THE MEANEST MAN

Evening Star, Issue 19796, 21 February 1928, Page 11

THE MEANEST MAN

The meanest man in the world has been seen again, this time in Honolulu, Hawaii, the land of palms and sun —and diving boys. But it is reported that ho has been turned out ot this Paradise. The bronzed mermen ot Hawaii practically live in the water, swimming out to greet all incoming passenger steamers and diving lor the coins that are tossed from liner decks by visitors to the islands. <

And then came the meanest man, teaching the boys that “all that glitters is not silver,” and nearly causing a strike in the ranks ot the diving wharf rats of Honolulu's waterfront.

Knowing that the divers concentrated their struggles on nickles. dimes, and quarters and seovntd pennies, tin's particular passenger, an arrival on the steamer Malolo, stripped the tin foil from his tobacco and wrapped it around his supply of pennies. The result was a coin that glittered like a new dime, but that had a market value of one cent. Over the rail went the coppers and down went tbs Hawaiian divers, emerging from Davy Jones’s reception hall with a piece of tin foil, one cent, and rather strong opinions about the m.m. It is all right to get wet and risk colliding with steel hulls for five cents is the attitude of the divers to-day, but one cent is not enough, and people who travel on ships shouldn’t throw tinselled pennies.