Landing On The Leeward Side Of Molokai,
He Sneaked Down The Pali One Night And Took Up His Abode In The
Settlement.
He was apprehended, tried and convicted of trespass,
sentenced to pay a small fine, and again deported on the steamer
with the warning that if he trespassed again, he would be fined one
hundred dollars and be sent to prison in Honolulu.
And now, when
Mr. McVeigh comes up to Honolulu, the bootblack shines his shoes for
him and says:
"Say, Boss, I lost a good home down there. Yes, sir, I lost a good
home." Then his voice sinks to a confidential whisper as he says,
"Say, Boss, can't I go back? Can't you fix it for me so as I can go
back?"
He had lived nine years on Molokai, and he had had a better time
there than he has ever had, before and after, on the outside.
As regards the fear of leprosy itself, nowhere in the Settlement
among lepers, or non-lepers, did I see any sign of it. The chief
horror of leprosy obtains in the minds of those who have never seen
a leper and who do not know anything about the disease. At the
hotel at Waikiki a lady expressed shuddering amazement at my having
the hardihood to pay a visit to the Settlement. On talking with her
I learned that she had been born in Honolulu, had lived there all
her life, and had never laid eyes on a leper. That was more than I
could say of myself in the United States, where the segregation of
lepers is loosely enforced and where I have repeatedly seen lepers
on the streets of large cities.
Leprosy is terrible, there is no getting away from that; but from
what little I know of the disease and its degree of contagiousness,
I would by far prefer to spend the rest of my days in Molokai than
in any tuberculosis sanatorium. In every city and county hospital
for poor people in the United States, or in similar institutions in
other countries, sights as terrible as those in Molokai can be
witnessed, and the sum total of these sights is vastly more
terrible. For that matter, if it were given me to choose between
being compelled to live in Molokai for the rest of my life, or in
the East End of London, the East Side of New York, or the Stockyards
of Chicago, I would select Molokai without debate. I would prefer
one year of life in Molokai to five years of life in the above-
mentioned cesspools of human degradation and misery.
In Molokai the people are happy. I shall never forget the
celebration of the Fourth of July I witnessed there. At six o'clock
in the morning the "horribles" were out, dressed fantastically,
astride horses, mules, and donkeys (their own property), and cutting
capers all over the Settlement. Two brass bands were out as well.
Then there were the pa-u riders, thirty or forty of them, Hawaiian
women all, superb horsewomen dressed gorgeously in the old, native
riding costume, and dashing about in twos and threes and groups.
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