of the Chinese respecting the disreputable- Instances have occurred in which bookselness of the second marriages of widows. lers who have continued to sell immoral Among the poor, and in case of widows works in the face of these regulations, have who have no children to depend upon in become obnoxious to public authority, and after-life, a second marriage is allowable, incurred a great sacrifice of reputation and though the opposite course is spoken of in property. terms of the highest commendation as honourable and meritorous. The ground for this feeling seems to be respect for the memory of the deceased husband. There are in Chinese cities public asylums, sustained at the expense of Government, containing a limited number of diseased and disabled poor, who receive a daily The gratuitous distribution of medicine allowance insufficient for their support, and is quite common in China. In the summer eke out the remainder of their living by especially, certain remedies much prized by begging. They are more successful than the people may be obtained free of charge others, as they carry the evidence of their from societies which include this among misfortunes in their physical infirmities, other objects for which they are instituted. and some of them amass considerable proThere is a very common mode of practising perty. These also have their heads or the healing art, professedly from benevolent leaders, some of whom are brokers and motives, in which a selfish motive is too billshavers. They sometimes buy bad bills apparent. Notices may continually be seen at a discount, and collect them by attacking placarded in public places calling the atten- the house of the delinquent debtor with an tion of the public to some distinguished army of beggars, until he is glad to get rid personage of the Esculapian school who has of them by paying it. learned his art at the capital, or from some foreigner, or from some distinguished native practitioner, or by communication with the genii, who is desirous of relieving those who are in a condition of suffering and distress, and will give them an opportunity to avail themselves of his knowledge and skill without charge, except for the cost of medi The most popular of the benevolent institutions in Ningpo, and the one having by far the largest income, includes a variety of objects. It has a fund for providing coffins for the poor, a fund for carrying coffins which have been thrown carelessly aside to some suitable place for interment, and one for collecting and burying again human bones which are found exposed to A new enterprise, originated a few years view; also a fund for providing medicine since in the city of Suchow, has since in summer, and warm clothes in winter; a been introduced into other places, which fund for the relief of widows; one for cannot but be regarded with peculiar inter- gathering old printed paper, and the only est. Its express object is the suppres- one in Ningpo for suppressing immoral sion of immoral books." This enterprise books. This society has a large building, cine. has also gained the sanction and concur- with as many secretaries and superintendents rence of the authorities, and has already as are necessary for the orderly and effidone much towards checking the influence cient carrying on of its extensive operaof this source of demoralization. The tions. people are not only requested, but required It is also worthy of remark, that most of to bring such books as have been prohibited the roads and fine arch bridges, as well as to the head-quarters of this society, where the public buildings of China, are conthey receive an equivalent for them in structed by voluntary donations. In conmoney. Not only books, but the stereo- nection with these public works it is very typed blocks from which they are printed, common to see stone tablets erected conare thus collected at a great expense, and taining the names of the donors and the all are together, at stated times, committed amounts of their subscriptions. to the flames. Several of the celebrated standard novels of China, which in a moral point of view will bear favourable comparison with some of the current popular literature of our own country, have fallen under the ban of this society, and cannot now be tions. obtained without great trouble and expense. Tea is in many places provided for travellers, and offered gratuitously in restinghouses by the roadside. Poor scholars are furnished with money for travelling expenses in attending the literary examina From All the Year Round. But return. The greater portion of them, however, after they had weighed out the proTRAVELLING over the mountain trails al- ceeds of the day's labour and allotted each, most anywhere in California, no matter how man his share by the aid of a suan-pan (a remote and solitary may be your route, sort of miniature Babbage's calculating mayou can scarcely fail to meet a curious figure chine) would place themselves on their - sloping-eyed, yellow-complexioned, with sleeping benches, put a little tray before a shaved head, and pigtail carefully secured them on which were all the materials for in a twisted knot behind; clad in a loose smoking, and soon drug themselves into a cloth or calico garment, half shirt. half dreaming stupidity with the fumes of opium. jacket; trousers equally wide; a long bam- Their huts were situated amid the most boo pole over his shoulder, on either end of beautiful scenery, by the banks of a fine which, carefully balanced, are a sack of rice, river, over which cataracts from the snowa piece of pork, and a heterogeneous mass capped mountains in the distance fell gurgof mining tools; and, over all, the head of ling or roaring into the waters below. this strange individual is covered with a for all this, on which I never tired of gazing, hat made of slips of bamboo, the brim of my hosts seemed to care little. They had which equals in breadth a moderately sized no visitors, save an Indian on horseback umbrella. This is John Chinaman from now and then, who treated