"Commerce has set the mark of selfishness; The signet of its all-enslaving power Upon a shining ore, and called it gold: Before whose image bow the vulgar great, The vainly rich, the miserable proud, The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings, And with blind feelings reverence the power That grinds them to the dust of misery. But in the temple of their hireling hearts Gold is a living god, and rules in scorn All earthly things but virtue."

The saloons fifty years ago were the centres of attraction for the over-wrought miner, the aimless wanderer, the creature of impulse, the child of passion. They were decorated with an eye to brilliant colours, to gorgeous effect, to all that appeals to the sensuous element in our nature. They were the best built and most richly furnished houses in the San Francisco of that period. The walls were adorned with costly paintings, and the furniture was in keeping with this lavish outlay. In each gambling house was a band of music, and a skillful player received some $30 per night for his services. Painted women were the presiding geniuses at the wheels of fortune and these modern Circes or Sirens played the piano and the harp with all the passion of their art to drown men's cares and make them forget duty and principle and honour. The tables of the players of the games were piled high with yellow gold to serve as a tempting bait. The games were chiefly what are called in the nomenclature of the gambling fraternity. Rouge-et-noir, Monte-faro, and Roulette. The men who lost, whatever their feelings might be, and they were often bitter, as a rule disguised their sore disappointment. They would try their luck again, but this only led them deeper in the mire. Many an one lost a princely fortune in a night. The gambling houses were located chiefly around the Plaza or Portsmouth Square, of which we have already spoken. They were filled, as a general thing, all night, with an eager throng, especially on Sunday. Indeed everything then had its full course on Sunday. There were various sports; drinking and gambling ran riot. Blasphemous words filled the air. Men swore without the least thought. But profanity is not alone restricted to a frontier or border community, where laws and a sense of propriety are wanting. One may hear it in old and civilised towns, as he walks the streets, and sometimes from the lips of boys. In these saloons people of all ages congregated from youth up to hoary hairs. Here were the Indian and the Negro, the American and the Mexican, the Spaniard and the Frenchman, the Italian, the Dutchman and the German, the Dane and the Russian, the English, the Irish and the Scotchman, the Chinaman and the Japanese. One of the most noted of the saloons was the Bella Union, a Monte Carlo in itself. Woe betide the miner from the mountains with gold who entered it. Here was a richly appointed bar to tempt the desire for drink, while costly mirrors were arranged in such wise as to reflect the scenes of revelry, and pictures that were worth large sums of money hung on the walls. The silverware too would have done credit to a royal board. Both the tables and the bar were well patronised at all times.

Naturally with such elements of society, with the mad thirst for gold, with the loose morality which prevailed to a large extent, there would be great lawlessness. It must be borne in mind however that the Christian Church was at work in those perilous times, which live only in memory now, and was gradually leavening the whole lump. There were devout men and true women in early San Francisco, who, in the midst of "a crooked generation," kept themselves pure and "unspotted from the world." And is it not true that men can hold fast their crown, that no man take it from them, if only they will make use of the grace of God? God has His faithful witnesses in every place, in every age, no matter how corrupt. There are the "seven thousand" who do not bow the kneel to Baal, there are the faithful "few names" even in Sardis who do not defile their garments with the world. San Francisco had them in those days of special temptation, brave and noble souls who could say with Sir Galahad:

"My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure."

