipe from one
mouth to another; and they will all eat out of
the same dish, dipping in their fingers and Bit
ing off pieces OF meat, and putting the rest back
for some one else. Is it any wonder, then, that
there are 1000 jewellers in the leper settlement?
81 know of no cure for the disease, and L
have seen hundreds OF cases. while ago l
heard that a German physician had found a
remedy but on visiting Germany l found the
report untrue. II the malady is taken when
the first symptoms appear, Its progress can be
checked very much. Treatment when the ON
nous brown patches first appear on the
skin will wholly drive the symp-
toms away, but they return again
after year or two. Perhaps were man TO per-
sis. in the treatment he might keep the leprosy
back altogether, but the natives careless
and have not patience to take their medicine
steadily. So it may be said that the leprosy is
incurable.
1.-THE kind whose first symptoms are SWELL
ing OF nerves in the arm and numbness in the
tive small fingers 1 have never known to be
driven away even temporarily.
THE cause of the disease is unknown. Some
physicians say that climate causes it; but lep-
rosy was unknown in Hawaii until 1850, and
it flourishes in Iceland and spreads among the
Seandinaviaus of Minnesota and Dakota. Some
have thought that eating fish, especially de-
cayed fish, caused leprosy, but before 1850 fish,
and decsyed fish at that was the main diet in
Hawaii, and lepers are found on the uplands of
India, where no fish are 10 be found.
1.-The climate OF Hawaii is delightiul-a con-
tinual summer. You enjoy it at FIRST, but by
and by the terrible monotony Wesrles and
finally eneryatcs you