Mongoose as Rat Understudy

1917

Islands in the tropical or semi-tropical seas furnish ideal conditions for rats, and in many instances they have increased until they have become intolerable pests, threatening the total ruin of the inhabitants. On one sugar cane plantation in Puerto Rico 25,000 rats were killed in less than six months.

In Jamaica an effort was made to suppress them by introducing the mongoose, which resulted in the establishment of a second pest. In the Hawaiian Islands the introduction of the mongoose caused the rats to take refuge in the tree-tops, where many of them have nests and have arboreal habits, like squirrels. Wherever present on these islands the mongoose has rendered it exceedingly difficult to raise domestic fowls of any kind. — National Geographic Magazine.

Sharks Bite? Oh, They're Afraid, Hawaiians Claim

1915

Fisherman Swims for Hours Near "Man-Eaters"

HONOLULU, Hawaii, Dec. 16. — South sea fishermen have branded the shark story as a myth, made up by authors of adventure stories.

They say there is no such thing as a man-eating shark.

There is "Dudie" Miller, for instance. Every one in the South Pacific knows "Dudie" Miller of Honolulu.

Recently he dangled naked in the tide, hanging in a life preserver in 100 fathoms of water, spearing fish. A 11-foot shark began circling him, attracted by dead fish the man carried in a sack strapped to his waist.

Hobnobs With Shark

"I want to show you something," said Miller, summoning two canoemen.

They watched the "man-eater" sweep around the fisherman poised in his life belt.

"Dudie" merely laughed. The canoemen lifted him from the water and deposited him again 100 yards away. And there the fisherman and the shark hobnobbed all afternoon.

Kahia Moe, maker of hula drums, is another of these myth shatterers.

Rides on Shark's Back

Kahia Moe, a native Hawaiian, stretches shark-skin across his far-famed dance drums. And to make them properly resonant, as well as to consecrate them fittingly, the shark, "must be slain in mortal combat," he maintains.

And so Kahai Moe kills his shark in the water, with a knife, slitting the pallid belly with a dexterous slash. He has dispatched hundreds in this kind of "mortal combat." And he speaks of them as "cowards."

David Mahu is an expert killer. When the water is low he leaps into the Pakule and rides sharks, straddling them with his naked limbs.

"Shark attack living men?" chuckles David Mahu. "It is a joke! They are even afraid to bite a dead horse until they're almost gone with hunger!"

Harvesting the Sun

1896

When we sit in front of a coal fire and enjoy its generous warmth, do we realize that the heat and light of the burning coal are really sunshine that has been stored up for ages? Such is the fact. Centuries ago the sun shone on the earth, the plants and trees grew, fell, and grew again; they were covered by geologic deposits, and acted upon by great heat and pressure, until in the course of years and ages these broad layers of organic matter were transformed into coal. The coal thus represents the work done by the sunshine years ago, and when it is burned the imprisoned solar energy is loosened again.

Our system of power production depends upon this presence of energy. But coal is a wasteful source of energy. Even the best engines do not utilize over 10 per cent of the calculated energy of the heat of coal. And, besides this it is an inconvenient thing in many ways; it has to be mined, freighted and stored. Can we not find some more economical way of using the sun's energy?

During the last few years the great progress in electrical science has enabled man to utilize the solar heat in a thriftier way. During its day's work the sun draws up a large amount of water from the oceans and damp earth. By the action of its rays plant life flourishes, and plants draw from the ground and evaporate into the air large amounts of water. Thus an oak tree of average size, with seven hundred thousand leaves, lifts from the earth into the air about one hundred and twenty-three tons of water during the five months it displays its foliage. This evaporated water, sooner or later, falls as rain, and by the action of gravity begins to flow downward. Thus the great rivers are fed. Round and round incessantly goes the water lifted by the tireless sun to fall when deserted by him, and again to fall and run seaward as long as it may exist upon this earth.


Peculiar to the Locality

Some interesting discoveries have recently been made about animal life on the Hawaiian Islands. It appears that all the land and fresh water shells are peculiar to the locality. Nor is that all. Fifty-seven out of the seventy-eight species of birds, and seven hundred out of the one thousand species of insects do not exist in any other portion of the globe.

Steamer Leaving Hawaii Orders More Bananas

1897

HAD A GOOD EYE

Sam Parker Bowls a Bunch of Bananas

There was an amusing incident on the Pacific Mail wharf Saturday afternoon, just as the O. & O. S. S. Belgic was hauling away from the Pacific Mail wharf. In this Sam Parker, Clarence Crabbe and a Chinese fruit vendor were concerned.

