SAN FRANCISCO SKETCHES. Chinatown.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 301, 22 September 1888, Page 6

SAN FRANCISCO SKETCHES. Chinatown.

By anyone whose interest is confined to the outward and aesthetic aspect of things, a visit to Chinatown should be made after nightfall. Then the sordid sliminess is hidden in the fainter light, and a certain air of holiday-making, or, at all events, a partial cessation from toil, seems to be abroad. It is by the light of tallow-dips that the Chinese peanut man eioons his monotonous song, and by the same He-lit that the fish dealer trundles out his tray and helps to increase the garbage which carpets the narrow roadway. Then the barbershop, situated in a " dive " well beneath the sidewalk, is full of customers waiting thenturn at the hands of the artist who shaves their heads and faces ; the restaurants are gaily lighted with paper lanterns : the watchful sentry stands at tho doors of gambling hells ready to sound the alarm if the police come ; and women with enamelled faces and stiffened hair show their faces through little gratings while cay young Chinamen stand gazing in admiration, Every shop, which is also the sitting - room of the proprietor and his friends, is lighted and ready for business should any offer. Literally by a step, we have transported ourselves out of an American city into the counterpart of a Chinese town, It is amazing how sharp the line of demarcation is between the white and Chinese poition of. San Francisco, and more amazing to find that Chinatown is planted righo in the mid at of San Francisco and is a city surrounded by a city. Where the shops and shambles of the Chinese end the stores and dwellings of the white man begin. At night all is a lei&uiel) bustle. The dense crowd of Celestials, inscrutable and shifty of countenance, move down the narrow ways like one of Uore's multitudes — a mass of moving light and shade — now lighted by a flare of gas from one of the larger shop?, or by the torch of a street merchant, and again shadowed in the section which fronts a gambling den. Every man appears to be walking as if on a journey, save one or two who are chatting to their friends, and a few envious individuals who look longingly after their more fortunate countrymen as they step jauntily up the stairs of the Chinese theatre to listen for five mortal houis to the thousandth act of the running drama. But all are not idle. From the cellars comes the smeU of hot irons as snowily clad laundry men put a polish on the " bosoms " of shirts : the whirr of countle&s sewing machines treadled by pallid factory hand*? is everywhere to be heard ; and the skilled watchmaker is deftly cleaning or putting together the works of a "watch in the nearest window. Early and late tbe<=e wo kmen — Chinese everyone— can be seen and heard toiling. At night, too, the opium dens, gambling hells, and vices peculiar to the Chinese, are in full swing, and for a dollar or two the parasites who call themselves guides w ill show off these curiosities with a something that is stiangrely like pride in their degrading occupation. At nearly every corner there i* sure to be tome American who pounces upon strangers with some story that the Chinese a c at present incensed against the whites — with a view to their services being engaged as guides. Some kind of guide is certainly necessary when an undei ground visit is contemplated, but my friend and I decided to hire a Chinese guide and make our further examination by daylight. My fi iend hails from the " East," or, to bo more precise, from a town in the New York State, which rejoices in the classical name of '"Ilion," which justifies his being re-christened as "Homer." He was anxious to purchase some articles of Chinese ware to present to his friends as having come from San Francisco. This took us to a Chinese store in, or as they say here, '"on" Dupont-stieet. It seemed somehow as if two stranger? like ourselves should have attracted more attention from the horde of heathen, but, to our complete humiliation, we were a* little noticed as if w^e had been prophets holding forth in NewYork State and New Zealand tespecthely. It was with a feeling of some relief that a Chinaman with a jolly-looking face and an insinuating smile came up and asked the question which afterwards became so terlibly monotonous. " Want a guide, gentlemen ?"' It was at that time a joy to think that everyone did not take us for San Fran ciscans after all. With a smile that was at once conciliatory and pat r onisin{f he informed us that he had been for twenty jears in San Francisco, and could (> explain things ' to us. He proceeded to say. with a gesture worthy of a Scottish divine, '• Melhkin man" corner to Chinatown tor ' two tree ' weeks, and then calls himself a guide " There could not have been more disgust exhibited at the conduct of such men if they had grown a pigtail and called themselves Chinamen " Mellikin man could not explain anything. I can explain things," he continued, again with a comprehensive wave of hU hand. He then juggled fiom the inmost recesses of his, many blouse* a heap of the visiting cards of former visitors whom he had piloted through Chinatown at a dollar a head Soiled beyond all knowledge, he -shuffled these cards, and told us that they wore