CHINESE AT LIVERPOOL.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8717, 17 January 1907, Page 1

CHINESE AT LIVERPOOL.

“ The 32 Chinamen ' held up ’ on the Maehaon, in tho Royal Albert Dock, by the Blackwall Immigration Board,” says the Loudon Daily Express, “are to be permitted to go on to Liverpool.” Tho Liverpool officers of the Board of Trade were instructed to inquir into the financial status of Quong Sing Lun, the cousin of 18 of the Celestials. They report that he is a substantial tradesman, and that employment has been arranged for his string of relatives. The case, as reported in the Express, has drawn attention to the enotmous growth which the Chinese invasion has made in England. In Liverpool there is a colony of nearly 2000 Chinamen. They are chiefly engaged in laundry work, and there is a syndicate of Chinamen who conduct more than 200 laundries in the suburbs. Tho same syndicate control a number of grocery establishments, but these are confined almost entirely to the neighbourhood of the docks, and the trade is exclusively with Easterners. In Canning Place there is a “curiosity” manufacturing workshop hidden away among sailors’ boardinghouses, where 50 or more Chinamen make, by band, articles which are sold to curio importers. Probably the most surprising feature to many people is that nearly ono-quarter of the Chinamen in Liverpool are married to English women. The ceremony is always conducted according to Chinese rites, generally by their high priest,, Chong Loi. A quarter of tho city lying between Fitt-street and Hanover street has been named “ Little China.” Here there are three or four opium houses, gambling dens, and several boardinghouses, occupied exclusively by resident Chinamen or sailors of the same nationality. On Sundays the Celestials parade the district in the most stylish dress, and there has actually been formed among them a cycling club, tho members of which may be seen running out on any fine Sunday to adjacent villages. Another indication of the Chinese hold upon Liverpool lies in the fact that a separate portion of Anfield cemetery is quartered off for them, and occasionally there may be seen there the quaint Chinese burial ceremony. Food is left for the departed one, and the mourners receive, in coloured paper, gifts of coins from their countrymen as a token of his gratitude for their attendance. The Chinese are said to be extremely law-abiding hut it is well known that they administer their own peculiar laws among themselves without troubling British courts.