Kamehameha V was the older brother of the last King, and a man of autocratic temper, who promulgated a new constitution that increased the powers of the king and decreased those of the people. He was called Prince Lot before he came to the throne. During his reign the leper colony on Molokai was started, in an effort to stop the spread of leprosy. As every one knows, it was here that Father Damien, the Catholic priest, devoted his life to caring for the sufferers and finally succumbed to the disease. The King died in 1872, the last of his line. Just before his death, he turned to Mrs. Bishop and asked her to become queen. She refused, thinking she could serve her people better in some other way, and the King passed away without naming his successor. It was suggested that either the sister of Kamehameha V or one of the high chiefs should be placed on the throne, but Prince Lunalilo, the nearest male relative, was elected in 1874 by the people. He was thus the first Hawaiian monarch to be chosen by popular vote. His reign, however, lasted little more than a year. [Illustration: KING KALAKAUA AND STAFF.] David Kalakaua, a high chief, was the choice of the people to succeed Lunalilo. The Reciprocity Treaty with the United States was the great commercial event of this reign. By this sugar and some other products were admitted into America free of duty. This last of all the kings sought continually to regain the authority lost by the crown when the first constitution was granted, and his government kept growing more arbitrary and corrupt. Finally, so much feeling was roused that the foreign element compelled Kalakaua to proclaim a new constitution, by which he lost the power he had previously possessed and white men gained more control of the government. Two years later, the "Wilcox rebellion," headed by Robert W. Wilcox, a half-breed, was the unsuccessful attempt of the natives to assert themselves against the whites. It was, however, promptly put down. Kalakaua was kind-hearted, popular, and possessed a dignity and ease of manner that made him at home in any society, although he was dissipated and corrupt and could be "hail fellow well met" with carousers. Captain Lucien Young says of him in his book, "Real Hawaii": "Kalakaua was only a high chief, in no way related to the extinct royal family, and was reputed to be the illegitimate son of a negro cobbler, who had emigrated to the Islands from Boston." On the other hand, the sister of Kalakaua, Liliuokalani, who followed him, gives the following account of their pedigree: "My father's name was Kapaakea; my mother was Keohokalole; the latter was one of the fifteen counselors of the King, Kamehameha III. My great-grandfather Keawe-a-Heulu, the founder of the dynasty of the Kamehamehas, and Keona, father of Kamehameha I, were own cousins, and my great-grandaunt was the celebrated Queen Kapiolani, one of the first converts to Christianity."