The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-02-22
THE HOTEL STABLES.


Board of Health should treat the Hotel
Stables with more leniency than it has
treated other infected and infectious
buildings we should be glad to convey
it to our readers. But we are advised
of none. There is evidence that two
cases of plague originated at the sta
bles, and the fact that the victims
were there while suffering from the
disease is conceded. For much less
reason than this the Board has con-
demned and burned many structures.
A house that Mrs. Franz entered short
ly before she was taken i'll was given
over to the torch. Places where sus-
pected merchandise was stored met a
similar fate. Upon the sound reason
that an infected locality is more dan
gerous to the public health than in
fected individuals, the destruction of
property has been very sweeping and
of corresponding advantage in the
fight against the plague.
1t was supposed when the Board of
Health began it's work with the official
firebrand that it would not stop short
of thorough job. The first pause it
made was at the Pantheon Stables,
owned by the same gentlemen who are
conducting the Hotel Stables. Though
it was known that the plague had got
a foothold there, it was days before
the Board consented to burn the prop
erty. That body held out, despite the
sharpest criticism, until the occurrence
of new cases, one of them that of a
white man, compelled it to heed the
duty its own wisdom had, as respects
the treatment of other plague-centers,
clearly and boldly enunciated. The
stables were burned, but as a sop to
the owners, and despite a contrary
precedent in one other case, the re-
moval of the portable articles at the
Pantheon was permitted.
These articles, including wagons
harness, whips, laprobes, sponges
tools, ct cetera---we are not certain
about hay and grain-were taken tc
the Hotel Stables. Whether they car
ried infection with them or not we can
not say; but in any event the intimate
and interchangeable business relation
between the Pantheon and the Hote
Stables was such as to make it the
most natural thing in the world thai
the plague in one should be transmit
ted to the other. Why the BoarC
should have added to the facilities O
the interchange by letting the contents
of the condemned stable be taken K
the one not yet condemned we do no
know. The fact shows a leniency TO
which We do not try to account ant
which now manifests itself again am
, in way beyond all reason and beyon'
all precedent save the Pantheon prece
dent, in an order to merely quarantin
the infected spot.
/, What good will the quarantine dc
considered as a remedy? True, tn
/ public will not be permitted to hir
liveries at the Hotel Stables nor t
enter there, but the quarantine Will nc
/ keep infected rats from scattering a
I over the neighborhood and into tn
, Hawaiian Hotel and the Executiv
building. 1t will not suppress the bs
cilli that probably exist in the polll
ted ground underneath. 1t will not RI
n move the plague spOt-nor will fun
d CATION, in such rambling structure
: The longer the quarantine lasts I'll
IS longer the danger from the stable
II will survive. What possible justitic;
= ton is there, from the sanitary poil
5 Of view, of letting it survive? "
IS should not have to ask that questic
s. il the owners of the stables were AS
h atics.
If the Board of Health is waiting
'e see whether the public will back it
l. carrying out a uniform policy it me-
80 wait no longer. The public, so far
l. the Advertisers Industrious reporte
al can find out, and so far as it has ma
ne its opinions known, admits no reas
ly why the Board should treat one p!ag
ts center as past cure and another as Gu
es able. There should be no partially
IN such things; wherever the plag
ne lodges, the flames should seek 1t o.
a That is a policy which the people
OF Honolulu accepted from the Board
n good faith, and which they desire
on see advanced and maintained, irl
zee spective of the owners or stockholdt
III who may suffer by 1t.
of -