CHINESE LEPERS.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 7, Issue 401, 17 October 1884, Page 5

CHINESE LEPERS.

(' NT. Morning Journal,' Aug. 1.) Two of the worst Chinese lepers ever seen in the United States will be shown at noon to-day in Union Square, by Dr E. C. O'Donnell, formerly a member of. the Constitutional Convention of California, a man who has spent half a life-' time and a fortune in the anti-Chinese agitation. The face of one leper is ; frightfully swollen, and the flesh lies on it in folds so that it has the appearance of being corrugated. Their heads are twice the natural size. Neither can see except by turning his eyes up toward the sky. Wo Lin has lost all his fingers and half of each foot. His left leg is as large as a pillar. His mouth is drawn to one side, and his face emanciated from the destruction of its muscles. Each has tubercular leprosy. The doctor, who is familiar with the disease, says they are THE WOEST SPECIMENS OF LEPEBS he has ever seen. He discovered them four days before he left for the East, living two stories underground, in Bull Run Alley, between Pacific and Broadway streets, in San Francisco. It is thought that they had been hidden there by the Six Companies. The two had been in the country eight or nine years, and had probably had leprosy four or five years. The doctor has collected photographs of 200 Chinese lepers of San Francisco. HOEEIBLE, REVOLTING FACES, with a leonine look, and on which the flesh hung in great folds. Eyes that had a hideous look. Scars, and limbs from which half the members were missing. One of the limbs of one of the Chinamen was larger than his body. Another had a frightful swelling that weighed nearly a hundred pounds. "These 19 victims of leprosy," said the doctor, indicating a card on which there were 19 photographs, " were 19 cigar-makers. I found them making cigars two stories under ground, 150 ft back from the side walk. There they lived in filth and darkness." When they came to the light they could not see. All were nearly blind. The cigars they made were sold on the streets. They had probably been kidden away by the Six Companies. Again, they like dampness because it ameliorates their sufferings. Here are photographs of Fo Lim and Yo San, with leprosy of the worst type. They owned a cigar factory. Here are 13 Chinamen who went to work for them. They were healthy when they went to work. All got leprosy. Employers and employed were sent; together to the pest-house. Here are photographs of POUB "WHITE MEN WITH LEPEOSY. The first was a rich farmer near San Jose- He hired 12 or 13 Chinamen to pick fruit for him. He supposes that he contracted leprosy from them. The second- was an engineer in San Francisco. He believes that he got the leprosy through shirts washed at a Chinese laundry. This is. an American printer, who was infected with leprosy by smoking cigarettes made by a Chinaman. His fingers have dropped off. The fourth photograph is of . a sheep herder near San Francisco who hired Chinese herdsmen, from whom he contracted the terrible disease. You see that picture of a young woman with a black mantle thrown over her head, who has the leprosy so terribly ? That is a young woman of one of the wealthiest families in Pahfornia, She is highly educated, arid only 26 year? old. THE WHOLE FAJIILf HAVE LEPEOSY. Three daughters, two sons, father, and mother. They live in a fine house in San Francisco, and never go outside of it. I b^ayp been in the house, and am well acquainted with, the family. They contracted" leprosy' from phinese servant? employed in the tio;use. Only two weeks I ago I caused the arrest of a beautiful and educated English girl with leprosy on a steamer which had arrived at San Francisco from Honolulu where she contracted it from the Chinese. She was

sent to the pest-house 'despite the prb- ! testations of her parents. Every steamer that comes to San Francisco from the Sandwich Islands, and from Uhina, carries ,' -with her from eight to ten coses of ; leprosy. The ant! Chinese law is inoper- [ alive. And as long as you cannot keep ' out the Chinese, you cannot keep out leprosy. Tho Cit'y'of Tolio arrived at San Francisco two weeks ago with 1095 Chinese .coolies on board, and every one came ashore, as a merchant or a student. There are. . A THOUSAND CHINESE LEFEKS . hidden in the cellars in San Francisco now. Thirty-four -are in the pest-house. Nearly 100 have been sent back to China. The Chinese Six . Companies practically own the coolies they bring over. When these servile labors become lepers they are hidden away in cellars, and set to earning their living by making cigars and cigarettes. Do you think that Chicago or New York would submit to the presence of leprosy within its _ limits when the awful disease was attacking the white people, as San Francisco does ? The Chinese have come to the Sandwich Islands and the Phillipine Islands, and. they have annihilated the people. I do not want to see Taj country destroyed as those islands have been.