The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-08-06
CORONER'S INQUESTS

One of the Legislators of the past
session made a remark which ought to
be put in letters of gold around one of
the public buildings, so that it would
not be lost If memory serves it was
the illustrious Representative Mossman
who made the remark, but it might
have been Representative Prendergast,
who got off the gem of thought. One of
the ornaments of our late legislators at
any rate criticized the Board of Health,
in that its physicians examined dead
bodies, and the Legislator was satisfied
that the best and only thing to do with
dead body was to bury it. Inyestiga-
tion was folly.
The spirit of the Hawaiian Legislature
is strong on the Island of Maui. 1t is
not the first time that the Star has had
to call attention to the laxity of the
Maui officials in examining into deaths
from violence'or accident: The last case
in point is where a young Hawaiian was
shot and killed. The paragraph reads
as follows:
WAILUKU, August3.-Lui Kuaiaina
young Hawaiian about IA years old
who lived at the mouth of lao Valley,
was accidentally killed Friday evening
a short distance from his home. He
went up the valley shooting birds
Standing near a rock above his home he
was seen going through the military
manual of arms presumably in imita-
ton of what he had seen at the drills
of Company 1. His gun seems to have
clipped and been discharged, the load
entering his body just below the breast
causing practically instant death. Nc
inquest was held.
Note the point, 'no inquest was held"
Why should there be any inquest2 The
corpse was there. the boy was dead,
according to our brilliant legislators and
their followers in the Shrivaty of
Maui this was no reason forany inquiry.
Hudde the body into the ground.
Throw some earth over it and forget the
inc dent.
But it must be remembered that
on the Island OF Maui this is not the
only case OF failure to hold Il coroner's
jury upon a sudden death from accident
1t was not so long ago that a little Porto
Ri an school boy jumped from a NOV
ing freight train and was instantly
killed The train crew found the little
corpse on the return trip, or so it was
stated. The boy had no business to ride
on the train, but the sheriff considered
that there was no necessity to hold an
inquest And so the little Porto
Rican was buried and nothing was said
about it.
For years inquests were hardly ever
held in Honolulu, and on the outer
lslapds they were never thought of. If
woman was found with her skull
smashed in with a fiat iron, it was good
reason to suppose she had been mur.
dered, but as that was apparently GER
tain, what need of an inquestP Bury
the woman's body and be done with it.
Inquiries and inquests develop evidence
and it is a nuisance to unravel it,
The papers here and especially the old
time Gazette and the Star have voiced
campaign upon the inquest matter.
The fight has been of over twenty years
in length, and though success has at
tended the banner, there has been much
that has been reprehensible, and these
always gIaring cases like those on Maui
which make one think that the battle is
far from beng won. 1t takes a long
time to penetrate the armor of apathy
and invincibe ignorance. The apathy
apparently exists in the Shrivalty OF
Maui, the invincible ignorance in some
ii our recent legislators, and their man
tie has spread.
1t seems trite to bring up the argu-
ments which have SO often been used
In well organized communities the sane
tity of human life is t. be considered
above all things. Ii life is suddenly cut
off there ought to be legal inquiry in
to the matter. That is what coroners
are for. The law has provided for what
is necessary but the law is not always
carried out. If the coroner does not
call a jury he takes a grave responsible
lity upon himself, He decides what
should be decided by other men. He
may be biased, he may be interested, or
he may be lazy, and probably the latter
is his fault, but he does not do his duty
tn his fellow men. No man should de-
eide "in this case of death | will make
inquiry. in that | will make none" 1t
is absolutely wrong.
There are those now living on the
Islands upon whom the gravest suspi-
cions of murder rest. The events are
forgotten save by a very few in most