The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1899-05-09

that it had only freshly set in. But we
have had our share of crime in the
past, just as we have in the present.
People are so apt to become panicky
when they hear of a crime of violence.
OF course the crime committed on
last Sunday evening was alarming, and
every one must sympathize with the
tramcar driver, who very nearly came
by his death. But there is no use get
ting into a scare about it, for this is
not the first time a tramcar driver has
been held up,-Fitzgerald and some one
else got a severe sentence for similar
crime.
If we look at crimes of murder we
find any quantity of cases long before
annexation came. 1t was not so long
ago that a native gentleman on Molo-
kai called up a Chinese store keeper at
midnight and dragging him into the
road proceeded to beat out his brains
with rock, while a companion chock-
ed a China woman almost to death. 1t
was a peculiarly cold blooded crime,
but it was not caused by any influx
of evil annexationists, or the fierce ex-
pansionists Molokai was sound asleep
at the time, even the Kamalo planta-
ton had ceased to exist. It was the
golden age when there was no enter
prise and visitor went round the ISL
and hardly once a month.
1t was not so long ago that the Lanai
murders occurred, which were accom-
panied by such horrors and brutality
that few people know the full details
of them There was no wicked planta-
ton on Lanai at that time the island
was given up solely to sheep and pas
toral simplicity. But crime managed to
creep in.
Some seven or eight years ago a ma
tive school master was murdered in
Puma. The crime was committed in
broad daylight, upon the public road,
and the body was hidden for some time
in crack in the lava. This was in the
days when Puma was calmly asleep
and there was no store even from one
end of it to the other
There was a pleasant little killing at
Kalauao valley some years ago. That
was in the days when there was no
railroad no Eva or Oahu plantation,
nothing but a waste between Homo
lulu and the Waianae mountains, in
those days of sweet simplicity and
Arcadian innocence which some people
think really existed prior to the ad-
a., mi
might easily have a few similar gen
tie touches, but probably enough have
been given to show that crimes of vio-
lence are not peculiar to this present
period, but we have had plenty of them
even before annexation was so much
as thought Of
1t is not that The Star does not re-
greet the murderous attack upon the
tramcar driver but it feels regret that
the incident should be used as pointing
a finger at our increasing cases of
crime. AS a fact, even with more peo-
pie coming along all the time, crimes
of violence are not as numerous per
capita, as they are else where Nor are
the crimes committed necessarily the
cause of the arrival of people from
abroad. The news of a peculiarly hor-
rible crime was received on Sunday,
but it was not, certainly, the result of
expanding population. Waimea, Ha-
wall, where this occurred has not in
creased in population of late to any
appreciate extent, and no boom has
struck it. We have no business to gen.
eralize upon premise so slight as that
, of the attack upon the tramcar driver.