Bureau of Public Instruction

Miscellaneous Expenditure

The balance on hand in the Treasury, March 31,

1874

89,432.40

170,474.67

764.57

$1,193,276.36

That, under the head Finance, includes the interest on borrowed money. The funded national debt is $340,000. Of this sum a portion bears no stated interest, only such as may arise from the very dubious profits of the Hawaiian hotel. The interest charges are 12 per cent. on $25,000, and 9 per cent. on $272,000. The estimates for the present biennial period involve a large increase of debt. The present financial position of the kingdom is, an increasing expenditure and a decreasing revenue.

The statistics of the Judiciary Department for the last two years present a few features of interest. There were 4000 convictions out of 5764 cases brought before the courts, equal to a fourteenth part of the population. The total number of offences in the category is 125. Of these some are decidedly local. Thus, for "furnishing intoxicating liquors to Hawaiians" 92 persons were punished; for "exhibition of Hula," 10; for "selling awa without license," 12; for" selling opium without license," 24. It is not surprising to those who know the habits of the people, that the convictions for violations of the marriage tie, though greatly diminished, should reach the number of 384, while under the head "Deserting Husbands and

Wives," 67 convictions are recorded. For "practising medicine without a license," 56 persons were punished; for "furious riding," 197; for "cruelty to animals," 37; for "gaming," 121; for "gross cheating," 32; for “violating the Sabbath," 61. We must remember that the returns include foreigners and Chinamen, or else the reputation for "harmlessness" which Hawaiians possess would suffer seriously when we read that within the last two years there were 178 convictions for "assault," 248 for “assault and battery," 12 for "assaults with dangerous weapons," 49 for "affray," 674 for "drunkenness," 87 for "disturbing quiet of the night," and 13 for "murder." Yet the number of criminal cases has largely diminished, and taking civil and criminal together, there has been a decrease of 656 for the last biennial period, as compared with that immediately preceding it.

The administration of justice is confessedly one of the most efficient departments of Hawaiian affairs. Chief Justice Allen, both as a lawyer and a gentleman, is worthy to fill the highest position in his native country (America), and the Associate Justices, as well as the native and foreign judges throughout the islands, are highly esteemed for honor and uprightness. I never heard an uttered suspicion of venality or unfairness against any one of them, and apparently the Judiciary Department of Hawaii deserves the same confidence which we repose in our own. The Educational System has been carefully modelled, and is carried out with tolerable efficiency. Eightyseven per cent. of the whole school population are actually at school, and the inspector of schools states that a person who cannot read and write is rarely met with. Each common school is graded into two, three, or four classes, according to the intelligence and proficiency of the pupils, and the curriculum of study is as follows:

CLASS I. Reading, mental and written arithmetic, geography, penmanship, and composition.

CLASS II. Reading, mental arithmetic, geography, penmanship.

CLASS III.-Reading, first principles of arithmetic, penmanship.

CLASS IV. Primer, use of slate and pencil.

The youngest children are not classified until they can put letters together in syllables.

Vocal music is taught wherever competent teachers are found.

The total sum expended on education, including the grants to "family" and other schools, is about $40,000 a year.*

It has been remarked that the rising race of Hawaiians has an increased contempt for industry in the form of manual labor, and it is proposed by the Board of Education that such labor shall be made a part of common school education, so that on both girls and boys a desire to provide for their own wants in an honest way shall be officially inculcated. There is a Government Reformatory School, and industrial and family schools for both girls and boys are scattered over the islands. The sup*The schools of the kingdom are as follows:

ply of literature in the vernacular is meagre, and few of the natives have an intelligent comprehension of English.

The group has an area of about 4,000,000 acres, of which about 200,000 may be regarded as arable, and 150,000 as specially adapted for the culture of sugar-cane. Sugar, the great staple production, gives employment in its cultivation and manufacture to nearly 4000 hands. Only a fifteenth part of the estimated arable area is under cultivation. Over 6000 natives are returned as the possessors of Kuleanas or freeholds, but many of these are heavily mortgaged. Many of the larger lands are held on lease from the Crown or chiefs, and there are difficulties attending the purchase of small properties.

Almost all the roots and fruits of the torrid and temperate zones can be grown upon the islands, and the banana, kalo, yam, sweet potato, cocoanut, breadfruit, arrowroot, sugar-cane, strawberry, raspberry, whortleberry, and native apple, are said to be indigenous.

The indigenous fauna is small, consisting only of hogs, dogs, rats, and an anomalous bat which flies by day. There are few insects, except such as have been imported, and these, which consist of centipedes, scorpions, cockroaches, mosquitos, and fleas, are happily confined to certain localities, and the two first have left most of their venom behind them. A small lizard is abundant, but snakes, toads, and frogs have not yet effected a landing.

The ornithology of the islands is scanty. Domestic fowls are supposed to be indigenous. Wild geese are numerous among the mountains of Hawaii, and plovers, snipe, and wild ducks, are found on all the islands. A handsome owl, called the owl-hawk, is common. There is a paroquet with purple feathers, another with scarlet, a woodpecker with variegated plumage of red, green, and yellow, and a small black bird with a single yellow feather

PRODUCTIONS OF HAWAII.

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under each wing. There are few singing birds, but one of the few has as sweet a note as that of the English thrush. There are a very few varieties of moths and butterflies.

The flora of the Hawaiian Islands is far scantier than that of the South Sea groups, and cannot compare with that of many other tropical as well as temperate regions. But all the islands are rich in cryptogamous plants, of which there is an almost infinite variety.

Hawaii is still in process of construction, and is subject to volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and tidal waves. Hurricanes are unknown, and thunderstorms are rare and light.

Under favorable circumstances of moisture the soil is most prolific, and "patch cultivation" in glens and ravines, as well as on mountain sides, produces astonishing results. A kalo patch of forty square feet will support a man for a year. An acre of favorably situated land will grow a thousand stems of bananas, which will produce annually ten tons of fruit. The sweet potato flourishes on the most unpromising lava, where soil can hardly be said to exist, and in good localities produces two hundred barrels to the acre. On dry light soils the Irish potato grows anyhow and anywhere, with no other trouble than that of planting the sets. Most vegetable dyes, drugs, and spices can be raised. Forty diverse fruits present an overflowing cornucopia. The esculents of the temperate zones flourish. The coffee bush produces from three to five pounds of berries the third year after planting. The average yield of sugar is two and a half tons to the acre. Pineapples grow like weeds in some districts, and water melons are almost a drug. The bamboo is known to grow sixteen inches in a day. Wherever there is a sufficient rainfall, the earth teems with plenty.

Yet the Hawaiian Islands can hardly be regarded as a field for emigration, though nature is lavish, and the cli