Ka Leo o ka Lahui, Volume II, Number 205, 1 June 1891 — Page 4

KA LEO O KA LAHUI.

"E Mau ke Ea o ka Aina i ka Pono."

 

KA LEO.

MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1891.

NOTICE.

Copies of the Ka Leo o ka Lahui can be found every morning at both the News Agencies in town. Price 5 cents a copy.

CONSTITUTIONAL.

There is an almost universal feeling that we must have a new constitution. The present one is a failure in whatever light it may be viewed. It failed totally to fulfill the expectations of its originators. Thos who supposed it would hinder the sovereign from filling public offices with favorites are most woefully disappointed in the event. Those who expected to see the power in the hands of the people have seen a reign of intrigue and influence. Those who fondly imagined that it put them in perpetua power have been out a year already and see no prospect of getting back. So the results have in no wise been those expected of the instrument when it came into effect as the supreme law of the land.

What can the people hope for when the supreme law of the land is concocted in the back office of some spider's den on Kaahumanu Street? Thurston or any other lawyer who might feel a divine call to draft a constitution thinks first of the effect of each separate section on himself and his set. The people and the need of the country, the administration of justice, the integrity of public officers were very unimportant matters comparatively.

The Thurston conspirators made the present constitution with the distinct intention of being ministers under it indefinitely. With this expectation they very naturally gave the ministry full power and discretion in all matters whatever. The whole government is left to four ministers. There is no division of power or responsibility. No one is elected by the people, nor by the legislature. The framers of the constitution thought to secure themselves in perpetual authority by providing that they should not be dismissed by the king, but only by the legislature. The legislature they could control by several very cunningly divised schemes that like many ingenious patents have only one defect-they will not work.

The first idea was that their successors should be nominated with their approval and consent, if by any unforeseen event they should be voted out of office.

This idea does not appear to have obtained long. Then the voting pwoer was so distributed that every employee of a plantation should have about twenty times as much representation in the Legislature as the common worker. They calculated that the desire to get and keep the job would enable the money interests to use the noble vote as might be desirable. Of course the ministers were to appoint judges and inspectors of election which was to be another safe-guard against the power of the people becoming dominant. Then a clause was inserted that the noble should serve without pay, thereby aranging that no poor man can serve in that branch without being subsidised by some capitalist. Very few nobles were in the last legislature whose expenses and hire were not paid by those who pulled the wires. The representatives must serve also practically without pay; there being no chance for an honest compensation for services. The class who go to the legislature is more easily swayed by "influence."

But the whole system is so radically wrong that it is useless to point out minor defects. The whole plan and purpose is to concentrate all the power of the government in the hands of four ministers who have all the despotic discretion of actual tyrants.

Our fate and our honor are surrendered into their keeping and they are responsible--in theory only. What we require as the first step toward popular government is decentralization--the distribution of power, the popular election of officers and the right of every citizen to enforce the laws, instead of it remaining as now within the discretion of the Attorney General, the Marshal and Sheriff to say whether any law shall be operative or a dead letter on the statute books.

Such a condition of things and a knowledge of the causes should warn our citizens to forever beware of constituions constructed in lawyers' offices and sprung upon the people with nothing to make them legal, but the extorted signature of a weak kneed prince or princess.

There is one of those vague unpleasant rumors floating around that the Thursston clique is going to meet Her Majesty on her return and demand that she sign a new consitution. While we do not credit the report we wish to warm every one against constitutions springing up from secret places. We want and have long advocated a new constitution; but we wish it to be formed by a convention elected by the people and finally to be adopted by the whole country at a general election.

A RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCE OF OPINION.

