The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-01-25
THE CHINESE PROTEST.

The letter signed Wong Chow in
another column is an interesting ad.
dendum to the literature of the pIagus
and its attendant crises. Its points
which reveal the mental attitude of the
) Chinese since the fire, may be enumsr-
ated as follows:
o. That the prevailing disease may
not be the bubcnic plague.
CD If it is, the Board of Health has
erred in maintaining a lax quarantine.
CD That the plague deaths in
Chinatown are neasurably due to the
strict confinement of the Asiatic popu-
lation there.
CD That the fire was not an act of
/ Providence as men, other than Chinese.
were seen pouring oil in various places
which fire had not touched.
(5) That the forcible removal of the
Asiatics from the burning quarter was
an act of inhumanity which cannot be
atoned for by public sympathy and
charity.
CD That there is retributOn. spirit
ual or temporal, to come.
We take up these complaints in
series:
% If the prevailing disease IS not
bubonic plague it is something just a.
bad. Why worry over names? The
malady visits the symptoms of the
plague upon its victims and causes sud
den death, hence the measures used
against it must necessarily be stern
and searching.
(2J The quarantine could not be alb
solute. Guards had to be employed
about the infected quarter; inspections
had to be made; filth had to be re-
moved; food mad to be passed in. If
the authorities had built a Chinese wall
around the district the condition of the
people. in many vital respects, would
have been worse OFF than it Is now.
CD That the strict confinement of
the Chinese increased the mortality
among them is possibly true. But if
they had been let out to mingle freely
with the population the mortality of
the city as a whole would have been
increased. Everything possible was
being done, however, when the fire
broke out, to remove the Chinese TO |
sanitary camps; and this work is now
going on.
ca The intent behind the fires in /
Block 10 on Saturday morning last was |
far from being to give Chinatown over |
to an indiscriminate conflagration, for
such thing would have endangered |
and did, when the fire got away from
the Department, endanger the whole |
town and the shipping of the port. If
true that men. other than Chinese,
were seen on Saturday pouring oil on
the buildings as yet untouched by fire,
the fact does not impeach the good |
faith of the Government or the Chris
tianity of the town. Thieves and black
legs of all races do such things when a
big fire is on. If the Chinese witnesses
can identify such criminals they SHOULD
do so as a means of getting them pun
ished.
60 The forcible removal of the
Chinese from the peril of death by fire
was an act of the broadcast humanity
for which the white people of Honolulu
should have the thanks of Wong Chow
and his countrymen. Our correspon-
dent complains Of the ax-helves and the
bayonets. No one was hurt by either.
They were needed to maintain the very
quarantine of the "laxity" of which our
correspondent elsewhere complains.
But for them the Asiatics might have
made a rush and that, first or last,
would have cost many lives.
CO. We now come to the threat of
retribution with a side-hint that the
means may be left to the Almighty.
If that is to be the reference well and
good; but IL we are to understand by
the words of our correspondent that the
Chinese intend violence they will soon
find Honolulu too hot to hold them
considerably hotter, though in another
way, than Chinatown was during the
fire.
So much for Wong elbows COM
plant. j.