the cards, of -visitors fiom the "Ea-t"' —a comprehensive locality, which dignities to the Californian mind the le.st of the United States. "I .suppose you come from the Bast ?" he inquired, to which -'Homer" teplied that we came from Africa, which locality was evidently unknown to our Chinese friend. The card's looked genuine enough, although " Homer " t-ay<- with the candour of conviction "that he is aware that Chinamen collect visiting cards for the purpose of paying Chinese poker. ' However, we did not dislike the looks of Wong Yen, and next irorning we were in Dupont - street icady tor the tortuous track*- of Chinatown." The sun was summery, but Wong Yen was there clad in garments of a wintry build. The dragoned flag of China floated hei c and there, whether in indication of some particular shop or of a holiday, I am unable to say, and the narrow stieets teemed with the flower of the population of the flowery land. These sweet flowers seem at first to be as much a'ike in feature as they are in dress, but we can soon .see that this is not *o, and that the moving units embrace all sorts and conditions of men. Heie is a man whose lines have fallen in pleasant places. A smile of patisf action brightens his fat face. Perhaps he has made a trifle out of the ring— spoken of in this morning's paper — which has been smuggling Chinamen across the border, or perhaps he is a missionary, but in either case he looks happy. Near by there slouches past a lank rag of a man, in &appy slippers and cotton clothes, whose bloodshot eyes and trembling gait speak eloquently of last night's opium. His dreams are" past the stage in which all is lovely to the < pium smoker. The dreams of lordly rice plantations and lo\ ely girls with pink and white complexions have long ago given place to the ire of ten thousand mandarins, who lash him with devil- thonged whips,and even threaten him that his body shall not lie in the flowery land. A knot of Chinamen is gathered before a

■ I wall on which are pasted long- strips of red paper imprinted with Chinese characters, which our guide informs us are the playbills of the Chinese theatres. No sign of interest is visible in the faces of thepe idlers, as they gaze stolidly, hands deep in their pockets, at the crimson bills, but'the majority of the populace moves on — oach man conversing in a high-pitched voice wi(h the man behind him or bofore him. Eveiy moment there pass by men 'aden in Chinese fashion with a bamboo pole bearing at each ond articles of Chinese manufacture, which tell in eloquent fashion of the slice of trade which the Chinaman has filched from the white workman. j At intervals can be seen a woman with one or two little children toddling- after her. Strange looking women these, albeit they are of the much despised big- foot class ! Human looking children those, for all their quaint attire of green, yellow, and purple silks. The women look somehow duller than the men, notwithstanding their braveiy of bangles and their plastered hair, which suggests a stiffness begotten of much abstinonce from soap and water. Even the little children look sweaty, but they laugh and are bright through it all. Their little taces still look happy, and will, Isuppose, continue to do so until the hard hand of Eastern civilisation is laid upon them, and they are taught how to meet the sharpness of the western barbarian. More rarely — for the ptoportion of women and giils is slight here -there is to be seen a girl cf thirteen or fourteen looking after one or two children with that mother-like care which is borninallthedaughters of Eve, Turning our eyes to the right and left, it , is easy to command a view of the shops on either side of the street, and a siyht of the wares displayed gives a rude shook to the notion that the Chinese live on a handful of rice eaten grain by grain with a pair of chop-sticks. As a matter of fact, the I Chinaman is as extravagant in the matter of food as his white brother. You ha\e to strike a pretty low or an extremely high note in the scale of civilisation before you find men who live simply, or even naturally, from preference. A large proportion of these shops is devoted to the sale of Chinese dainties as well as every -day food. Our guide's first act is to point out to us the dillerent varieties of vegetables- used by the Chinaman for the purpose of making -oup for what Wong Yen calls " bleak fast." The principal vegetable is. a /small variety which the guide calls a "China-bean." This " bleak fast-sou p " niu^t be a wonderful concoction, as according' to the veracious Wong Yen nearly everything shown to us assisted in it 1 * composition In one shop three or four men were busily scraping into powder the ancientlooking antlers of some kind of deer. These antlera are imported fiom China, and, after being scraped into powder here, are shipped into the country tor the " bleakfasts " of Chimmen, who would otherwise be unable to participate in their national dainties. Glancing into a butcher's shop it can be seen that the principal tlesh meat i.