There is a serious division in the sanctum of Ka Leo. It is as it were a house divided against itself. Mr. Bush believes that the millennium, the end of the world, or some sort of cataclasm I have not been able rightly to determine what, is hanging over the earth and the inhabitants thereof, and that something si going to presently drop; as certainly set forth in holy writ, by symbols of strange beasts and creeping things with an uncommon number of heads and eyes, horns and tails, composed of brass and stone and clay and divers building materials not usual in the animal economy. Mr. Bush proves from Daniel and Revelations that the adventists know all about it and that the rest of the sane community are suffering from chronic stupidity.

Now recently a gentleman who had been therefore supposed to be of sound mind, has arisen swollen with inspiration and given the crank business a great boom, by figuring out that the second advent of Jesus cannot be put off later than 1899 1/3 A.D. coming. The American papers have given him a great deal of space, so we may be excused for leaving our regular employment of firing into the ministry, to examine his pretentions in a few short paragraphs.

Lieutenant Totten is professor of mathematics in Sheffield Scientific School at Yale who has been always a believer in the Bible being inspired by God himself. It thus seems that he is a professional fighter a mathematical prodigy and an experienced believer in fish stories.

He found his great prophecy wholly on the first part of the twentieth chapter of Matthew in which it is related that an owner of a vineyard went out at different hours of the day and hired laborers; but instead of paying them pro rata gave each one the same wage to any one not bent on occult business it seems plain that his parable teaches that all who come to Christ's church will be saved whether they come early or late, young or old; if they repent and believe their reward will be the same. But Leiut. Totten has been able to find the worl'd shitory and future fate in it by attaching a mystic meaning to the various hours at which the master went out to employ workers. In order to make it mean so much he says that each hours represents 153 and a fraction years. Now, where does this wonderful man find that an hour means 153 years?

In John XX, 1-16, it is recorded that Christ appeared to his disciples while they were fishing and they caught a heavy net full of fish and when they went ashore they found some fish cooking over a fire; and on counting they found that they had taken 153 fishes, and it was a miracle that the net was not broken.

Out of this fish story Lieutenant Totten gets his 153 and a fraction years and it joins it to the vineyard fable in another book altogether and makes out that Christ must arrive on his second advent before 1899 1/3. Where he gets the fraction we do know, unless from the fishes found broiling on the coals.

The Bible does not say that each fish represented a year of the world's history nor that the whole catch of fishes ment an hour in the vineyard. We don't see why they should. But the inspired mathematician at Yale has worked it out.

By the same process Ignatius Donnelly has found a whole Baconian romance in Shakespere's plays. Other scholars with big cracked cranius have found the whole history of the world, all scientific discoveries up to date, and dire prophecies of things to come in the great pyramid in Egypt. There is really no limit to the ingenuity of cranks.

For my own private part I do not believe that God ever revealed anything importance to Daniel nor to any other greasy old Israelite away back int eh dark ages before the invention of soap.

If God wish the inhabitants of the earth to know anything particular he would adopt some method that would produce the desired result. He might stick a poster on the moon or advertise By Authority.

D.L. HUNTSMAN.

[Our contributor is evidently not a Deist, and has not searched the Scriptures, but like all skeptics have a notion based on some guess work. With such we cannot be divided, for he who is aginst us cannot be with us. there is a vast difference between tehy of the household of faith and they who are afloat ont he broad sea of atheism without any ground of hope, and like the scoffers at righteous Noa, are always ready to cry for mercy when some impending doom is about to overtake them. It is then that the crank is reversed. Scoffing proves nothing, and is all that most skeptics have to offer. On the other hand the true believer int he One only God has the sure word of prophecy for his @@@, every atom of which has been corroborated by the development of history thus far, and will tell every jot and tittle shall be fulfilled. Any one sincerely desirous to learn the ground of an Advent's @@@ be cordially shown the source of our inspiration and the reason of our belief, any evening after 7:30 P.M.., at the Advent Chapel on Printers' Lane. We cordially invite all, more especially the wanderer without an anchor sure and steadfast. Space forbids us entering an endless controversy that can be more fully and, we hope, more fruitfully and appropriately given in a church.--ED.]