them very cavhome, finding his fortune. He always an- alierly and rarely dismounted. On Sundays swers to the name of "John." He follows they generally laid over from work, not many ways of making his modicum of rice; from any religious motive, as they were and the representative of Chinese industry Buddhists, but merely as a day of rest; and in this case is " Mining John." The white sometimes, if they had been more than orminers only allow him to labour at the dinarily successful, one of them would go poorer diggings, or at others which have to the town or trading port, distant some been so well wrought over, as no longer to ten miles, and buy some provisions and a yield returns enough to satisfy their ideas bottle of a beverage called (I quote the laas to wages. Accordingly, we find John at bel) "fine Old Tom," over which they made work in some remote locality which the merry for a few hours, playing a rude destronger race has deserted, or which is too scription of musical instrument sounding poor to tempt them to drive out the Chi- like a paralytic drum. They made, hownese. In the former times, this was fre- ever, poor pay, generally not more than quently done; and in the old California three or four shillings per diem each; newspapers reports of such outrages, or of though now and then they would come on a meetings at which resolutions to do so were lucky pocket, and return in the evening passed, are quite common. Some years ago grinning from ear to ear. The ground was, I had occasion to pass a few days with some however, getting exhausted, and they were Chinese miners in the mountains. They then talking of putting their household gods numbered some twenty men, and occupied on the bamboo pole, and of removing to the deserted cabins of the miners who had some more favoured locality which they had formerly wrought in the locality. Every heard of. Go down into almost any town morning they would go down to the river or village, and you will find John moving side, and labour, steadily washing the gravel about with that same silent air of his. Here for gold, until mid-day, when their slight he generally follows the business of a launmeal of rice and vegetables was partaken dryman. All through the by-streets and of. At six o'clock, or thereabout, they suburbs you can see his little cabin with a stopped work for the day; and after care- signboard informing that here livesfully washing themselves in the river, they "Whang Ho. Washing and Ironing. Butprepared supper. I was the only white tons sewed on; and peeping through the there, and had made an arrangement with window, you see the proprietor busily at them about my meals. Accordingly my work clear starching, or ironing out the frills supper was first prepared: an office which on the shirt bosom of probably the governI generally superintended, as they had, ac- or himself. He has a large pan full of cording to my observation, a nasty habit of lighted charcoal, which he uses as a “flat incorporating rattlesnakes, frogs, slugs, and iron," and his mouth is full of water, which "such small deer," in their stews. After he most adroitly sprinkles over the linen in supper they would look to their little a fine shower. If you have any foul clothes, patches of water melons, cabbages, &c.; he will follow you home, take them away, and their head man would talk to me about and return them again in a day or two, his daily life, or the province he had come charging about sixpence apiece for his from, and to which he hoped before long to trouble bargaining, however, that he has not to find linen collars for paper ones which | vices from fifteen to twenty dollars per may have been dropped in. From the fre- week, with board and lodging; while the quent warnings of washing John on this subject, I suspect that it is a custom of the colonial gentlemen, by which our friend has suffered in time past. In the suburbs of every town agricultural John is busy at work, clearing the most unlikely pieces of ground, for the purpose of raising vegetables for the town market. These farmers, or rather market gardeners, are generally in companies of three or four; and if you pass that way, you can generally find one or other of the bucolic partnership driving the old cart and still older horse either from or to market; if the latter is the case, it is usually filled with several casks of garbage, &c., which the industrious proprietor has bought or begged for feeding his pigs with. young ladies who condescend to do "house helping" will demand from thirty to forty dollars, coupled with the bargain that they are not to brush boots, and are to have two nights a week, and the whole of Sunday, to themselves! They are not strong enough for labourers, but what they lack in muscle, they make up in industry. Accordingly, working for moderate wages, a large number of them are employed on public works, like the Pacific Railroad. Indeed it is principally owing to the assistance rendered by them that the rapid formation of the portion of the line already completed on the west side of the Rocky Mountains is due. They were also employed in considerable numbers on the Panama Railroad, but had to be discontinued, as they had a disagreeable habit, Shopkeeping John is of a rather more aris- when the day was very warm, of fastening tocratic type. He still wears his country's themselves by their pigtails to the "dumpdress, but it is of a fine material, and his shoes cart," used to empty the earth into the are of the best description, with the thick- Chagres river. They also employ themest of felt soles. He is also more particular selves to some extent in catching and dryabout his person, and shaves his head with ing fish for the Chinese market. Every greater regularity than any of the labouring year they preserve several tons of the albiclasses, much to the advantage of his per- core, or ear-shell, for exportation to Canton, sonal appearance; for, however smart a where it is used in a variety of manufactures. Chinaman may look with his sprucely shaven Even their