In this strength they rose up and purged the place, even though as difficult as a labour of Hercules. The men of the Vigilance Committee will ever live in song and story. Even up in the mountains in the gold mines of El Dorado county and elsewhere the spirit of the men of San Francisco was at work in the camps. Robbers were there, bold characters, dark-browed men, who would not hesitate to steal, and kill, if need be, in their nefarious work. The miners had their perils to encounter in these bandits. The robbers had their dens in the mountains in lonely places, beside a trail sometimes, and in the depths of the forests. The dens had generally two rooms on the ground floor and a loft which was reached by a ladder. If a belated miner sought shelter or food here he was given a lodging in the loft. If he drank with his "host" it would most likely be some liquor that was drugged, and in his heavy sleep he was sure to be robbed. In the morning he had no redress, and he might consider himself fortunate if he escaped with his life. Sometimes however the robber was brought to quick justice by the miners. Robbery was not countenanced in the camps. If one should steal, his fellows would rise up, try him in a hastily convened court, and condemn him to death, and hang him on the nearest tree. It was a rule that the body should be exposed for twenty-four hours as a warning to others. All this may seem harsh, but under the circumstances it was the only way in which justice could be dealt out to offenders. The camps were in consequence orderly and safe. We must not think, because the Vigilance Committees of the mining camps and of the city took the administration of law into their own hands that therefore they were lawless and that their rule was that of the mob. No, this was the only way in which peaceable citizens could be protected from the violence and crimes perpetrated by the turbulent and disorderly and vicious elements of society. In the years 1851 and 1852 there was great lawlessness in San Francisco. Bad men, who had served terms in prisons for their misdeeds, and men who wished to disorganise society, who had the spirit of anarchy in their breasts, organised themselves into bands for the purpose of stealing and killing, and good citizens stood in mortal fear of them. Buildings were burned at pleasure, houses were broken open and robberies committed, and even murder was resorted to when the wrongdoers found it necessary in the accomplishment of their hellish purposes. The officials of the city were careless in punishing offenders, indeed they were powerless to do so, and the lawbreakers knew this. It is said that over a hundred persons were murdered during the period of six months; and the blood of these victims cried to Heaven for vengeance. To assert the majesty of law and to punish criminals a large number of the best citizens, who grieved over the evils which prevailed, organised themselves into the famous Vigilance Committee. The seal which they adopted showed their worthy purpose. In the centre was the figure of a human eye to denote watchfulness. Above the eye was the word, Committee,—beneath, Vigilance; then the name, San Francisco. Around the edge of the seal ran the legends: "Fiat Justitia Ruat Coelum. No creed; no party; no sectional issues." While not constituted exactly like the Court of Areopagus, yet the Vigilance Committee of San Francisco did for a time exercise authority over life and death like the Athenian judges on Mars' Hill. The shaft of lightning first fell on an ex-convict who was caught stealing. Eighty members of the Committee tried and convicted him, and on the same night he was hanged in Portsmouth Square in view of the saloons. A thrill ran through the whole community, and when, the next morning, the people read the names of the prominent citizens who served on the Committee, their action made a deep and salutary impression. The Vigilance Committee prosecuted its work till the city was purged of its evils, and it exercised from time to time its authority until the year 1856. As a result of its firmness, its promptness in punishing criminals, and its high-minded aims, the land had rest for twenty years. A weak administration of justice is an encouragement to wrong doing. Municipal and state officials can best serve their city and country by dealing quick and severe blows at lawlessness; but to be effective they must be men of integrity, above reproach, and withal just. To-day San Francisco is one of the most orderly and best governed cities in the United States. During my rambles through its streets I went to and fro at all hours without being molested. I never met a drunken man or a disorderly person. The city feels the effect of the Committee's good work even to this latest hour. It serves as an example. Justice is dealt out speedily to offenders. There are few if any technical delays of the law and the criminal rarely escapes without punishment. Some examples have occurred recently which show that the judges of the superior courts are alive to their duty and that they can perform it when the occasion arises. A man named John H. Wood, a former soldier, was convicted of highway robbery, and he was speedily sentenced to imprisonment for life in Folsom Penitentiary. Judge Cook who passed sentence on him took the position that a man who used a deadly weapon in the commission of his crime should receive the full penalty of the law. A man who holds a pistol to shoot will take life, therefore he ought to have a life sentence. Wood, who belongs to a wealthy family in Texas, has a checkered history. He served as a soldier for a time in the Philippine Islands. Here he deserted his post and committed highway robbery. He was tried by court martial for larceny and convicted. Then he was brought to San Francisco and put in the military prison on the Island of Alcatraz. He was finally discharged from the army in disgrace. A few months ago he tried to rob a showcase man and held a revolver at his head while he seized a watch and chain. He was immediately arrested by three officers, and a month after he was sentenced for life. As showing the depravity of the man he said after receiving sentence: "That is an awful dose, and I haven't had my breakfast yet." Possibly in prison he will reflect upon his evil life, and be softened, and repent. He might have been a good citizen, worthy of his country; but he hardened his heart and sank deeper and deeper in his degradation. Oh, the hardening of the heart! It was Pharaoh's sin. It is the sin of many an one now.

Another highway robber, Edward Davis, was sentenced at the same time with Wood to serve in the State Penitentiary for thirty-three years. He also pointed a pistol to the head of his victim. But thirty-three years! He will probably die in prison. It is a life thrown away, one of God's best gifts. But if stern justice be meted out here in this world, what must the unrepenting sinner, who has trampled the divine law under foot, expect in the world to come? San Francisco teaches a lesson which reaches farther than an earthly tribunal. The judge on his bench is an image of the Judge who weighs human life in His balances.

