The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-09-04
A FEW RAPS
At MACON
Fitch Makes Reply
In Spendthrift
Case.
BECKY IS NOT AS
BLACK AS PAINTED
Goes to Defense OF Magoon's Ward
and Explains Some Things
About Beer.

in a reply brief in the case of Rebecca
Panee, filed in Supreme Court.
Fitch discussed at some length upon
the intoxicating qualiues of beer and
says:
This Court may properly take no.
tice of the fact that while beer con-
tains a small, and a very small per-
centage of alcohol, yet as an intoxicant
it is, to quote the language of another,
'bunglesome to the stomach I submit
that if the habitual use of beer alone
affords sufficient ground for the crea-
ton or perpetuation of a spendthrift
trust, our courts may be kept busy
placing one-half of our citizens in
spendthrift trusts, less perhaps for
their own benefit than for the benefit
Of their complaining friends.
ct may not be profitless to refer
here to the reason of the law and in
quire what conditions are necessary to
enable a probate court under our stat
ute to take a mans property away
from him and keep him in perpetual
pupilage?
Gaming alone is not sufficient
ground for the creation of spend
thrift trust, for skilful gambler does
not lessen but increases his estate.
'Debauchery alone is not sufficient
ground for such action, for a woman
of the town may lessen the estate of
her victim, but she does not by her
debauchery lessen her own.
Drunkenness does not necessarily
incline the dipsomaniac to waste his
estate. In vino veritas is a proverh
whose truthfulness passes without
challenge. Under the influence of
liquor The quarrelsome man is more
quarrelscme, the kindly man is more
kindly, the spandthrift is more waste
full, and The close-fisted man conserves
his dollars, buys his liquor by the gal
Ion, drinks it at home, and invites no
companion - share his cups.
1.-THE was ing of the estate contem-
plated by the statute must be the di-
rect effect of the drunkenness of the
spendthrifts and the drunkenness of the
spendthrift must be the direct cause
of the waiting of his estate,-unless
these conjoin, there is no legal ground
for placing or keeping the spendthrift
in a trust.
Mr.. Magoon eulogizes the spend
thrift trust law as a wise law though
New England states where it original
ed, it is more harsh here. In New
England the operations of the spend
thrift trust law can only be invoked
by one having either ties of kindred
with the spendthrift or having public
duties to perform. The Hawaiian
law provides that a friend can petit
ton to be appointed guardian of q
hfiff
have been such friend to all waste
full women and men whose property
needed care and conservation. AS such
| friend he turned his office into ar
Adullam's Cave for all who we're in
debt and for all who were discomfort
ed and for all who were afraid He
made of himself a compulsory savings
bank for his wards. He compelled
them to live not only within their in
comes but to become unwilling ac-
cumulators of fortune. Mrs. Panee's
| personal estate was worth when he
was appointed her guardian very much
| less than it is worth now, and her in
come is correspondingly greater. The
appellant achieved this triumph o.
thrift by compelling his ward to live
amid squalid surroundings, upon III
allowance of fifteen dollars per week
when her income was double that sum
There was and is nobody dependen
upon her or from whom she would
have a legal right to claim support
The appellant says of her, She doe:
nothing and tries to do nothing to ge
a living Surely a childless woman
| without relatives and with an incom'
of thirty dollars per week, is not un
! der any obligation to herself or to so
/ ciety to do anything to get a. living.
There was time when Mrs. Pane
had a motive for economical industry
1t was when in her exuberance of sen
timent for the appellant who allege
that he has stood in the position o
father to her. she made will leayini
him all her property. But since he
! father in his zeal to retain contrl
of her property accused her of being
drunken harlot, and made determine
but futile effort to prove the chargt
she has lost her love for him, she ha
destroyed the will she had made in hi
favor. and her former ambition 70 &C
cumulate money to leave to him
shattered and gone.
{ The statement of appellant that 'th
whole inclination of appellee is to spen
money in drinking, debauchery an
vice is not sustained by any evidenC
in the record. and is not a statemer
that rebounds to the credit of the iT
f1uence or the efforts of the appellan
who for so many years was guardia
of her person as well as her propert!
: 'The animus, if I may so character
ize it, of this desperate and protracte
effort of the appellant to retain, afte
being discharged by the Probate Cour
a guardianship that is obnoxious I
his ward, who is no relative of his b
blood or marriage, whom he denounce
as a debauched and drunken woma
and in whom he has no interest exceI
the fees, commissions and perquisitt
OF guardianship, is possibly explaine
in a paragraph of his brief where /
says that without a word of warnin
without any serious complaint, 81