John, Taken Individually

JOHN, TAKEN INDIVIDUALLY,

is a frugal, industrious, docile, peaceable creature. He is quick, imitative, nimble, quiet, and cunning. He is clean, apparently.

Also, he will steal like a cat.

Taken collectively, he is a foul, ill-smelling, pestilential mass. Chinatown offends every sense. It reeks with smells, and sights, and sounds disgusting in the extreme. It is the abode of leprosy, adultery, gambling, and murder.

They have their secret tribunals where their victims are done to death according to Asiatic laws, and it is next to impossible for the American laws to find them out.

Only last week a Chinaman was hanged in Sacramento who was supposed to have been the victim of Chinese justice. He had first been murdered, and then suspended to a hook in the ceiling to convey the impression of suicide.

They were partly betrayed by one of their own countrymen, but he very soon found it advisable to declare that he had made a mistake.

They act upon Madame de Stael’s doctrine: Whatever they do is right until they are found out.

In short, the most liberal-minded seem willing to concede that if the Chinese have done some good in opening the resources of the country, they have also done some harm.

Whatever may be the opinion of any one East or West, the question has reached a grave issue in California.

Something must be done.

The extreme lower class of the mob is riotous, turbulent, and difficult to restrain.

The better-thinking class is quite as determined, if less noisy in demonstration.

Mr. Mills is boldly accused of misrepresentation, and his statements have done very much to stir the disquiet in the breasts of the working people.

They have discovered that mob violence does them no good, and, having so discovered, they are going to make a very earnest trial of the other course of action.

The rumors which travel eastward of threatened outbreaks or violence of any kind are all grossly exaggerated.

But such a stand has been taken that it cannot result in nothing.

The more popular idea is to limit Chinese immigration, while nothing but fanatics think of driving away those who are here, or abusing them while they remain.

After all, it is the millions who threaten to come that people are frightened by, rather than the thousands who are here.