There is of course crime in San Francisco as in all other cities. Indeed crime is universal, whether in the Orient or the Occident. The Chief of Police Wittman accounts for highway robbery, to the extent in which it prevails, from the fact that San Francisco is a garrison city. Here are numerous recruits and discharged soldiers, and, as a seaport, it draws to itself the scum and offscourings of all nations, Hindoos, Chinese, Malays, and all other kinds of people.

The police force is hardly adequate to patrol the entire city. It consists only of 589 men all told, and they are fine, manly looking guardians of the law, always ready to do their duty, always courteous to strangers, answering all questions intelligently. It is claimed, moreover, that the criminal element of the country drifts to San Francisco in the winter on account of the climate and also through the attractions of the racetrack. The police also find that the places where poker-games are played are a rendezvous for criminals. In 1887 and 1888 there was an outbreak of highway robbery, but the grand jury acted promptly in the matter and the courts soon suppressed it. Property and life therefore are jealously guarded in the City of the Golden Gate, and bad characters who go thither to prey on the public soon get their deserts. In this respect then San Francisco is a desirable place in which to live.

One evening in company with a party of friends, Rev. Dr. Ashton of Clean, N.Y., Rev. Dr. Reynold Marvin Kirby of Potsdam, N.Y., Rev. Clarence Ernest Ball of Alexandria, Va., Rev. Henry Sidney Foster of Green Bay, Wis., the Rev. William Barnaby Thorne of Marinette, Wis., and Doctor Robert J. Gibson, surgeon in the United States Army, stationed at San Francisco, I visited the police headquarters, situated on the east side of Portsmouth Square. This is a large building of several stories with numerous offices. The chief in his office on the main floor, on the right hand of the entrance, received us courteously and assigned to us a detective according to an arrangement previously made with Ashton. In the office were portraits of police commissioners and the chiefs and others who had been connected with the department for many years. Entering an elevator we were soon on the topmost floor where were the cells in which prisoners just arrested and waiting for trial were confined. The doors of the cells, all of iron, were opened or closed by moving a lever. It was now about 9:30 P.M., and officers were bringing in such persons as had been arrested for theft, for assault and battery, for drunkenness and other kinds of evil doing. Towards daybreak the cells are pretty well filled, but now they were nearly empty. How true His words who knows what is in man. "Men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil!"

One young man who had killed another in a quarrel was pointed out to us. The woman who loved him and who expected to be his wife, and still had faith in him, was at his side, with her sister, conversing with him between her sobs, in a low earnest tone. He seemed greatly agitated. A detective stood a little way off from the trio. The evidence was strong against the murderer, and an officer said to us that there was no chance for him to escape from the penalty of the law. In a cell was a young Chinese woman, just brought in, possibly for disorderly conduct. She could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen years old. She was pretty and refined in appearance and handsomely dressed, and she wept as if her heart would break. Not yet hardened by sin, and probably imprisoned for the first time, she felt the shame and degradation of her lot. I could not but feel pity for her, and expressed sorrow for her, though she may not have understood my words. At least she could interpret the signs of sympathy in voice and expression. These are a universal language. Maybe she was more sinned against than sinning,—and that Divine One Who reads all hearts and knows the temptations and snares which beset unwary feet, would say to her—"Go, and sin no more!"

In another cell was an old offender who had a face furrowed with sin. As we looked at her I could see that she regarded our presence as an intrusion. I recalled Dr. Watt's lines:

"Sinners who grow old in sin Are hardened in their crimes."

Yet there is an awakening of the conscience at last, and even a prison house with its corrections may be a door of escape from that other prison of the sinful soul from which no one can go forth, be he culprit or juror, counsellor or judge, until his pardon is pronounced by Him who can forgive sins.



CHAPTER VI

FROM STREET NOMENCLATURE TO A CANNON

The Streets of the City—Numbers and Names—Example of Athens—Names of Men—Names of States and Countries—American Spirit—Flowers and Trees—Market Street—Pleasantries—Mansions of California Avenue—Grand Reception—Art in California—Cost of Living in 1849—Hotels and Private Houses now—Restaurants—New City Hall—Monumental Group—Scenes and Representations—History of a Cannon—Chance Meeting with General Shafter—Mission of the Republic.

