The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1908-08-22
TOWN TALK
By THE NAN ABOUT TOWN.

thumps the Orpheum piano, climb up
on that instrument and kiss the SOU
brette?
He does 1t amid thunderous applause
and loud cries of encore, but Sonny"
is fat, you know, and twice would be
two much of an effort, so be climbs
back and expresses his emotion in the
music he pounds out of the big music
box
AT a certain place near the water
front there was a hen who got sick
and was so weak through not being
able to eat for several days that her
life was despaired of. But said chicken
cured herself.
For three nights she disappeared and
it was found, later, that she had each
night Struggled away in a box of young
guinea pigs upon which piggies she
had set, as on eggs. The piggies liked
1t, since the night were cool and windy
and, 10 and behold, the guinea-pig
magnetism cured the hen of her ner-
vousness.
:: !: !: ::
l have always understood that news
papermen liked to think of their voca-
ton as a profession, governed by rules
OF proprietyN mutual respect, etc., no
more definite than those which bind
the nninpG nf Tho 10
but nevertheless thoroughly under
stood as by instinct. For example
you don't find it written in text books
that a lawyer should not consult with
an opponents client, or should not
solicit a rivals business, nor is it
written that doctors should not butt
In and try to extract fees from the
patients Of professional rivals. But
the matters are clearly understood. ]
had a notion that the newspaper pro-
fession assumed to be prosecuted on
somewhat similar lines of professional
etiquet and unregulated gentlemanly
decency. All this is apropos of the
proceedings of our three dailies in re.
gard to the matter of raising money
for a moving picture machine for the
Leper settlement. In appears that
the Star on Tuesday urged that a fund
be raised and offered to receive sub
scriptions. Seeing the unuuestionablC
goodness of the enterprise, the Adver-
tiser on the following morning
editorially boosted it, crediting The
Star, mentioning it's offer and supple
menting it by stating that it would
also receive subscriptions. Thus was
the community, by The Star and Ad-
vertiser, worked to such a pitch OF
sympathy for the project that early
Wednesday morning citizens began to
volunteer subscriptions. Enter the
Bulletin, with an Ad canvasser and a
subscription list, and he proceeded tc
sign up the ready citizens. Not a
line on the subject had appeared in
the Bulletin,-it had heard of the mat.
ter only through it's contemporaries
successful efforts to create public sup.
port for it. And on the evening Of
Wednesday its leading, big front page
headlines announced the success OF
THE BULLETIN FUND" for the
moving picture machine for the lepel
settlement! Add to the theft of an
idea,-ideas are the newspaperman's
chief capital,-the brazen, callous
claim of credit for thing not though
of, and the proposition is one 1 never
heard anything like before. To &c
and sign up donations other papers
had worked for before it heard of tn,
matter and then shout it's claims TO
credit of raising the fund! Well, we'll
perhaps journalism is not profession
after all.
Had The Star accepted the indecen
gauntlet and pressed its prior claim t,
subscriptions, the very fund itsel
might have been endangered. In al
hour the town could have been covere,
when the Bulletin trick was seen, ant
many citizens, seeing a noble charit
degenerate into a disgraceful news
paper fight and not disposed to sid
one way or another. would have with
held subscriptions altogether, refusin
to sign either list. The Star kept OF
and the money was donated in a fe'
hours and a great deal more coul
have been obtained if needed.