Just a few minutes before the steamer departed for the Orient Mr. Crabbe thought that he would like to see some bananas aboard. He called a Chinaman and told him to get three bunches from up town as quickly as possible. The fellow demurred, thinking it too late, but finally ran up town and brought down three bunches.

He arrived on the wharf just as the steamer was hauling away from the wharf. Grasping one of the bunches he threw it up toward the lower deck. It fell short and into the water. The second bunch met with the same fate. Just then Sam Parker went to the rescue, and, grasping the third and largest bunch, gave it a swing and sent it aboard without trouble. While the Chinaman was mourning the loss of the two bunches in the water, native boy swimmers were tying a rope to these, and in a short time they were hauled aboard. The shouts of the people on the wharf when Sam Parker threw the third bunch aboard were heard uptown.

—Hawaiian Gazette, Honolulu, June 8, 1897, p. 5.

A "Loafer's Paradise" – In Honolulu They Do Next to Nothing

1878

The Ohio State Journal publishes a letter from Gen. Comly, in which Honolulu is sketched with a free-and-easy hand, as a loafer's paradise.

The natives, he writes, are the most careless, improvident, laughter-loving people in the world. They have no winter to lay by for — even the proverbial rainy day needs nothing there; so they dance and sing, and deck themselves with garlands all the day long. Men go here with great garlands of the loveliest flowers and green leaves hanging in festoons, around the neck and shoulders, down the body, around the hat — everywhere.

These men are not the fops and loafers of the race, but the hard-working fellows — the herdsmen, the hackmen, even the draymen go about adorned in the most exquisite taste, with flowers and leaves wreathed into forms of beauty which come to an American like a revelation in art. They have no wealth — nothing that would satisfy an American — but they are always laughing, singing, playing jews-harps or making floral wreaths. The Hawaiian knows that there will never be a winter's day to provide for, and that it will always be the same — yesterday, to-day and forever.


American Lighthouses

The history of the illuminating of lighthouses is an interesting one, says the New York Evening Post, and the improvements that have been made from year to year in the manner of lighting these beacons on our coast have been in keeping with the growth of an ever-extending shipping interest.

Before 1789 the expense of keeping up the few lighthouses then standing was borne by the States in which the lights were placed. In 1791 the first lighthouse erected by the Federal government was lighted. At that time, including the new one, there were but nine lights on the whole American coast. During the following nine years the number was increased to sixteen. In 1822 there were seventy lights in all, and in 1838 two hundred and thirty-eight, including lightboats. In 1875 there were nine hundred and twenty-five lighthouses and twenty-three lightships; four hundred and eighteen of the number being on the Atlantic coast.

A Family With Faith in Asbestos

Short Stories
1922

The late Mrs. George Gould hated any desecration of the Sabbath. Motoring one summer Sunday in Lakewood, she encountered a family whose fortune had been made in asbestos. The rich asbestos makers were picnicking, fathers and sons over whisky and poker, mother and the girls with cigarets and bridge. Mrs. Gould drew up to speak to her acquaintances. "Well," she said pleasantly, "I didn't know you Smiths had such faith in your asbestos."

A storyette that dates to the eighteenth century is as follows: Dr. Johnson once met the village postman one summer afternoon. The postman observed that he had still a mile to walk just to deliver one newspaper. "My goodness!" exclaimed the sympathetic doctor, "I'd never go all that distance for such a trifle. Why don't you send it by post?"

Former Postmaster General Hays, as every one knows, is an advocate of the air mail. "Of course, it gets criticized," he said, "and criticism is a good thing, but it can be run into the ground. I am reminded of the vaudeville producer who muttered as he read the press-notices of his program, 'These critics are thorough, all right. They don't leave a turn unstoned.' "

With reference to the millennium, Samuel Gompers recently said: "It is still a long way off, of course, but the workman is not the downtrodden slave he once was." He quoted the case of the tennis pro who was giving a new club member some pointers. "Hold your racket loosely, sir," he said. "Oh! more loosely! You hold it as stiff as if you were a hod-carrier." "But I am a hod-carrier," said the new member mildly.

The southern Californian may think himself an adept making seductive pictures of his end of the state, but he can still learn from the Honolulan, out in the north Pacific. Down there they say a drummer from San Francisco sojourned a month, and when they took him to the homeward-bound steamer and put leis around his neck and sang "Aloha Oi" to him a few times, he cried like a baby and said he had forgotten his wife's first name.