The streets of the city! They are an important feature, and the traveller naturally observes their direction and studies their character. In the description of New Jerusalem, St. John noted the fact that its street was "pure gold." The streets of earthly cities cannot vie with the celestial, though the gold of commerce may be found in their warehouses and mansions; but if men were as earnest in seeking after the treasures of Heaven as were the tens of thousands who flocked to the gold-fields of California in 1849, they would surely win the fortune which awaits them within the Golden Gate of the City on the banks of the Crystal River. San Francisco has her noted streets, just as the City of Mexico has her San Francisco promenade, leading from the Alameda to the Plaza de Zocalo; or Rome her famous Corso, the old Via Flaminia, with its shops and its teeming life; or Athens her Hodos Hermou, with its old Byzantine church of Kapnikaraea; or Constantinople her Grande Rue de Pera, with its hotels and theatres and bazaars; or old Damascus, her "street that is called straight," Suk et-Tawileh, the street of the Long Bazaar, with its Oriental life and colouring; or Cairo her picturesque Muski, where you may find illustrations of scenes in the Arabian Nights, and gratify your senses with

"Sabean odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the Blest."

The streets of the city by the Golden Gate have an interesting nomenclature, which well deserves one's study for what it teaches. Some streets in the triangular section of San Francisco, already spoken of, are numbered. These begin west of Fremont street and run up to Thirteenth, being bounded by Market street. Then the numbered streets take a turn to the left hand and go from Fourteenth to Twenty-Sixth, in the southwestern section of the city, and run due west. Numbers on the streets of any city are of course a convenience, but such a nomenclature has nothing else to commend it, and lacks imagination and sacrifices bits of history which may be interwoven with municipal life and show progress from small beginnings and perpetuate pioneers' names and benefactors' memories. Modern Athens in naming her streets has very wisely called them after some of the demigods, heroes, generals, statesmen, and poets of Greece; and grateful too for the work of Lord Byron in behalf of her independence, she has honoured him who in immortal song spurred on her sons to arise and cast off the Turkish yoke, with a name on one of her thorough-fares—Hodos Tou Buronos—which the traveller reads with emotion, even as he gazes also with admiration on the beautiful Pentelic monument reared to the memory of her benefactor, near the Arch of Hadrian, while Athenae is represented as crowning him with the victorious olive. With feelings and sentiments akin to this the sons of the Golden West have associated forever with the streets of their great city the names of men who either benefited California or take high rank in national life or are otherwise worthy of perpetual commemoration. Hence we have a Berkeley street, a Buchanan, a Castro, a Fillmore, a Franklin, a Fremont, a Grant, a Hancock, a Harrison, a Hawthorne, and a Humboldt street. Juniper street is a memorial of Father Junipero Serra, founder of Franciscan Missions. Kepler takes us up to the stars, which shine beautifully over the lofty Sierras, California's eternal rampart; while Lafayette speaks to us of friendship and chivalry, still alive in these matter of fact days. As you walk through the streets you see also the name of Kearney, not Dennis of "sand-lot" fame, but that of General S.W. Kearney, whose sword aided in placing the star of California in our Nation's Flag; you read too the name of the old Indian chief, Marin, and that of Montezuma takes you across the Rio Grande and back to the days of Mexican romance and barbaric splendour. Here also Montgomery is remembered, the patriotic commander of the Portsmouth, who gave orders to his marines to raise the Stars and Stripes, in place of Spanish ensigns and the Bear Flag, on the Plaza of Yerba Buena, old San Francisco, in 1846. We find also such well known names as Scott, Sherman and Stanford. We have too a St. Francis street and a St. Joaquin street; Sumner, Sutter, Tilden and Webster are remembered also. Nearly all the states of the Union speak to us by these waters of the Pacific in the stones of the streets. All the original Thirteen except Georgia have been honoured. Possibly this will receive recognition in the future. It is to be noted, however, that the adjectives are omitted in the Carolinas and New Hampshire. New York is the exception together with Rhode Island. The other States which have given their names to streets are Alabama, Arkansas, California, the Dakotas without the qualifying adjective, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming. The natural inference from this is that San Francisco has drawn her population from all parts of the land; so that here you have representatives of our great country, north, south, east and west gathered together. While there are many who delight to call themselves Native Sons, yet their fathers have sprung from households in New England and in the South and in the Middle States and elsewhere and new peoples are steadily migrating to the Pacific slopes, notably to this Queen City by the Golden Gate. In my intercourse with San Franciscans, this or that worthy citizen would say, with no little pride, I was born in New York, Boston is my birthplace, I am a native of Albany, or Saratoga, or Philadelphia, or Baltimore, or Savannah or New Orleans. Sometimes one would say to me, I came from the East. What part? The answer would be at times, Chicago, or St. Louis, or Omaha, as the case might be. But one thing was very noticeable, that they were all loyal Americans. I think it may be truly said that the spirit of patriotism is even stronger in the Pacific States than at the East. You could see the Flag of the Union everywhere, and there was abundant evidence in the life and speech of the people of San Francisco and of California generally that they were an integral part of the Republic and as anxious to have it prosperous and great and united as the most ardent American in any other part of the land.

