The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-04-06
GOSSIP FROM
WASHINGTON
How R. Raymond
Flashed Across
Hawaii.
HONOLULU SEA
TRAVEL Numbered
Hawaiian Stamps and Postal Cards
Burned-Col. Sanger's
Mission.

WASHINGTON, March 25.-Charles
Warren Stoddard, the poet of the South
torious traveller in Hawaii some years
ago. This was the celebrated swind1er
Ross Raymond who was arrested in
New Haven the other day There is
at least one thing that can be said in
favor of Ross Raymond, and that is that
he did not spend the enormous sums of
money he borrowed altogether on him
self, but in entertaining his acquaint-
ances and the people he called his friends
on the most lavish and marvellous scale
THE story of his sudden appearance
and disappearance in Hawaii sounds like
an Arabian Nights tale. l shall never
forget it. In the first place, he came to
Honolulu, not on the regular steamer,
but in a sailing vessel, and created quite
a furore on his very landing. Dressed
in the latest cut from a London tailor
carrying the nobbiest cane imaginable,
and with a grand old English swagger,
he emerged from this ungodly vessel and
made a triumphant progress to the Roy
al Hawaiian Hotel where he rented the
most expensive suite of rooms they had
He did not know soul in town and new
er a soul knew him. He inquired where
L lived. 1 was then camping out with
number of the fellows in a stag-racket
bungalow, a mile or SO from Honolulu.
Out he came and greeted me with open
arms.
I've a letter for you from your
friend, Frank Millet, in San Francisco
he said. Now Millet and 1 were the
best of chums, had lived together in
Venice for years, so a fellow introduced
by him was not received lightly.
by the way, he did not produce the
letter, but, feeling in his waistcoat peck
ct, said he must have left it at the no.
tel. l told him never mind, and intro
duced him to the rest of the stays. He
took with them right off. He was bright,
laxative and full of rafting good ad-
ventures. He invited several of us back
to the hotel with him. rented whole
suites of apartments for those of us
who went. had cases of champagne sent
to the rooms at night, and kept the
whole place a tiptoe waiting on us. He
did not produce the letter and did not
refer to it again.
1T was not many hours, 1 might say,
before he was the lion of Honolulu. He
entertained and was entertained in turn
balls, dinners, champagne suppers, won
derful breakfasts, coaching parties-ev-
erything. He kept that town up to
pace it never knew before Everyone, ex-
cepting the English people, took to him.
loaned him money, entertained him, and
entered into a jolly good time wit hhim.
He did not refer to his past history at
all-quite naturally; and nobody knew
anything about him. He was so plaus
ible that they took him for what he
seemed-a rollicking wealthy American,
Anglicised, living for the joy of travel.
Il asked him one day if he were the
distinguished Roster Raymond. He shook
his head sadly. No, L wish L were; but
L am only Ross Raymond. Then he pro-
ceeded quite delicately TO let US know
who only Ross Raymond was. 1 must
say that he treated us all royalty, never
asked any of us for cent, and we new
er imagined he was borrowing at such
wholesale rate and doing the town to
such perfection. One day he disappear
ed-likewise in a sailing vessel-and the
shock came. He left behind him noun
tains of debt-had borrowed thousands
of dollars; had run up bills in every
place in Honolulu. So people talked
quite natural that they should. 1t was
most tremendous comedy, looking at it
in one way. Things kept cropping up
and cropping up. 1 wrote to Millet and
never gave him letter, and knew moth
ing about him. Nobody could learn any
thing about him, except that he had not
come in on the steamer, because a man
was aboard ready to arrest him. We
next heard of Raymond down in Austria
liza, playing the same game; then living
like Monte Cristo in East India, in a
magnificent palace, with whole retinue
of servants. Then we heard he was in
in Gle Of in,
nolulu ever forgot him, and 1 don't think
we ever shall.
PASSENGERS DON'T LIKE IT.
a strange complication in relation to
passenger travel between the United
States and Hawaii has arisen since the
Islands were annexed to this country.
Through the Act of Annexation, the Isl
ands became a part of this country and
hence all laws that apply to shipping in
in the United States and between United
States ports apply also to shipping be-
tween the ports of the United States and
Hawaii. There is a law which requires
that all passenger travel between United
States ports shall be in United States
bottoms Vessels of foreign register
carrying passengers between our ports
must pay a penalty of 5000 for each pas
,senger. People travelling from Honolulu
to this country have been put to much
inconvenience and delay, owing to their
inability TO find an American ship to
bring them TO this country.
DR.. Z. F. King, formerly of Washing
ton, but who is now on his way from the
Hawaiian Islands to Vienna to study.
has been in the city for a few days. and
IS staying while here at the St. Louis
Hotel. He was, obliged to remain in Ho-
nolulu nearly ten days in order to get
a ship that could take him to San Fran
cisco.
1t is really a most absurd and most
inconvenient thing" said he. The Ha-
walian Islands are none too well supplied
with vessels, and to exclude American
citizens trying to return home from the
use of any excepting American ships. is
ridiculous in the extreme, and a most
short-sighted policy. Honolulu is served
by japanese line, by the Occidental &
Oriental, by the Pacific Mail, and by the
Spreckels lines. Fortunately, few of
the Pacific Mail steamers have an Amer
lean register; otherwise it would be alb
solutely impossible for a person to come
from Honolulu to the United States at
all. BY this most peculfar law tha trapS