CHINESE IMMIGRANTS AT SAN FRANCISCO.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3219, 24 October 1881, Page 3

CHINESE IMMIGRANTS AT SAN FRANCISCO.

The Chinamen arriving at Ran Francisco aro discharged from a freight port-hole down a gang-plank and into an improvised pen, where their persons and baggage are searched by the custom house officers. In the end of the pen farthest from the gangplank is a gate, guarded by two officers, between whom the Chinamen pass after their packs and baggage are properly chalked by the examining officers. Two hundred and fifty Chinamen are taken from the ship into the pen at a time. When all is ready they begin to crowd out of the porthole, which is so low that they must stoop to pass through and go on the gang-plank. They crowd from the inside so, in their eagerness to land, that the port hole is frequently locked and impassable until, after a vast amount of pulling and hauling, one out ► of the wedged-in mass is extricated, and, the gorge being broken, those behind fairly pop out, like a champagne cork, from the impelling force behind. Each one has his baggage lashed to either end of a bamboo pole, and slung across his shoulders, ■which makes the work of breaking a "deadlock" all the harder. Half-way down the gang-plank each Chinaman is stopped by a special police offi- - cer, to whom some kind of a ticket is ] delivered. At the foot of the gang-plank a ' coatless and perspiring custom-house officer grasps the stumbling and over-burdened Chinaman by his arm or shoulder, and gives him an energetic push toward the further end of the pen. Sometimes the Chinamen i is strong enough or well enough balanced on /*»- his feet to retain his equilibrium under the circnmstances; hut generally he is not, and sprawls out on the wharf and is buried under his bags and baggage. Each Chinaman carries his bedding, extra clothes, shoes, hats, &c.; his entire household goods, including tin cooking-utensils, dried vegetables of various kinds, drugs, medicines, smoking outfit, and a strange and varied assortment of articles of all kinds and

shapes packed into baskets, chests, trunks, bags, bamboo and straw matting, and in every imaginable character of baggage. When 30 or 40 Chinamen have beon crowded into the end of tbe pen nearest'the gate, the corps of 20 custom-house inspectors begin the process of "going through" the outspread baggage. What was confusion now becomes chaos. The officers walk over the baggage, open bags and trunks, dive their arms into the interior of packages, and scatter their contents in bewildering drifts. While this is going on more of the allotted 250 are sent into the pen. Every Chinaman gesticulates and talks; every officer explores sweats and comments. Hnstled on the wharf into this scene of wild confusion, the Chinaman, without the remotest idea of what it is all about, is jerked to the edge of the mass of squirming fellow-countrymen, unlashes his baggage, opens it, sees it scattered, collects what he can of it, stands upright to be searched from his outer garments to his bare skin, is chalked on his back, and told to " git." The liberated Mongolians are then seized outside the pen by their friends and conveyed to Chinatown, where they soon become "good Melican men." After one batch of 250 has been examined, the wharf inside the pen limits is strewn with odd tin utensils, tobacco, dried vegetables, fans, corn matting, caps, and bamboo poles, f'hese are kicked off into tbe bay, for tho inspectors are too pressed for time to be able to allow the Chinamen to claim them and gather them up ; then another batch is poured out of the port hole and examined in the same way ; but little is confiscated by the inspectore ; but what is seized is sold at auction. The inspectors appropriate any thing they fancy, such as silk handkerchies, fans confectionery, knick-knacks, and curiosities, and consider them their perquisites.