The cosmopolitan character of San Francisco is further indicated by the names of foreign countries and places which some of her streets bear. Here we note in our walks the names of Denmark and Japan, Honduras and Montenegro, Trinidad, Venezuela and Valencia, and also the Spanish town De Haro. Certain names also of cities tell us whence people have come to the City of the Golden Gate. We find an Albany, an Austin, and a Chattanooga street. There are also streets called Erie, Hartford, Vicksburg and York, San Jose and Santa Clara, while Fair Oaks speaks of one of the great battlefields of the Civil War. Some of the counties of the State have also fixed their names on the streets as Butte, El Dorado, Mariposa, Napa, Solano and Sonoma. The Potomac River has a name here also, while Sierra and Shasta represent the mountains. There are names of streets besides which take us among the trees and shrubs, such as the Cedar, the Locust, the Linden, the Oak, the Walnut, the Willow, the Ivy, the Laurel and the Myrtle. Of flowers there is a profusion in San Francisco. They bloom on every hand; and wherever there is a bit of ground or lawn in front of a house there you will see plants or flowers in blossom. Fuschias attain the height of ten feet in some places and are magnificent in the colour and beauty of their flowers. The heliotrope climbs up its support with eagerness and its blossoms vie in hue with the blue skies. You may also see the pink flowers of the Malva plant in abundance, the chaste mignonette and the Australian pea-vine. The latter is a favourite and clothes the bare walls of fence or house or trellis with a robe of beauty which queens might envy. Roses are rich and fragrant, white and pink chiefly, and delight the eye, no matter which way you turn. The Acacia grows here in San Francisco as if it were native to the soil; and the Monterey Cypress, green and beautiful, makes a handsome hedge, or, when given room and air, it attains to stately proportions. Here also you will find the Eucalyptus tree in its perfection, stately in form with its ivy-green foliage, and you look upon it with an admiring eye. California may be truly called a land of flowers as well as a land of fruits; and we err not in judgment when we say that close association with these beautiful products of the earth has a refining and an uplifting influence on the human heart. A man who has love for a flower is brought near to the Lord of the flowers, Who said as He walked over the meadows of Palestine—"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow." So they have their sweet message of love and gentleness and peace for all, yes, these "stars of the earth," as the poet calls them. Such thoughts come to you as you gaze on the rich gardens of San Francisco and note their wealth of bright blossoms, brightening man's life and filling his soul with poetry and sentiment and longing for the beautiful and for the good.

As we walk through the city we note that it is rapidly extending itself towards the south and the slopes of the Pacific, and new homes are constantly appearing in its suburbs, even climbing up the hills to the west. Market street, broad and straight, is San Francisco's main artery of business activity, and the cable cars which run through it are so numerous that a person who undertakes to cross this great avenue, especially during the busy hours of the day, must be careful lest he be run over. It reminds one of Broadway, New York, in this respect. All streets of the city converge towards Market street. Crowds of people throng it, and this is true, particularly during Saturday night, when the labours of the week are ended and the populace seek recreation. There are many large and attractive buildings on this street, as for example "The Call Building," "The Chronicle Building," "The Palace Hotel," and the "Emporium." As you walk up and down studying life you note many things, and you see good nature depicted in the faces of the people whom you meet. They all look bright and intelligent. I think there is something in the surroundings and in the exhilarating atmosphere which promotes fellowship and good feeling. There is a keen sense of humour often manifest. Among many of the things which I saw was an illuminated sign, with the legend: "Your bosom friend." As I drew near it I discovered that it was over a shirt store. It was certainly most suggestive. The women, as you see them going hither and thither, are the picture of health and many of them can boast of real beauty. Here are few if any pale faces, sallow complexions, cadaverous cheeks. There are various types of nationality, but it may be said that there is a California or San Francisco type, which is the product of climate and environment. One is struck with the animation manifested in the faces and movements of the men and women. They are quick too in reaching conclusions and witty in observation. A young man in one of the railway offices asked this question: "What," said he to me, "is the difference in dress between a bishop and any other clergyman," I replied that some of the bishops wore aprons, and that this was the only real difference in daily attire—except some special mark on the coat or the shape of the hat. I hastened to add by way of pleasantry, that my friend Ashton, who was standing beside me, and I had not an apron as yet. "Well," he replied promptly, "you have gotten beyond that."

