Hawaii Holomua, Volume III, Number 193, 20 ʻAukake 1894 — AN UNFOUNDED CHARGE. [ARTICLE]

AN UNFOUNDED CHARGE.

An anonymous correspondent in this morningʻs Advertiser throws out a rather scathing accausation against the community in claiming that Honolulu holds an unparalleled record for drunkness. He also states that there is an increase in the use or misuse o intoxicating liquor. We should have considered it in better taste, if the Advertiser correspondent had signed his own name to his sweeping assection instead of hiding under a non de plume. People would then have been able to judge of his right and qualification to hold an opinion and to publish it. The writer has evidently never lived in a seaport, or he would know that Honolulu is a very orderly and sober town. He is shocked because, he, on a Sunday sees a couple of drunks being run in by the police. In every European country, Sunday is the day of celebration and recreation, and it is, on that day, that excesses naturally are made. "Society" stay at home on Sundays. Theatres and other places of entertainment are filled by the working classes, who enjoy their Sundays to the fullest extent, and if some of them take a little more stimulants than necessary they, only follow the example of their richer brethren during the week. The police record for drunkeness in Honolulu appears large, but the reason is simply to be found in the system which guides the police officers. To be drunk is not an offense in the eyes of the law any more than overeating, or, any other excess. It is only when the drunken man becomes a nuisance or dangerous to his fellow citizens, that the officers of the law have a right to step in. If A. wants to get drunk, and eventually gets softening of the brain, he has as much right to do it as has B, to make a hog of himself at his table and stuff himself with rich food until gout and ultimate apoplexy put a stop to his voracity. Society has no right to interfere with the liberty of the individual as long as the individual does not interfere with society. But that principle has never yet dawned on our antiquated authorities, who believe that a man has committed an offense against our equally antiquoted laws if he is unable to walk the proverbial chalk-line. When the officers instructed to curb their officiousness and only arrest for drunkeness when the drunk becomes a public nuisance, the records will be lowered immensely, and the Advertiser correspondent will have no occasion to gnash his teeth and spit out misleading and false accusations against this fair country and the nation. And then he should remember that rum sellers who are ready to take up $40,000 worth of government bonds, when the treasury is empty are not to be "sat on." Such bonds are called "immunty bonds."