The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1911-02-14
KICKING ABOUT
INSPECTION NOW
Evidence Tends 10 Show SAM
tary Men Are Mostly All
Badge.

Are The board OF health sanitary In.
spectors too rauch uniform and too little
hanahanai Are they inspectors in name
only, or are their badges the limit Of
their authority From present indica.
tions Il seems that storm is about to
break over somebody's head or some
bodies heads, and Il looks like the
board of heelth sanitary inspectors.
The whites who are now living In
the oriental section through necessity,
either in connection with missionary or
other work, are beginning 80 murmur
over sanitary inspection, as the term
goes in Honolulu. The plea Of lack Of
power is beginning to lose weight with
number of people who have become
interested enough in it to look up tho
statutes themselves.
sfThey won't wake up until we get
the plague again. is slogan gather
| ing impetus. Such bits of law as this,
from section 995 Of tho revised laws,
are being studied with interest:
Pertinent Law.
"Whenever sucn nuisance, source of
filth or cause of sickness shall be found
on private property, the board of health
or any health agent shall order the
owner thereof at his own expense, to
remove THE same within forty.eight
hours.N 20
with this section in mind, which is
elaborated on greatly in the text, in
teTested persons have made an exam
nation in Chinatown - meaning that
district between the river and Nuuanu
avenue = and found at least dozen
alleys where garbage was piled In
every case it had been there for over
week and had generally accumulated
an awful odor and a colony Of maggots
preparing to evolve into sease-bearing
4 flies.
Instead of being confined in its pow
ers. those insist that the board of health
has unlimited powers, such as that con-
veyed in the sentence, "When any per-
son shall be convicted for common
nuisance that may be injurious to the
public health the court may
order it removed or destroyed
1t is claimed that a physician's tes'
timony to the effect that the nuisance
is dangerous to the public health is all
the authority for the allegations neces'
sary.
Bitter Feeling.
! So bitter is the feeling against in.
spectors who do not inspect that petit.
tions are ready to be drawn up and
signed, calculated to wake some.
BODY up.
4 A committee which has investigated
3 conditions thoroughly reports that the
8 inspectors rarely IL ever enter the tene
/. ment toilets, which are averred to be
n usually filthy. One inspector recently
gave what was a tantamOunt refusal
J, to a request that a tenement owner be
e ordered to change the gutter pipes OF
l. his building to prevent their flooding
e an alley where the water remained fol
S several weeks until it was dried up by
t the sun. The inspector claimed that
t the owner was in China, which he helt
/ excused the conditions
/ During the late storms the Nuuant
s River overlooked and flooded the hole
at the bottom of Achi lane, driving
s hundreds Of families from the thiekly
s built tenements there to little rise
,. where they camped for several days.
u viler Than Ever.
n This lake is still there and will re
Al main there until the sun dries it up, bu
the people have moved back into thei
rooms, the walls of which are LITERAL.
soaked and damp. The conditions il
u this district are now viler than ever.
% The attention of one inspector wa
u called by resident to pile Of gar
y bage which had been trampled into tn
- earth sidewalk of a neighbor, and whie
a for over year has been emitting it
n fair share Of doors. The pile is still
= there, said inspector evidently beliey
a. ng in the sanctity of traditional land
m marks.
IL -----p-<D-e 60