Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1913-10-08

Honolulu is facing q fresh egg
shortage. There is an abundance OF
the other kind, which out of defer
ence to their age will not be named
here, but such eggs win probably not
be used until the next campaign
speeches are made. If the shortage
grows worse it may be necessary to
take to eating sea eggs, which are
highly recommended by Mayor ]. ].
Fern. - -. z-. ~
A number of explanations have been
rendered to account for the present
shortage, but none of them seem to
hit the mark. The chief one OF the
lot Is that the hens are working to-
gether to boost UP the prices of their
output. This explanation is offered
without consideration for the opinion
of leading psychologists, who have
stated that the hen has no CONNER
cial mind and is perfectly willing to
scratch for q living throughout life.
Z The ones who favor the explanation
given go on to argue that by such a
combination to boost up the price Of
eggs double advantage would ac-
crue to the hens. In the first place,
with eggs selling at very high fig
ure, consumers would be kept so
broke buying them that they could
never afford to blow themselves for
q nice chicken dinner, and, again, the
owner of hen would be making so
much coin out of her that it would
be like killing the goose that lays the
golden egg to sell her for the table.
1t is to be regretted that the psychol-
ogists said anything on the subject at
all, for In their absence the explana-
ton given would be perfectly salts
factory. But as they have firmly put
it down in their books that hens are
.uncommercial minded, and have no
sense of mefley values, 1t Is impos-
sible to do anything else than dis
card the proposition that the poultry
have combined. -. f.. IS. ..s
Still science, like the mayor, can
explain anything If given time. It is,
only necessary to get the right
branch of it lined up for the right
answer to some particular problem.
In this case, the psychologists fail
ing, it is natural to turn from them
30 the eyoldtI0nfsts AS CHARLES Oar
win, Ernest Haeckel, and q few other
OF the boys who have traced our life
from the present writing to times
cons ago when we we're nehu, or some
kind of bait fish, have put it down
as pillar Of their science that all
life evolves, 1t may be not altogether
impossible that the hen has done q
little evolving on her own hook lately
and gone out OF the egg business.
Though neither Charley nor Ernest
give much space in their treatises on
evolution to the hen, and perhaps
they do not even give her honorable
mention, it is easy enough to imagine
her in the times when humanity was
represented In the nehu metam0r-
phous, strutting about in her subter-
ranean barnyard with a bunch OF
small sea chickens In tow, stopping
now and then to pin down a nehu,
to be divided among her hungry or
spring, or making shift with a piece
Of seaWeed to roost on for the night.
BY conservative figures, figuring
that the hen world did not exceed in
number 5000, and that each hen did
not eat more than three nehu a day,
it is shown that she and her kind
have reduced the number of human
beings by millions, due to her appe-
tite for nehu in the paleozoic period.
1t is also easy to imagine her, in
the first, faint dawn of living things
on this sphere, beating it out of the