The Hawaiian gazette., 1901-02-08
HYsTERIA VS.. FACTS.

suppose Ntfant'F from IN" iatNl
should enter Honolulu home and say,
AFTER a cursory glance around "Heav-
iensl but you are all wrong In the way
you livci Look at your roof. II isn't
pitched half az well "a our roofs In New
Hampshire. Then you have too much
lplnzza. Don't you know that such
outside halls are drauRhty and that
you may get your death of cold sitting
in them ! do believe you don't keep
your cellars dry. No cellar? who ever
heard VI such thing? why you are
heather and when I get back home I
shall probably have to criticise you in
some hundreds of newspapers and mag
aznes. And what is that you are wear
ling? \ Mother Hubbard. Why don't
you know that the American Society
for Winding other Peoples Business
long ago blacklisted the Mother Hub
bard as an article which no self-re-
Ispecting woman would wear outside the
privacy of her own chamber? People
who are as far behind the times as you
are and as defiant of public opinion
ought TO be sharply dealt with' and II
/ can find an audience here big enough
to get any sort of a collection from,
I'll tell It what I think about you IN
set terms"
Impertinence from a household guest
could hardly go further. and no indvid-
ual host would care to extend his hos
pitality to one who had so abused II
Yet the collective host. meaning the
inhabitants of the city, are expected to
not only tolerate but to encourage
strangers who, after the most superb
cial view of things Hawaiian, denounce
la, tyh IA laws
they find that do not dovetail with the
customs and laws they have been used
to elsewhere. Aunt Ophelia could never
put up with the ways of the Southern
home where she found Miss Eva and
Uncle Tom. Those ways were wrong
because they were different. The world
lis full of such well-intentioned but
meddlesome people: and just now Hoo
noIulu has more than its fair share
lof them Women come here who, after
a weeks Study" make up their hasty
minds that this or that method of deal
ing with public offences is vitality wrong
or shameful, and that. for the good of
society, it must be changed at once.
They do not credit the wise men and
women who have dealt with Honolulu's
social and racial problems for years,
with any capacity to settle them in the
way best suited to the welfare Of this
community. Experience counts for
nothing: racial conditions are never
thought of: human nature is not con-
suited: the history of past experiments
lis never read: the reformer simply
lswoops down like a wolf on the fold and
declares that because Honolulu deals
with crime and the social evil and a
few other things differently from
Bangor, Maine, or Princeton, New Jer-
sey, this place is a sink-hole of iniquity
Infested by criminals who are protected
and encouraged by hypocrtes. If they
find this view supported by the talk of
some local political demagogue on or
off the bench-some man on whose pri-
waite character n lump of coal would
leave a white mark but who makes LOUD
public professions of honesty and pur'
Iity-they at once begin to plume them
selves upon having the support OF
! healthy public sentiment" and so be
come twice as obnoxious as they Were
before.
A We are led to these remarks by tn
= Ihasty CONGRATULATIONS which visiting
strangers have made about the plac
> known as Iwilei. Iwilei is a depot ia
) removed from the business or residenc
: quarter of the city where women be
longing to the submerged classes carr.
, on their trade under the eye of physl
clans and police. 1t has not long beer
in existence; before the Chinatown fire
4 part of street in that quarter was uset
as a Yoshiwara and decent peopl,
found themselves much too close to the
half world. Urged by men like Theo
dore Richards the Advertiser asked fol-
, the removal of the women to an unfre
duented suburb; and in course of time
removal was brought about by fire. AS.
suming that the social evil had to fine
, a Judgement somewhere, no better place
, could be had for it than Iwilei.
Nov, we rom. I'm tho main ouastinr
raised NV the visiting raformars. why
is not tha social evu nrobihiteI nv In W
ana srnn,assed h,, tba.noIicao what &c
the NECESSITY of giving n oHcial sanc-
ltio,o Tbo arsy.o,. 10 tbot buts ror sucb
49, go So 49, - 49, 49, ,