« pork in its various varieties. Considering the number of Chinese here — about thirty thousand -and deducting those engaged as domest : c servants, who do not require to patronise these shops, there seems 111 1 be a fair proportion of butchers' shops, which, in addition to the pork business, ofrer for sale dried duck wings, and other mysterious packets of fish, flesh, or fowl of some :-oi t. " Rats " suggests Homer, whether in ->ober meaning or not i^i not explained. Even beet appears to be represented, although nob to any great extent. . As we pa^s along, shops can bo seen which represent every industry from cobbling to jewellety, and every branch of commerce from the retailing of fi-h to the selling of fine vsilks and so on up to banking, or rather its near relation, money-changing. We wonder in a hazy way if Chinese cobblers have the same advanced views respecting politics and religion as their white piototypes are commonly supnosed to have, but such a question propounded in English would be beyond Wong Yen, and our know - ledge of Chinese is somewhat limited. All this time the smell which -eems inseparable from this Celestial quarter attacks us from all points. It slips gently round a corner and gives ua a facer whith is as startling as a blow from a pugilist's fist ; it creeps .softly behind us and disperses its' fragrance about our heads ; it float? carelessly upward from the dives and waits to greet us. It is a stne'l of .smells, and is to carefully guarded that even the better classes of shopkeeper^ cloee their door- for fear that il- pungent personalities may be rendered inactive by contact with fiesh air. But this Miielf io of myrrh and tine incense compared to the smell- we encountered later on. Returning to the subject ot the inner Chinamen, the two great Chinese restaurants should be noticed. These aie tall buildings which, even to the eyes of "Mellikin men," must appear luxurious!. On the giound floor of one of these we find a venerable Chinaman engaged in weighing — on a scale peculiarly primitive for such work— a small quantity" of a treacly substance, which we are informed L« opium. A little higher, and we find a few men engaged in culinary operations of various kinds. We cannot but admire the dexterity with which one of the men peels a small vegetable with a huge knife, or the courtesy with which he hands us a piece of the vegetable to taste. 1 On the fir^t look round ifc does not appear that anything very " square " in the shape of meals can be had here. What can be seen, however, is of a toothsome nature, and everything is very clean. Tea is served in those tiny cups so dear to the hearts of ladies, and the concoctions of what appear to be rice-flour aro cut into neat shapes While we were making a rough inventory of the different preserved fruits, pickles, and o'her condiments 1 , a whoop, which under other circumstances might be considered blood-curdling, came from above. This was merely an intimation conveyed in the word " cheeow " that dinner was ready. My spelling of the word may be phonetic, but hardly conveys the falsetto voice and crescendo yell of the operator. We had some little curiosity to see the dining-room, but we were not prepared to find two or three rooms fitted in a style which, although distinctly Chinese, conveyed an impression of luxury. Around the walls were placed gilded carvings of much merit, and at various places hung specimens of Chinese pictorial art. Wong Yen, who sets himself up for a connoisseur^ went into a painfully precise history of each one, and pointed out to us that the proper way to feast our eyes upon Chinese pictures was to look at them with only one eye at a time. The absence of this knowledge is no doubt responsible tor the lack of appreciation usually accorded to Chinese art. In each room there is an alcove divided from the rest of the room by lattice-work divisions. In each alcove is "a raised platform covered with matting, on which stand a couple of square articles, which wo took at first for footstools. Upon making inquiry, however, Wong Yen informed us that when a Chinaman has a "birthday" he invites his " fliends," and treats them to an opium carouse. Homer has come to the conclusion by this time that a Chinaman has a birthday whenever his funds reach a sufficient figure to cover the cost of an opium debauch. -ncj^u] —^ (vj™

After Won Yen had expatiated on the beauties of the carvings to his heart's content, we were led to anothor room, where a number of Chinamen were indulging in cups of tea and other luxuries in the shape of starchy-looking squares. The charge for these cups of tea is twenty-five cents, or, in 1 our money, one shi ling. This seems a considerable prico, but the tea is of rare quality, and differs widely from the black concoction which wo call tea in the colonies. When passing through the dining-room Yen whispered, with an air of much mystery, " See the chop-sticks ?" but as no particular piece of dexterity was being displayed, we were not impressed. In the coun-e of our wanderings our guide took tib into three joss-houses, and would, no doubt, have taken us into the whole thirty-one if we had not suggested that a little variety would be charming. There is something very interesting in these temples, with their gaudy ornamentation and quaint images. Wong Yen named every one of the josses— whicli have each a label affixed — a thoughtful provision, which prevents a man from praying to a joss which might be one whose particular "pidgeon " is to cause mischief, instead of to a more accommodating joss ; or a woman from making^ supplication to a joss whoso department is to regulate the increase of families when quite an opposite result is desired. In each of these jo*s-houso,s the ornamentation is much the same, and consists mainly of elaborate oauwngs in wood, a number of jovial-loofong images, modelled evidently from originals in a vicious state, a stand of speare, a multitude of silken banners, a large bell which is sounded to attract the attention of the joss, and a furnace in which the gold and silver paper known tn true believers as joss-money, is burned. Wong Yen wa» disappointed that we did not go into raptures about the can - ingt-. lie is of a firm and fixed opinion that no " Mellikin men " could carve wood like this. The principal interest in the carvings seemed to us to lie in the patience displayed in the chiselling. After out lecture we felt that we had the whole system of the difFerent Chinese religions at our fingers' ends, but we now only re'ain a hazy idea that josses consume tea by the gallon — "they dlink it all up" and pocket joss money by the million dollars. One joss is a feortof presidentof a lottery company- -tickets 50 ceiitt, but we did not think it necessary to invest, although Homer extracted from Wong Yen the hitherto unknou n information that there were no blanks. The birthday of a joss is celebrated in regal style, and must mean a drain on the pockets of believer^ .According to Wong Yen, we have verified the statement by independent evidence ; no less than 150,000 dollars were spent in connection with one of these birthdays last year. It would be instinctive to know who niado a commission out of this very respectable sum, as the joss man or priest is, as a rule, a halfstarved looking individual to whom soap and water are evidently 'unknown. I was anxious to make the acquaintance of a joseman, as I imagined that he would be an individual of consequence, but my inquiry only elicited the reply, Joss-man ! Oh, he downstairs washee the floor." To which Homer replied that " he guessed it needed it." This incident is somewhat pregnant, but it still lequiies some imagination t 1 " 1 call up the figure of a bishop down on his knees with a scrubbing brush after morning service. Even the shepherd of the humblest flock would, I expect, kick at riuch an addition to his duties. Climbing up flights of stairs to look at grinning images gets tiresome after a time, so we insisted upon being taken to an opium den at once. Wong Yen seemed a triHe embarrassed atbeing required to show off anything out of its regular order, but we prevailed. "All It," said Wong Yen, and iriade a dive into an open door. We followed. ' There was daylight for a day or two, and then we found ourselves- following down a steep flight of stairs after our guide. The darkness was triumphant, and J felt my hat bang with a crash against something. I could hear Homer using impolite language concerning the root as> he brought up the end of our procession of three. The smells in the streets had been bad enough, but here they were " louder, deadlier than before." As we scuttled along the giuesome rat-holes which did duty for passages, the smells weie almost visible and tangible. As Homer ?aid, "Gieatchunks of smells banged against us." We had been leisurely sipping the cup of smells before, but now we weie compelled to diain it to the very lee&. The heat was beginning to feel unholy as we groped our way along. What a relief it seemed to get near a feebly-burning gaslight ' And this when the bright sun was shining outside ' Near one of the sickly ga«-jets our guide stopped, and pointed out to us a litle box about sik or seven feet square, where, he informed us, one of the actoi-* lived. As we were gasping for breath in the passage, and a sordid sweat was in the air, we wondered how this actor managed to bieafche. It appeared that we were under one of the theatre*, and that this space was dhidedinto living rooms of about the .-i/e of moderate packing cases for the use of the actor?. In n moment another lighted box came into view, tluough the nauseous Mnoke of v hich we could distinguish ligures. We were invited to enter, and found ourselves in a den about six feet squaic, such as a humane man would scruple to lodge a dangerous wild beast in. " Where do they sleep?" asked Homer, with a tinge of pity in his tone. " Light here," smilingly replied Wong Yen. Here were gathered four men, two of whom were lying on a little platform smoking opium. The evident proprietor was introduced to \is as the '•actor boss." The " actor boss' grinned, and we looked - not without nervousness---at the two opium smokers. Our presence did not disconcert them one whit They lay there — hat, clothes and boots - looking at us with aChinaman's inscrutable look, and never ceased from the elaborate process of smoking the c pi inn pipe. One of the smokers had e\ideutly just lain down, as he was at that moment engaged jn cooking ;his ppium over the light of a lamp, preparatory to placing it in the pipe. His hand was trembling so with eagerness that it appeared as if he could not wait until the opium was cooked, but at last he was able to ram the sickly-looking spiral into his pipe, and give himself up to its full enjoyment. By this time we had become quite used to the sight, and, in