Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1896-09-11
FATHER CONRARDI TALKS.
Continued from ISt Page.

after that they do as they please.
While the majority of the lepers
have been converted to Catho-
licity the remainder are either Cal
vinists or Mormons.
VISIT TO THE PEsTHoUsE.
The eighteen inmates of the
pesthouse had notable visitor
yesterday. For three hours Rev.
Father Conrardi, who has been
the officiating priest at the leper
settlement at Molokai for the past
eight years, was the guest of
Superintendent Heating and AS
sistant Superintendent Mcmillan
and their charges. The priest
went to see the lepers and deliver
to them a message from the SINH
larly afflicted in the Hawaiian ISL
ands. He has given his life to
the cause of those suffering from
this curse of the natives of the
Pacific islands, and he has but
one regret. He wishes that he
himself might become a leper in
order that the barrier between
himself and his flock might be re.
moved.
IF l was a leper,' says the
priest, 81 could do a great deal
more good for them. No Board
of Health would step between the
patients and myself and forbid
me associating with them at all
times"
The day was fine and bright.
The wind whistled through the
line of eucalyptus trees that shell
ter the ramshackle pile of build
ings dignifed by the name of
pesthouse. Father Conrardi in.
troduced himself without any cere-
mony. His passport to the good
graces of Superintendent Heating
was letter Of introduction he
brought from Secretary Godchaux
of the Board of Health. His COM
ing was unannounced, so he found
the inmates totally unprepared to
receive so notable a visitor.
Passing through the gates to the
yard, the first sight that caught
the priests eye was the two Bindt
brothers, who were playing game
of handball underneath a tree. In
a swing near by Lima Grimm, the
German girl who was recently
brought here from Mendocino
county,was lolling indolently.A ca
sual spectator might have thought
she was carrying on little fiirta-
ton with Pedro Perrida, the Mex
lean leper, who was watching her
from a distance.
The priest walked straight to
the little group. Dotfing his hat
to the girl in the swing, with all
the dignity of a cavalier, he held
out his hand to Ernest Bindt and
said:
81 come from Molokai."
Molokai is the open sesame to
the leper's heart. 1t is a house
hold word wherever the dread
disease is known, and the priest
needed no further introduction.
Father Conrardi told the Ger
man brothers he had brought a
message to them a smallpox nurse
in this city, but now a member of
the Molokai settlement. In two
minutes almost all the inmates of
the Pesthouse were about the
priest. He had a kind word for
them all.
The Bindt boys have been in
mates of the Pesthouse for ten
years, and as the senior patients
they had precedence in guiding
the priest about the place. They
took him through the Chinese
dormitory, where the Mongolian
patients are dying and half
dead of every stage of
the disease. From there they
piloted him to the quarters of An
ME, the Chinese woman, whose
face is distorted out of all sem
blance to a human countenance.
Annie was engaged in playing an
air on a mouth organ and resent
ed the intrusion. Despite his
priestly garb, the Chinese woman,
who speaks excellent English,
proceeded to berate her visitor. 1t
was in vain he told her he was
priest; the patient declared he was
a newspaper artist and had come
to make a sketch of her. Her
harapgue was long and high
sounding, and it might have con-
tinued indefinitely had not Father
Cnnrardi hrnnnad the word nMn.