signboards are painted by themhead and neat pigtail, he looks a most atro- selves, as it is dangerous to employ a joccious scoundrel when the hair is beginning ular American, especially when under the to grow down on the forehead. These lit- influence of Mongehala whisky. Near San tle shops are chiefly patronized by their own Francisco is a Chinese washing-house, surnation, or by the pedlars who at all seasons mounted by a signboard informing the passbut more especially in the winter, when ers-by that "ALL'S WELL-WE MAY BE the outlying settlers find it inconvenient HAPPY YET! YOU BET!" which no doubt to come into the town for trifling purchases the innocent proprietor supposes to be an - perambulate the country with two huge eloquent announcement anent washing hampers swung, as usual, on either end of and ironing." Most of their large firms a bamboo pole over the dealer's shoulder. designations do not express the names of Most obliging are these Chinese pedlars, the owner or owners, but are symbolic. and they always make a point, every Christ- For instance, they mean "The wide-spreadmas, of making some little present to their ing firm," The firm of the Flowery Land," chief customers and to the children. Most and so on. All of their food, clothing, &c., of the large storekeepers and wholesale with the exception of pork, boots, or mindealers are men of education and refine- ing tools, are imported from China. Some ment, standing well with the commercial years ago they were detected carrying on a community, but, except on rare occasions, most lucrative business in importing a liquid never mingling in any society but that of called Chinese wine, which was discovered their own people. A few of them keep to be a very strong brandy, and, accordingcheap eating-houses or restaurants, fre- ly, notwithstanding its name, exciseable in quented by sailors and others who have no the highest duties. If a Chinese dies in a objection to a dinner composed of very du- foreign country, Mongol theologians seem bious materials, so long as its cost does not agreed that it will go hard with him in the exceed a shilling or eighteen pence. Many after world unless his bones repose in the of them are general servants, and in almost Flowery Land. Accordingly, the companies every house in North-West America the which bring the Chinese emigrants over to cook is a Chinaman. Female servants are California are under contract to take them rare, expensive, and most independent; so back again after a certain period, dead or that our Asiastic friends have almost a mon- alive. A Chinese funeral is a curious scene opoly of the kitchen. They get for such ser- in San Francisco. A special burying 99 66 is set apart for Celestial repose. When carrying the body to the grave, a solemn individual scatters little slips of paper, with wise aphorisms from Confucius written on them, on either side; and on the lintels of their doorways are strips of red paper, on which are incribed similar wise saws. On the grave is placed a roast fowl, some rice, and a bottle of "Chinese wine;" after which the mourners depart, never looking behind them. There is, however, another class of gentlemen who assist at the departed funeral, who are not so backward. A number of the rowdies of San Francisco, who are concealed near at hand, no sooner see the last of the mourners than they make a rush for the edibles and drinkables left for the benefit of Joss, and very soon make ground, called the Yerba Buena Cemetery, credit, though worse men may. The labourer doesn't like him, for he works for lower wages than he. This is a favourite subject of growling with these lazy loafers, as they doze away in bar-rooms with their feet on the top of the stove. Yet there is room for all of them, and the Chinese are only taken because white men can't be got. Politicians don't take him up, because he doesn't vote, and therefore is of no account in municipal or state elections, and is not to be conciliated, while the newspaper editor, who ought to put in a good word for him, is very luke-warm on the subject, for John does not advertise, while his detractors do. Accordingly, poor John is kicked and abused with very little chance of redress. He is hunted out of every good mining locality, and he may think himself well off short work of them Joss, no doubt, get-if he is not robbed and has his pigtail cut ting the credit. After lying some months off as a lesson to him, when of course the in the grave, the bones are dug up, and local paper will be sure to repeat the timecarefully cleaned and polished with brushes, honoured joke about a long tale being cut tied up, and put into little bundles, which short." Formerly rowdies thought it good are nicely labelled and stowed away, in a fun to catch a Chinaman and cut his tail off, small tin coffin, in the particular hong or though, as every one who knows that peocommercial house, which is responsible for ple is aware, he would as soon you took his them. When a sufficient number of these life, as he is an outcast among his co-religinteresting mementos have accumulated, a ionists until his "hair grows." Some of ship is chartered, and the coffins despatched them are Christians, and have given up this with their contents back to Shanghae, Can-method of hairdressing, but these are rare ton, or Hong-Kong. I saw a vessel in San Francisco harbour laden with four hundred dead Chinese. On some of the silent mountain trails I have come across some of these lonely graves, only marked with a stick, in which was stuck a slip of red paper, with the name of the deceased, with some maxim of Kungfutzee (Confucius), about the vanity of things earthly, which the subject of the cousin of the moon who lay below had already experienced in his own person. Every year thousands of Chinese are entering to supply the place of those who leave, so that instead of decreasing, their numbers are increasing with the country. Nobody likes John over much, and some of the baser sort have the most determined enmity to him. The storekeepers don't like him, because he deals with his own people, though they forget that he takes nothing from them, and sometimes does put something in their pockets for mining tools. Beside, all John's dealings are for ready money, for though he may haggle long enough about the price yet he gets no * I notice an advertisement in a California paper about a new earthenware coffin, combining the advantages of durability, cleanliness, and cheapness; which latter virtue will no doubt commend it to the Chinese undertakers. The editor, in a paragraphic puff, remarks "that any one having once used this coffin, would use no other!" 