They take pleasure in telling a good story also. As Ashton and I were travelling one afternoon to San Rafael we were joined on the Saucelito ferry boat by a benevolent gentleman, named Ingram, who said he was a cousin of the Bishop of London. As we talked over various matters he finally said, "I will tell you a story. An Irishman landed in New York after a stormy voyage; and as he walked up Broadway he thought that he would go into the first place he saw, which looked like a Roman Catholic church, and there offer thanks for his safe journey. When he came to St. Paul's Chapel, with the statute of the Apostle in view, he went into it, and kneeling down he began to cross himself. The sexton seeing his demonstrations said to him, 'This is not a Roman church, this is a Protestant church.' But said he, 'It is a Catholic church. Don't you see the cross and the candles on the altar.' 'O no,' said the sexton in reply, 'It is a Protestant church.' 'No, no,' said the Irishman, 'you can't convince me that St. Paul turned Protestant when he came to America!'"

One is impressed with the air of prosperity and thrift on every hand. Many of the houses are artistic in construction and elegant in their furnishings. Some of them are stately mansions, notably the Stanford, Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker residences on California avenue, in its most conspicuous section. The homes of these California kings are adorned with costly works of art, choice paintings, and beautifully chiselled marbles. During the sessions of the General Convention the Crocker mansions on the north side of the avenue were the centre of attraction in the liberal hospitality dispensed there and the courtesies shown to many of the Bishops and other Clergy. On the evening of Wednesday, October the ninth, Bishop Nichols held a reception for the Bishops, other Clergy, the Lay Deputies, and their friends, in the Hopkins' mansion, on the south side of California avenue. This is now used as an Art Institute, and it is admirably adapted to its purpose. The building was thronged all the evening by the members of the Convention and the representatives of San Francisco society. Five thousand people high in the councils of the Church and the Nation and in social walks were in attendance; and it was impossible to accommodate all who came. It is said that hundreds were turned away. The writer and his friends considered themselves fortunate to be able to thread their way through the crowd without being crushed or having their garments torn. It was the grandest function of a social character which ever took place on the Pacific coast. The costly paintings adorning chambers, galleries and reception rooms, the splendid specimens of statuary, the numerous pictures, the brilliant lights, the strains of joyous music, but above all the moving throng of handsome women beautifully arrayed, and the noble bearing of Bishop, Priest and layman, with the fine intellectual faces seen on all sides, made this reception a scene never to be forgotten. Who, in the days of forty-nine, would have dreamed that, a little over a half a century later, there would be such a magnificent gathering of intellect and beauty,—men and women with lofty aims and noted for their achievements in letters and art, and their prominence in Church and State, and excelling in virtuous deeds, on a hill which was then a barren waste of shifting sands?