a negative fashion, took a certain interest in the process. The " actor boss " continued to smile, and we were invited to sit down with as much cordiality as if we had been heathen. I own to an uneasy feeling of insecurity, of " ambu&cadoes, Chinese blades and cutting foreign throats," as we were navigating the passages in the wake of Wong Yen : but this feeling was now swallowed up in a fear that we might be interrupting these men in their pleasures. We — the present company — have no little or great vices, of course, but supposing we had, I wonder how we would like to be shown off Jn the enjoyment of them as so many curiosities ? Wong Yen was equal to the occasion, and seemed childishly pteased that we had been fortunate enough to find someone smoking. " Like to smell opium?" he asked, and handed one of the pipes to ua. Homer took

a goodly smell, after which Yen held the pipe close to my nose. I took such a sorry sniff that Yen and the other Chinamen laughed merrily. •• You no like him ?" wa& the interrogatory, as the laughter continued. Now, Tarn not naturally a proud man, but to be laughed at by a Chinaman was too much. The degraded Mongolian was never regarded by me in such an obnoxious light as at that particular moment. Homer drily I'emarks that " the more bilious you feel, the more yellow a Chinaman looks." Our guide was muoh grieved to tell us thai opium dons have, of late years, been shorn of much of their attractions. At one time, he told us, white girls used to come and smoke opium in a sociable way, but as arrests and consequent imprisonments had been too frequent, these girls now smoked opium in their own rooms. There is a mighty moral hidden here. The police have also been so much " down upon " the Chinese gambling hells that the wary Celestial has barred the windows of each den, and posted a sentry at every door. On no account is a white man allowed to enter. As Wong Yen graphically describes it, " One policeman comes and points pistol and attests twenty, thirty Chinamen." There is much injury in his tone as he tells this, but he points with pride to the barred windows, which neces&itato every visitor passing the sentry, and enable the gamblers to change their occupation to that of pinging hymns, or other diversion of like kin, before the police can reach the scene of play. So fai, I have described the Chinese quarter, without dwelling upon any of the thoughts which have arisen concerning the Chinese in their relation to the labour question, the morals., or the sanitary condition of the comtminib}'. Americans are, as a rule, too much occupied in thinking about themselves to pay much attention to the progress of events beyond the United States, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that considerable interest is taken in the recent movement in Australia and New Zealand in the diroction of the exclusion of the Chinese. In any action we may take we have the cordial sympathy of California. In the present temper of the Californians no measure dealing with the Chinese can be too drastic ; no question of right or wrong can be admitted ; no feeling of humanity allowed to interfere with the one burning religion of all politicans — Democrats and Republicans alike — Chinese immigration must cease. The reason of this is evidont in the contracted market for white labour, yet it is pitiful to see any human being treated as the Chinese are treated hei'e. I was on the dock the other day when a mob of Chinamen were being landed ftotn the steamship Batavia, and the almost brutal fashion in which the Customhouse officers hustled the unfortunate Chinamen about preparatory to chalking each man upon his back with an "0.X." mark, and the manner in which the contents of their humble kit.-, were scattered about the wharf seemed to me to be a just cause for the retaliation that will surely come some day. Again, I read in the " Bulletin " to-night thac a Chinaman has been stoned to death by an American youth, and the paragraph concludes with the unblushing admission that " No arrests have yet been made." Theoretically, Chinese immigration has been stopped, but every week thousands of Chinamen are entex^ing San Francisco upon exemption certificates, which have, it) many cases, been provided by dishonest Customhouse officers. It is some consolation to know rhat .several of these officers are now engaged in making furniture for the foreign market in the uniform of the United States prisons. The new Act, about which &o much has been said, comes into force on the Ist of next October, but the San Francisco press is, I notice, criticising its provisions in anything but a satisfied tone. The position of the Chinese labourer is, unfortunately for tne white workman, simply a. form of slavery, and as such rendets competition impossible. The majority of the Chinese heie arc in debt to on-j or other ot the great dompanies for their passage from China, and while this debt remains unpaid the company retains the right to dictate the terms upon which their bondmen shall labour. There is no question as to the market rate of wages when engaging such labourers. However low the white man's wages may be, or however long his hours, the companies will cheerfully supply men who will work longer hours for lower wages. This is the whole matter in a