AN INVISIBLE CITY.

The business of constructing cities and making desert places to boom on paper, is an infant industry in this country, which deserves to be carefully fostered.

It is a great advantage to clerks, teachers, artizans, to save their earning and invest in real estate and so lay the ground-work of a home of their own. Too many fritter away their wages in trifles, small luxuries, and dissipations. Those who buy corner lots in a paper city will have their money safe and fast where the moth doeth not corrupt nor thieves break in and steal, and where he can never spend it foolishly.

Pearl City is situated on a fine lithographed map gotten up by the Schmidt Label and Lithograph company for the Oahu Land and Rail Road Co., a lack of experience is shown by giving only a ground plan; it is usual to give prospective views of hotels, schools, residences, churches, parks and busy streets.

When the American government opens up Pearl Harbor, Honolulu may move unanimously out there. It is thought that freight will be landed there in order to bring it into Honolulu over Mr. Dillingham's rail road. People are going out there to build residences and make the trip back and forth every day to attend to their business in town,--it only takes about half a day and $1.50 for fare. The place is well supplied with sea water which lies in a thin layer over a mud bottom. The scenery is magnificent beyond the power of pen to discribe; but none of it can be seen from Pearl City on account of the distance.

Though we never expect to own a corner lot int he coming metropolis, we wish the young enterprise well, and hope to see the time when the crabs and mud hens of Pearl Harbor will furnish sustenance for forty millions people.

That our Huntsman is anything but a dutiful Timothy to his Paul. However, we have hopes, now that he is away from Hilo's bogus Christianity, that he will become more tractable.

HAWAIIAN DECORATION DAY.

While the procession of the Grand Army of the Republic was marching through the streets on their way to decorate the graves of their comrades in the cemetery, several Hawaiians were heard to remark; "The thirtieth of July is our decoration day." And nothing is more appropriate. We hope the day will be observed with fitting ceremonies. Let every Hawaiian who has a spark of love for his country and hatred for the foreign yoke go out on that sad anniversary and place a final tribute ont he graves of those brave Hawaiians who were shot down by missionary sons and missionary hirelings on the thirtieth of July 1889.

ON DIT.

That Thruston is coming out on the water question under the nom de plume of "Uncle Zeke."

That Mr. Place never personally did anything for either party, as he could not vote without taking the oath of allegiance. This he would not do, because, he said, he wanted to be a citizen of a white man's country. When he saw a chance to be collector at Kahului he swallowed the oath at one gulp, and became a subject in the kanaka's country.

That we were right about the Cabinet and that the Bulletin was wrong about the Pali road and Wilcox.

That the streets are full of lazy looking policeman, and the ar cry is heard at the barracks, while the brave captain of ghte guards looks care worn and anxious. Dry huuhundret Shermans.

That it is better to scrap up the filth from the streets and cart it off for manure than to wet it down till it forms a kind of plaster, as has been done before, and as the Advertiser suggests should be continued.

That the battle scenes displayed by the dealers excite a lively interest, and are always surrounded by a group of admirers. Is the war spirit spreading?

That the Supreme Court, according to Minister Spencer, has decided that Mr. Wilcox cannot legally build the Pali Road, the decision does not prevent another piece of road work from being offered him however.

That the Leo is going to secure the great Sullivan to assist in editing the "On Dit" column.

That the drill of the Household Guards on Decoration Day was very creditable. Our soldiers appear in better shape than ever before.

That the Paradise of the Pacific is better than a letter to send abroad.

That the Rifle Association has secured the sixty charter members required by its constitution, and will proceed to put itself on a legal basis, at its next meeting, Tuesday evening.

That Joe Kaheleluhe, the Queen's advance agent arrived by the Claudine, and is rustling around town getting up a crowd, enthusiasm, @@ to greet her Majesty on her return, June 6th. Joe is quite successful in that capacity, and in putting the matter in the right shape for the press.