While I am speaking of the reception in the Hopkins' Art Institute, I may note that Californians have a great love for art. Their own grand scenery of mountain and valley and ocean fosters the love for the beautiful; and to-day they can point with pride to the works of such men as Julian Rix, Charles Dickman, H.J. Bloomer, J.M. Gamble, and H. Breuer, whose landscapes are eagerly sought for, and command high prices. The frequent sales of paintings are the best evidence that the people of San Francisco equal the citizens of the oldest cities of the land in refinement and the elevation of the mind and heart above the mere desire to make money. There is also a goodly array of female artists who deserve praise and honour. Eastern cities must look well to their laurels in the matter of art as well as in many other things. The contrast between 1849 and 1901 in the prices paid for articles of consumption and service rendered is quite remarkable. When Bayard Taylor visited San Francisco in 1849 he paid the sum of two dollars to a Mexican porter to carry his trunk from the ship to the Plaza or Portsmouth Square. Here in an adobe building, he tells us, he had his lodging. His bed, in a loft, and his three meals per day, consisting of beefsteak, bread and coffee, cost him thirty-five dollars a week. From other sources we learn that, if you kept house, you had to pay fifty cents per pound for potatoes,—one might weigh a pound. Apples were sold at fifty cents a piece, dried apples at seventy-five cents a pound. Fresh beef cost fifty cents a pound, milk was a dollar a quart, hens brought six dollars a piece, eggs nine dollars a dozen, and butter brought down from Oregon, was sold at the rate of two dollars and fifty cents per pound. Flour was in demand at fifty dollars a barrel, and a basket of greens would readily bring eight dollars. A cow cost two hundred dollars. A tin coffee pot was worth five dollars, and a small cooking stove was valued at one hundred dollars. A cook commanded three hundred dollars a month, a clerk two hundred dollars a month, and a carpenter received twelve dollars a day. Lumber sold for four hundred dollars per thousand feet, and for a small dwelling house you had to pay a rental of five hundred dollars per month. It must be remembered that people were pouring into San Francisco from all parts of the world in search of gold, that there were few if any persons to till the ground, and that many of the articles in demand for life's necessities were brought either across the Isthmus of Panama or around by Cape Horn. In consequence the cost of living was necessarily high. To-day you can live as cheaply in San Francisco or any other city of California, as Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, or San Diego, as in any eastern city or town. Rooms with board can be secured at the Palace Hotel, corner of Market street and New Montgomery, at the rate of three dollars and a half per day up to five dollars. Without board you can obtain a room for the sum of one dollar and a half up to three dollars. The Grand Hotel, the annex to the Palace, and just across the street, offers the same rates as the Palace. The Lick House, the corner of Montgomery and Sutler streets, will take you for three dollars up to five per day. The Occidental, corner of Montgomery and Bush streets charges also from three dollars up to five per day for board and room. The California Hotel, an imposing structure, on Bush street, supplies rooms at the rate of one dollar per day and upwards. The Baldwin, corner of Market and Powell streets, charges for board and room at the rate of two dollars and a half up to five per day; and the Russ House receives guests, giving room and board at the rate of one dollar and a half up to two dollars and a half per day—this hotel is situated on the corner of Montgomery and Pine streets. There are many other hotels where the traveller can be made comfortable at a moderate cost. It is the same with many private houses which are open for guests. In the latter a parlor and bedroom with the luxury of a bath may be had for two dollars per day. A single room can be secured for a dollar a day. In such a case you can obtain your meals at one of the numerous restaurants for which San Francisco is noted. There are the restaurants at the Palace, the California and other prominent hotels, the Maison Doree in Kearney street, Westerfeldt's in Market street, and the Cafe in the Call Building on the top floor of the tower, from which you have a commanding view of the city in all directions. Good servants can be had at the rate of thirty dollars per month, especially the much abused Chinese, who cook and do the laundry work, and wait on the table, and render a willing service. I recall the faithfulness of the Chinaman "Fred," who tried to please his employer, and also the fidelity and zeal of "Max," the Dane, or Mads Christensen. Max was an ideal waiter. He had been only nine months in the United States, and yet he had learned sufficient of the English language to understand what was said to him and to express himself clearly. It is an example of persistence; and Max had the qualities which, in a young man, are bound to lead to success.