66 exceptions. I am glad, however, to say that of late years the California legislature have made it a penal offence to cut off a Chinaman's pigtail; at the same time I never heard of anybody being punished, though there are plenty of pigtails lopped off. In the streets he is openly insulted. In Christian California I have seen a poor harmless Chinese stoned by boys until he was bleeding, hardly one being manly enough to take his part. I have heard of others after whom ruffians would hound their dogs, while the poor persecuted man was torn and bleeding, and the law touched his assailants not. The law passes acts against him, taxes him heavily as he enters, taxes him for making his living, and taxes him at every turn. It is quite a perquisite of the local official, this Chinese taxation, and he is either a very just, or by no means, a "smart" man, who cannot make a revenue out of the unfortunate Celestial. Even the Digger Indian, taking example from his superiors (?), persecutes and robs John also, if he finds him in the mountains; and as our poor friend will do anything rather than fight, he comes off very poorly indeed. John, it must be acknowledged, has an insuperable objection to paying taxes, notwithstanding his being in early life accustomed to be " squeezed" by a even dols. cents. mandarin in his own country, and he will dollars per pound. Between the courses often take to the mountains when he hears the hosts and guests left the table, and were of the sheriff coming his way. In Southern entertained by a Chinese opera, consisting Oregon, where nearly all the diggings are of a one-stringed fiddle, a sort of gong, and occupied by Chinese, the sheriff, in order something looking like a mud turtle, on the to take them by strategy, has to send a few back of which they beat. They are exceeddeputies in the guise of miners, with packs ingly industrious, and if a Chinaman makes of blankets on their backs, who surprise only half a dollar a day, he will save half of John before he has time to escape, and if it. If he is well off he lives well, but still he shows any symptoms of resistance, with saves. At their new year (in February) all a revolver at his head, force him to "pun- accounts. must be settled up, otherwise good gle down the dust." I remember hearing a reason must be shown why he should confew years ago of some Chinese who, expect-tinue in business, or hold further commering the tax-gatherer, went and took refuge cial dealings. Most of them speak a sort in a cave which they had bribed a digger of broken English -known in Canton as Indian to show them. After their guide" Pigeon English," and all are exceedingly had taken their money, he went off to the anxious to learn. Still, notwithstanding all sheriff, and receiving another bribe, in- their industry, they will occasionally come formed him where they were hiding. A to grief, and land within the interior of the fire was kindled at the mouth of the cave, Californian Whitecross Prison. A Chinese and the poor fellows, fairly trapped, had to named Ah Sam, who kept the "Lord Nelson crawl out one by one, and to pay their Restaurant," in Victoria, Vancouver Island, money without loss of time; they never became bankrupt, and was ordered to file a think of the wretched economy of all this, schedule of his assets. Not knowing the and of the loss of time being more than all names of his customers, he had entered the tax amounts to, but only of the sum short descriptions of them in his ledger, and which has to be squeezed out of their hoard. when he entered court, he had nothing more Yet John is not such a bad fellow than the following to show. It was given when from home. Though rarely mingling me by his solicitor as a legal curiosity: in general society, yet on high occasions he is most hospitable. Once a year in South-A butcher owes ern Oregon the Chinese give a grand dinner, to which they invite the neighbouring These storekeepers and other friends. storekeepers almost live by the Chinese, as there are no native dealers there. It is amusing to see the stock in trade of one of these 'cute Yankees, who is possibly a pillar of the church - - Chinese gods, papers to burn in the temple of Joss, Chinese suanpans, almanacks, novels, medicines, pickled cabbage, slugs, &c., possibly the whole superintended by a Chinese clerk. These entertainments were, however, greatly eclipsed by the grand dinner they gave to Mr. Burlingame, at present chief ambassador to the treaty powers, on his way out to China as United States' ambassador, and some time previously to Mr. Colfax, the Speaker of Congress, on the occasion of his visit to San Francisco in 1865. It was given by the five great hongs, or mercantile companies, of San Francisoo, and was quite unique in its way, Chinese dishes and European being both presented. Of the former I counted some one hundred and sixty-five, but there must have been many more. They included every possible delicacy-sharks' fins, birdnest soup, young bamboo, scorpions' eggs, &c. &c. &c., eaten with chopsticks, with dessert about the beginning of the feast, including tea, which is said to have cost fifty Captain of a schooner Red shirt man Man comes late (a printer?) Lean man, white man Captain, tall man Whiskers man's friend Old workman Red whiskers Indian Ya Dick make coal shoveller Get tight* man 18 50 8 27 10 8 50 20 30 62 20 8 18 37 49 5 The last entry the Commissioner decided • Drunk. |