The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-03-24
THE LATE HAWAIIAN MONARCHY

the Honolulu correspondent of the
| New York Times contri butes the follow
ing interesting article to contemporaries
Gus history: One of the foremost men in
the Hawaiian Islands, an archBologist,
has permitted your correspondent to ex-
anime the manuscript of a work which
he is preparing on the inner life of the
dead monarchy. It contains some sem
sstional disclosures which may be briefly
Summarized:
The Hawaiian monarchy was nothing
| more than a Veneered barbarism, and the
same is true of the native society which
tiourished under it. This fact is one of
wide application. 1t describes the life
of Kalakaua, Liliuakalani and their
courtiers as surely as it does that of
the island monarshs who preceded them
upon the feathered throne. Regarding
the late sovereign, David Kalakaua, there
is a vast amount of unWritten history
and there always will be. Under his So
cial polish and kindly manners was the
soul of POlynesian savage. He was
Superstitious, sensual, corrupt and he
had craving, which rarely went ungrat-
flied, for raw fish. gin and roast dog.
One fact, that at such feast he would
appear in broadcloth and speak with the
accent of gentleman. put his innate
barbarism into still bolder relief.
Much of the secret data of Kalakauas s
life is unreportable and none of it can
be related in detail. His taste for the
denominations of the hula dance was as
eager as that of any tattOoed chief who
held the islands in the time of Cook.
Correct in his demeanor when among re-
fined people, well dressed, wen groomed,
a master of languages and student of
literature, with the semblance of good
breeding on his lips and in his daily walk
Kalakaua deceived half the civilized
world. In the latter days of his life
Kalakaua undertook the role of god
among the brown Hawaiians, and nearly
won over the native clergy to new
church of which he was to have consti-
tuted himself the divine guide and teach
er With him divinity was an instru
ment of license.
As for Kiliuokalani, she is such mis-
tress of dissimulation that it is not easy
to convince many well-meaning people
that she is not the Christian woman she
has always professed to be. The church
has never gone in vain to her for pecuni-
ary aid, and yet she is known to have
danced the hula herself and to have
ace. Missionary work has thrived in the
ssEilt of her countenance and yet her
armours have been and still are fragrant,
open and notorious. At prayer meetings
she has been pious exhorter, and at the
volcano she made pagan sacrifice to
propitiate the deity of the burning lake.
When the good women of Honolulu
called on her in body to implOre her not
to sign the lottery bill, she shed tears
and begged them to pray that God might
give her strength to do her duty in the
sight of heaven; and yet she signed the
bill.
The rank hypocrisy and half-cOncealed
paganism of the house that Kalakaua
founded and Liliuokalini brought to
grief was endured year after year by the
white population which spraBg from the
missionaries of the Congregational
church. 1t is right to say that no town
in the most theoretic town of New Eng
land is more religious and moral than the
white quarter of Honolulu. 1t is a city
of churches, missions, Young Mems
Christian associations and relief socie-
ties. Its bars are closed on Sunday and
there are laws against any form of dissi-
patton which pass unchallenged in the
United States. Under these conditions
it is easy to see how public sentiment
might have readily prepared itself for
the revolution which brought the Dlon-
archy to a timely end.
1t may be the fashion, here and there,
to say that the queen has been badly
treated; but the blunt truth about her
is that she stood for indecency, paganism
and commercial distress, and that she
deserved the fate that came to her.