DISEASE AND CHINESE LAUNDRIES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2020, 4 March 1907, Page 1

DISEASE AND CHINESE LAUNDRIES.

Wo have often been asked for some remedy to restrict or obliterate Chinese washmon, and our ailvico lift‘d always boon to give ns much publicity to tlio conduct of their washing places as possible through the public press. In some instances this lias been done, and no doubt good accomplished by it, but ns a rule those who made the greatest complaint wore the slowest to act. They were like some in/tlio business who cry for help, but are not willing to help themselves by helping others anil join an association. But this is not what wo wanted to cull attention to.

lu a newspaper printed ill a large city we clipped the following, which may possibly suggest a way to others who are combated by Chinese competition, and show them a way to roach the. public’s ears. There is no doubt but a crusade will soon begin in many cities by the authorities against conditions that, exist in these chink joints, and if the officials are honest in their inspection, and report, they will open the eyes ot the public by condemning most, of the places where Chinese do their work. The article mentioned is beaded: “Disease Traceable to Unsanitary Laundries: Authorities in Many Cities Prepare Campaign Against Chinese Laundries.” “Cleanliness is next to godliness is a truthful saying, and in these days of improvements in sanitary regulations that are agitating the public mind against the filthy and unhealthy conditions of the_ meat packing and canning establishments of our land, it is pleasing to note that steps are being taken by the authorities in different cities to make a raid on sweet shops, Chinese laundries, and other places of this class that have for years been a menace to health. The Chinese laundries are receiving; attention, which is a step m the right direction. When wo take into consideration that this class of our population eat, drink, sleep and wash in the same room, with the fumes of the dirty clothes they are washing permeating the air which they breathe, and in.dampening the washlied garments ready for ironing, the Chinese laundryman holds the water in his mouth and squirts, it on the article, which endangers it to microbes of disease, it is high time measures were taken to abolish those sink holes, or at least improve the sanitary condition of the same. Many diseases have boon traceable to clothes washed in Chinese laundries. It is a well-known fact that the majority of these Chinamen eat food that no other nationality will touch, considering it, and rightly too, injurious to health. Some of them are rat eaters, and after a meal, when putrid particles lodge between their teeth, fill their mouths with water to sprinkle the > rments they iron, thus distributing these fragments of decayed food through the water held in their mouths and spurted on the clothes. Men’s and women’s underwear, shirts, collars, cuffs. and ladies skirts are all treated in the same manner, which makes them liable to disease, and if the ladies, especially, stopped to think of this condition of affairs, there would bo fewer Chinese laundries patronised, and the health of the community would be benefited in many instances. The Chinese are the most unprofitable class of citizens we have. They are clannish, unsociable, and distribute no niquev they earn hero, in this country, but hoard it up and send it back to their native land, hence are not worthy the support of American • citizens. —National Laundry Journal (U.S.A.).