The Hawaiian Gazette

What is Being Packed for Paris - Specimens of Ancient Skill - Private Enterprise Lagging - The Educational Trophy.

Mr. J. A. Hassinger, Chief Clerk in the Interior Office, being asked how the exhibit for Paris was coming on, invited the reporter over to the Iolani building to see the progress made in the Government exhibit. He stated in walking along that private exhibitors were rather slow in coming forward, while some took the unnecessary trouble of writing for information that is plainly conveyed in the advertisement. As the exhibit has to be shipped on February 12th, intending exhibitors or contributors cannot afford further delay. It will not do to pile articles upon the managers in the last day or two, for they must have time to arrange, catalogue and pack the exhibits - a work that will be no mean task for such distant transportation.

A peep at long range into the Tax Collector's Office, where the exhibits are being prepared, returns the impression of a dry goods store with a few notions scattered about. The heaps of what appear to be calicoes and silks ranged along the counter prove, however, to be specimens of ancient tapa cloth. They are very ancient most of them, too, in genuine age as well as style of manufacture, and number forty distinct varieties. While all are remarkably interesting in showing the great skill of the Hawaiians before the advent of civilization, a large proportion of them possess rare intrinsic beauties of both texture and decorative pattern. Archaeological and ethnological savants of the Old World can hardly fail to find material for study in these rich tapas. Besides the cloths there will be forwarded to Paris the beaters and pattern stamps used in their manufacture, many of them handed down from remote times. Ancient stone axes, a stone lamp of Grecian pattern - Mr. Hassinger said that at all events it had held grease - a necklace with foreign beads from the time of Vancouver, are among the curios selected. One precious relic is the scarlet feather helmet worn by Kaumualii, the last King of Kauai, who died in 1823. The creditable oil painting of the Volcano of Kilauea, by the young native artist, Joseph Nawahi, goes forward. Paper money tokens engraved in 1844 by native pupils at Lahainaluna, under charge of Rev. Lorrin Andrews, (grandfather and patronymic of the present Minister of the Interior), are not the least interesting articles in the collection. Of commercial value are the samples of olana fibre, raw and made up in twine, cord and nets. This fibre is allied to that of ramie and is of great tenacity. A fishing line of it is attached to an ancient hook shaped out of the bone of a departed chief. The articles of Hawaiian antiquity mentioned above with many other curiosities not referred to, would of themselves form an attractive national exhibit to place before the whole world at Paris. Something else is, however, required, to illustrate the progress of civilized enterprise in these Islands. Our plantations and workshops and stores should spur up some enthusiasm over this opportunity for advertising the country abroad. Photographs of the principal business blocks even would tell a great deal of the commercial importance of Honolulu.

Leaving the general Government exhibit, a visit is paid to the Education office. Here the Secretary, Mr. W. J. Smith, and the Inspector-General, Mr. A. T. Atkinson, have had their heads together the previous ten days over an exhibit by the Board of Education. It promises to make an excellent showing for the status of education in this Kingdom. Besides school books and apparatus used in our schools, there will be specimens of work done by pupils in school hours, under both foreign and native teachers, such as exercises in arithmetic, algebra, composition, etc., all showing incidentally the quality of penmanship, which in many cases is very superior. There are also special samples of writing done by pupils which it would stagger professional masters of penmanship to surpass. Specimens of carpentry from the Kamehameha School will be sent. The photographer's art is enlisted for an instructive part of the collection. Several frames containing pictures of school houses and groups of foreign and native teachers and of pupils will be filled. One frame will contain portraits of the King and Queen, officers and members of the Board of Education, with other pictures. As there are ten nationalities on the rolls of Fort Street School, a representative group of its pupils is a study in itself. A pamphlet in English and French, giving general and special information in connection with the exhibit, has been prepared under the supervision of the Inspector-General.