The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1908-09-11

them up until the loading hour ar
rives and then jerk them up the in
cline and onto the waiting ears. Else
where, at convenient places, the small
er limbs of the ohia and the stumps
are being sawn, split and stacked up
for firewood, for which Hilo supplies
ready and steady market, while along
the right-ofway and back to a dis
lance of two and three hundred feet
are being got out and stacked squares
of smaller railroad ties for the lumber
road itself. for the other railroads
under construction and repair on the
island and for possible shipment for
extensions and repairs of the Oahu
Railroad. These ties are axe-squared,
and the way, in which the japanese
axes for the work are being secured is
one of the little indications of the up.
to-date and resourceful ways in which
the company is going about its bust.
ness.
These ties are being hewn by Jap
anese and Koreans, and these conserva-
tive axemen will have nothing to do
with haole AIDES. With them it must
be the axe of the Japanese pattern
or nothing. Now, imported japanese
axeheads cost in the Honolulu and Hilo
markets six to seven dollars apiece.
Sam johnson, the outside superintend-
ent, failed to see that much worth of
purchasable metal and labor in the
imported article, and, as the company
has and will have use for many such,
he picked out Japanese blacksmith
from one of his gang, turned over a
corner of the company machine shop
to him and set him to work expert
menting on forging axes of the requi
site pattern. The first axe was
clumsy affair, but the temper was good
and the man was told to try again.
Now that man is kept busy hammering
out japanese axes and he is giving the
company good, acceptable article at
cost of one dollar an axe, at the
same time making expert wages for
himself
All the sights of the ohia numbering
operations are interesting, none more
so than the way the big logs are col
lected and loaded on the trucks. At
the loading place are two donkey-en
gines, each mounted on huge two
runner sled on which it pulls itself
about from spot to spot, hauling in on
cable anchored to some extra solid
living tree. One engine collects the
logs, the other snatches them from the
collected tangle, slides them up the
log runway and bangles them in the
air over the trucks, on which hardy
and risktaking japanese place and
pile them. The collecting engine
handles cable which can be snubbed
around fallen stub nearly a quarter
of mile off through the underbrush,
hauling and tugging this in straight
line to the loading place, up and down
gulches, over lava rock and past
stumps. Along the taut and hauling
wigwag code of their own and who
direct by signal the men at the en-
CINE. Sometimes, to keep in sight of
the man at the throttle, the signal
boy shins up tree and, perched in n
crotch forty feet above the ground,
watches the log coming in. If it jams
between n couple of rocks he waves a
commanding arm, with a hand waggle
| appropriate to the occasion, and the
engine stops until a couple of peevies
can straighten out the log. Then an
other wave of the arm, different in
motion, signifies clear road and the
chug of the engine and the singing OF
| the cable recommences. Sometimes
the cable hook slips, sometimes block
jams or something else happens, and
the signalers send along their wire
| lesses. When the log reaches the load
inc nile il is SWING far in the air and