The Present Jailer Is One Of These Men.
Declared To Be A Non-Leper, He Accepted, On Salary, The Charge Of
The Jail, In Order To Escape Being Sent Away.
At the present moment, in Honolulu, there is a bootblack.
He is an
American negro. Mr. McVeigh told me about him. Long ago, before
the bacteriological tests, he was sent to Molokai as a leper. As a
ward of the state he developed a superlative degree of independence
and fomented much petty mischief. And then, one day, after having
been for years a perennial source of minor annoyances, the
bacteriological test was applied, and he was declared a non-leper.
"Ah, ha!" chortled Mr. McVeigh. "Now I've got you! Out you go on
the next steamer and good riddance!"
But the negro didn't want to go. Immediately he married an old
woman, in the last stages of leprosy, and began petitioning the
Board of Health for permission to remain and nurse his sick wife.
There was no one, he said pathetically, who could take care of his
poor wife as well as he could. But they saw through his game, and
he was deported on the steamer and given the freedom of the world.
But he preferred Molokai. 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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 98 of 305
Words from 26005 to 26276
of 80724