nutshell : That no exertion, no sacrifice, no skill will in the lone run save the white man from being washed away in the insidious wave of Chinese competition. <Jreat though the evil is in California, we have to turn to .smaller countries such as the Hawaiian Islands, to see its fuller operation. There it will be found that the Chinaman has taken the place of the white man in e\ cry branch of industry , and the white workman, who was in the majority a few years ago, is now nowhere to be seen. He has simply been crowded out by the Chinaman, and we are left to wonder in pity if in a few years more all white men arc to wander restlessly up and down the earth trying to escape the yellow-skinned Chinaman. As regards the influence of the Chineso upon the morality of the community, it is, I think, the case that we are sometimes apt to condemn the Chinaman without reflecting that his practical code of morality is, in sonic respects, as good as ours. Yet it is wtll to consider whether the collecthe immorality of a distinct race addcJ to that of our own is not likely to be more calamitous than if we merely retained our own original sin. An habitual drunkard is loathsome, but how should we write him down were ho an opium-smoker as woll ? This vice of opium - smoking, which a community of Chinamen invariably introduce wherever they go is not, and cannot be, restricted to the Chinese, for a new vice is as attractive to some people as iron is to a loadstone, and it takes but a short time before the craving for opium is extended fir.^t to the women who consort with Chinamen, and so on up the social scale. This is not an imaginary picture. Already in every town of consequence in America there are opium smokers, who have learned this vice since the advent ot the Chinese : and I do not think we would have far to seek before we found opium smokers in Australia or New , Ztaland. 1 remembet years ago in New Zealand, a colonial lad told me from his own experience the whole results of a pipe of opium. He had easily obtained the opium from a Chinaman and secretly smoked it. For aught I know, he may be at this day a confirmed opium smoker, and who is to say that such are not frequent cases ? This op'um habit h but a single vice in the stye of Chinese immorality, but the possibility of its spread among ourselves is sufficient to excice our " horrible imaginings," without taking into consideration any other. In any community the Chinese areastanding obstacle to all sanitation. Huddled together in cellars and worm-eaten, decaying tenements, wallowing in filth, and with constitutions enfeebled by foul air and bodily excesses, diseases are born and grow with alarming rapidity. In every shipload of Chinese we must expect t he introduction of diseases more or less deadly. Of these, . such diseases as small-pox and cholera may j

be passed over, as the enforcement of quarantine can in a measure be said to check their hitroductionjbut there is onedis ease for which there is no known cure — adis* ease which has been for thousands of years the scourge of Asia. A living death, leprosy seizes its victims, and slowly, silently, atom after atom, tissue, flesh and muscle fade and die. Like a dead tree standing in a forest, the leper silently decays as the disease slowly eats its way inwaids. Fingers and toes, dead useless branches, fall away until the human trunk, rotten to the core, is laid in mother earth. Until recently it was supposed that leprosy was inherited, but not contagious ; but there h now no doubt that the disease can be communicated — if not by ordinary contact, certainly by inoculation. Experts have gone further and are of opinion that the disease is possibly contagious in a low degree. This disease is assuredly one that we must look for with the Chinese. It is beyond the shadow of a doubt that leprosy was unknown in the Hawaiian Islands until the coming of the Chinese, and now these islands are known throughout the world as the peculiar home of the disease away from the East. There are numbers of Chinese lepers in California, and there are lepers in more than one of the Australian colonies, each one of whom in liable to communicate his disease to others, and has already transmitted it to his children if he lias any. The peculiar point about the disease is that it frequently remains dormant in the .system until the age of thirty or forty, fo that no examination or quarantine carre\<:lude it. If we, like the Californians. ccntinne to admit the Chinese until they ict as our washermen, domestic servants, and makers of wearing apparel, is there not &ome i probability of the spread of tlnV disease? Until medical science gives us something more definite than "contagious in a low decree," and can explain the extraordinary prevalence and rapid spread of leprosy in the Hawaiian Islands, how shall we assess the danger ? More than one white man ■ is known to have contracted leprosy in these islands. To sum up -The result of the introduction of Chinese paupers into any country is that work which should belong to the white man will fall into their hands, while the ! white man's children cry for bread ; vicea known only by hearsay will be planted and nurtured ; and disease, more or less deadly, will follow in their wake. 1 These sayings are trite. What if the remedy ?