letter xviii.] COINAGE AND NEWSPAPERS. 



179 



chases in the stores. There is so much cordiality and courtesy 

 that, as at this hotel, the bill recedes into the background, 

 and the purchaser feels the indebted party. 



The money is extremely puzzling. These islands, like Cali- 

 fornia, have repudiated greenbacks, and the only paper cur- 

 rency is a small number of treasury notes for large amounts. 

 The coin in circulation is gold and silver, but gold is scarce, 

 which is an inconvenience to people who have to carry a large 

 amount of money about with them. The coinage is nominally 

 that of the United States, but the dollars are Mexican, or French 

 5 franc pieces, and people speak of " rials" which have no ex- 

 istence here, and of "bits," a Californian slang term for i2| 

 cents, a coin which to my knowledge does not exist anywhere. 

 A dime, or 10 cents, is the lowest coin I have seen, and copper 

 is not in circulation. An envelope, a penny bottle of ink, a 

 pencil, a spool of thread, cost 10 cents each; postage-stamps cost 

 ,2 cents each for inter-island postage, but one must buy five of 

 them, and dimes slip away quickly and imperceptibly. There 

 is a loss on English money, as half-a-crown only passes for a 

 half-dollar, sixpence for a dime, and so forth ; indeed, the 

 average loss seems to be about twopence in the shilling. 



There are four newspapers : the Honolulu Gazette, the Pacific 

 Commercial Advertiser, Ka Nupepa Kuokoa (the " Independent 

 Press "), and a lately started spasmodic sheet, partly in English 

 and partly in Hawaiian, the Nuhou (News).* The two first 

 are moral and respectable, but indulge in the American sins of 

 personalities and mutual vituperation. The Nuhou is scurrilous 

 and diverting, and appears " run " with a special object, which 

 I have not as yet succeeded in unravelling from its pungent but 

 not always intelligible pages. I think perhaps the writing in 

 each paper has something of the American tendency to hysteria 

 and convulsions, though these maladies are mild as compared 

 with the " real thing " in the Alia California, which is largely 

 taken here. Besides these there are monthly sheets called The 

 Friend, the oldest paper in the Pacific, edited by good " Father 

 Damon," and the Church Messenger, edited by Bishop Willis, 

 partly devotional and partly devoted to the Honolulu Mission. 

 All our popular American and English literature is read here, 

 s,nd I have hardly seen a table without " Scribner's" or " Har- 

 per's Monthly," or " Good Words." 



I have lived far too much in America to feel myself a 



* The Nuhou has since expired. 



if -2 



