CHINA IN WELLINGTON. Why Not Break It Up?

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 215, 13 August 1904, Page 6

CHINA IN WELLINGTON. Why Not Break It Up?

IT is refreshing to observe that some of our legislators have had actual contact with that notorious spot in the heart of Wellington called Hammg-street, where the Mongol, in. his sin, nourishes and waxes wealthy on the gold of the "flollen devil " He gambles m that vicinity with as great persistence as his white brother, and he has sins that his white brother knew nothing about until John drew his attention to them The Britisher had no means of acquiring the opmm-smok-mg habit until the Chinaman came along, sold vegetables, and sowed the insidious evils that are bearing such rich crops, both here and in the Commonwealth. * * * The morals of the Chinese, and their love of gambling, do not concern us to any great extent — if they kept their especial sins to themselves. When one hears, however, and knows that allegedly respectable white citizens of Wellington, whose women folk scuttle hurriedly past the dens of Hammg-street, patronise the said dens night after night, and gam an insight into the detestable practices of the Chinese, it is high time that the thing should be seen to. * * * We talk about the necessity of preserving infant life. Who would care to preserve the life of an infant up to the time he was ripe and ready for a Chinese den? Do the boys of Wellington, who boast openly of their winnings at Chinese lotteries, boast about them to father or mother 1 Some of us are horrified at the fanciful assertion that the employment of barmaids is bad for the morals of both sexes Thmk you the blandishments of the barmaids are equal m ill-effect to the allurements of the yellow gambling dens where, if opium is not apparent, it is always to be found and "enjoyed" ? * • ♦ The patronage of Chinese gambling dens in Wellington has become so common as to be almost "respectable," and, while the white bookmaker, who would sin openly if he were allowed, is "shooed" off racecourses, the Chinese are able to evade the law and to stack up the white man's com for removal to the land of the rising -sun The Wellington police have raided a Chinese den or two where only Chinamen played pak-a-pu. Perhaps, pak-a-pu for shillings is not more sinful than club whist for guineas * • • It is a pretty hopeless kind of a contract to wean Chinese from ageold habits, but it isn't a hopeless task to save our young white people, who have the vices of their own race, from contamination with the scum of the East Plow very easy it is for a Chinaman to "get on" is evidenced by his ability to come here m dozens, and pay £100 poll-tax If we are to go on colonising Chmamen in the kind fashion we have adopted, we can at least prevent them from Orientalising our young people. The sooner we act on our own advice to Africa to have nothing to do with the Chinaman the better. We should have regard to the mote in

our own eye before concerning ourselves with the beam that is in the eye of our brother.