There is a Board of Education, and
Kamakau, its president, reported to the last biennial session of the
legislature that out of 8931 children between the ages of six and
fifteen, 8287 were actually attending school! Among other direct
taxes, every quadruped that can be called a horse, above two years
old, pays a dollar a year, and every dog a dollar and a half. Does
not all this sound painfully civilized? If the influence of the
tropics has betrayed me into rhapsody and ecstacy in earlier
letters, these dry details will turn the scale in favour of prosaic
sobriety!
I have said little about Honolulu, except of its tropical beauty.
It does not look as if it had "seen better days." Its wharves are
well cared for, and its streets and roads are very clean. The
retail stores are generally to be found in two long streets which
run inland, and in a splay street which crosses both. The upper
storekeepers, with a few exceptions, are Americans, but one street
is nearly given up to Chinamen's stores, and one of the wealthiest
and most honourable merchants in the town is a Chinaman. There is
an ice factory, and icecream is included in the daily bill of fare
here, and iced water is supplied without limit, but lately the
machinery has only worked in spasms, and the absence of ice is
regarded as a local calamity, though the water supplied from the
waterworks is both cool and pure.
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