The Hawaiian gazette., 1908-03-20

Fifty white men in Honolulu ''hit
the pipe in the opium dives thai
exist to the number of score or SC
in the heart of Chinatown. So one OF
the Chinese habitues of the joints In
formed an Advertiser investigator last
week. And from the look of the joint
where the information was given ii
was rather easy to believe that any
white man who would 90 there would
do anything Thn place was in the
rear of the row of dirty tenements
facing mauka on Pauahi street, near
River. Every room in the back OF
that building on the ground floor ex-
cept one is an opium joint and on the
day of the visit was crowded with
Chinese, many of whom were busily
inhaling the white fumes from the
burning dope or sleeping off their de-
bauches. Tucked away in the corners
of hunks, laid out on mats on the floor
and even slid out of the limited way
under the hunks were poppy soaked
figures. pallid-faced, and in many in
stances bare-fOoted and ragged, deep
in sleep, dreaming of Elysium, while
over and about them swarmed the TEEN
ing other patrons and proprietors of
the dives.
There were no white men there, at
least in evidence. White dope fends
do not expose themselves in the care
less way that the Chinese do. Some
of them have a remnant of shame left
and seek the upper rooms of the dives
on their visits. while all of them en-
deavor to keep out of the way of
the police, who pay domiciliary calls
very frequently to these places. China
men can smoke and drug themselves as
they will, but the police arrest whites
and Hawaiians found in these joints
and lock them up for vagrancy. Then
the deprivation of the drug proves to
be a thousand times more punishment !
for them than all the other penalties
the magistrate can impose.
There is nothing attractive about an !
opium dive. Dark, stinking with the /
eXhalations of those who overcrowd the /
little rooms, floors and windows dirt |
begrimed and filthy, and everywhere
the reek and gurgle of the opium, there !
is nothing to remind the casual visitor ,
of the fairy tales that are sometimes
related of the palaces of Nirvana,
where amid Oriental splendor the white !
slaves of the drug indulge themselves
in vice. AS a matter of fact the opium
fends among the whites are less fastid-
iOus than the Chinese themselves and
with even less excuse. The photograph .
published herewith of the entrances to
the dives in the one particular build
ing, gives but a faint conception of
the squalor of the place Prior to the
Of ba oil xvas
full of Cinnamon, professional gamblers
and others, who ducked for cover as
soon as it was seen that picture was
to be taken. 1t is from among these
men that the highbinder class is re-
cruited, sneak thieves bred and Grim
inals made. Most of them are opium
smokers, spending their time playing
games in the reeking joints during the
day, the losing players paying for the
pills for the winners. AT night they
pit their skill against that of the more
industrious of their countrymen, fleeing
them at the pai-kau or fan-tan tables.
All of them are known to the police. !.
Throughout Chinatown there is
scarcely 4 tenement in which at any
time of the day or night some opium
smoking is not going on, more or less
publicly, and yet the vice is on the
decline, or supposed t. be. Quite re-
Gently an association was formed among
the Honolulu Chinese to work for the
suppression of opium and many habitual
smokers joined and announced that the
drug was to be given up. The recipe
for some especially noxious tasting brew
was distributed around among the
smokers and the medicine when taken
regularly was guaranteed to cure the
habit and stop the poppy-eraving with
in three months. Many Cinnamon be-
gan to use it. encouraged in their en-
deavor to break themselves of the habit |
by their Consul. A good many of them I
claimed that the dope was actually
lessening their desire for the pipe and
the demand for the treacly stuff began
TO fall off. Perhaps it may be unjust b
to say that the dealers in opium and a
the proprietors of the dives were re- n
sponsible, but at any rate about ten i
days ago a report began to circulate e
among the Chinese that certain death i