In addition to the other great buildings you cannot fail to notice the New City Hall, a magnificent pile including the Hall of Records to the east of the main structure. The location is somewhat central, being opposite Eighth street, just north of Market street, and bounded by Park avenue, Larkin and McAllister streets. The plot of ground on which it is erected has an area of six and three-quarters acres and is triangular in shape. The front is eight hundred feet in length, the Larkin street side five hundred and fifty feet, and the McAllister side six hundred and fifty feet long. While the architecture is difficult to describe, as being of any particular order, yet it may be said that it is partly classical, partly of the renaissance style and that it has a suggestion of the Byzantine period, which is seen in so many buildings of a public character. Nothing, however, could be more dignified than this great and imposing structure, which is traversed by a main corridor crossed by a central one with two others, one in the east and the other in the west. These corridors which give you a sense of amplitude, are paved with Vermont marble. It has one chief dome, three hundred feet above the base, which is surmounted by a colossal figure with a torch in the uplifted right hand, a goddess of liberty. On another section of the Hall is a small tower with a flag staff, then a lower dome with a flag staff, the dome being supported by pillars with Corinthian capitals. Flowers were in bloom in the court-yards the day when I visited the building, and they gave an artistic appearance to the granite-foundations. The upper courses of the Hall are made of stucco in imitation of granite. The building, which was begun in 1870, was completed in 1895. What it cost is hard to tell. I questioned several persons in regard to it, but received different answers, ranging all the way from five millions of dollars up to thirteen millions. San Francisco, however, may well be proud of the white edifice, in which are located most of the offices relating to the business of the city. But we must not depart from these precincts until we have examined the monumental group in the New City Hall Square on the south side or front. The monument is circular in form and is crowned with a figure of a woman, representing California, in bronze. She wears a chaplet made of olive leaves, and holds a wand in her right hand, and in her left a large disk bordered with stars, while a bear is seen standing on her right side. No doubt Bruin has reference to the famous bear flag which had been raised on the Plaza in 1846, when California declared herself independent of Mexico, and which in the same year gave place to the Stars and Stripes. Around the monumental figure of California are subjects in bronze. First of all there is an overland wagon drawn by oxen, with pioneers accompanying it. Secondly an Indian wigwam with hunters and Indians representing the year 1850. In the third scene we have a buffalo hunt, the hunter holding a lasso in his hand, and then there is the dying buffalo. Succeeding this we have a domestic scene—fruits and wheat—and a reaper in 1848. We then note bronze-medallions of Sutter, James Lick, Fremont, Drake, the American Flag, and Serra. Moreover on this central monument we have the names of Stockton, Castro, Vallejo, Marshall, Sloat, Larkin, Cabrillo-Portalo. Then the date, "Erected A.D. 1894. Dedicated to the City of San Francisco by James Lick."

The scenes on the four monuments around the central one are—First, the finding of gold in "'49"—three miners. Second, a figure with an oar. Third, Early Days. Indian with bow and arrow. Pioneer with saddle and lasso. A Franciscan preaching. Fourth, a figure crowned with wheat, apples in right hand, and the Horn of plenty with various fruits in the left hand. The monument bears this inscription, near the base—Whyte and De Rome, Founders. Frank Appersberger, Sculptor.

In front of this most interesting monument is a cannon that has a history. Near the head of this instrument of destruction is the legend, Pluribus nec Impar. On the body of the cannon we read Le Prince De Conde. Ultima Ratio Regum. Louis Charles De Bourbon—Comte D'Eu., Due D'Aumale. A Douay—Par T. Berenger. Commissionaire. Des Fontes Le 23 Mars, 1754.

The cannon is made of bronze, has a coat of arms, and is otherwise ornamented. It has two handles in the shape of dragons. It is twelve feet long. But it has another inscription in which we are deeply interested. This is in English, and reads as follows:

"Captured at Santiago De Cuba, July 17, 1898, by the Fifth Army Corps, U.S. Army, Commanded by Major General William R. Shafter, and presented by him to the City of San Francisco, California, in trust for the Native Sons of the Golden West, and accepted as a token of the valor and patriotism of the Army of the United States."

While I was reading the inscriptions and making measurements an open two-seated carriage was driven up to the curbstone, about four o'clock in the afternoon. From this a gentleman in a business suit, about sixty years of age, alighted and approached me. He was a man of pleasing address. He said to me, "You seem to be interested in this cannon." "I am," was the reply. Then he began to pace it and to examine it, and said, "It is just twelve feet long." He thought that possibly it came into the hands of the Spaniards during the Napoleonic wars, and that it at length found its way over to Cuba to help in enslaving the people of that island. As I was attracted to my informant, I ventured to ask him whom I had the pleasure of addressing. Imagine my astonishment and delight when he said modestly—"I am General Shafter." I said to him, "I am glad to meet one so brave and who has helped to add new lustre to our Flag." He replied that "he considered it a privilege to have had a share in the liberation of Cuba, and that our beloved nation was on the march to still greater glory." Finding out where I came from, and that I lived near Ballston Spa, he said, "You must know my son-in-law, William H. McKittrick." I replied that I did, that I knew him when he was a boy, and that he and his family were my parishioners, when I was Rector of Christ Church, Ballston Spa, twenty-eight years ago. Said he, "William distinguished himself in the Cuban War. He is now a Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General, and it was he who was the first to hoist the Flag over Santiago." The General having courteously invited me to call on him, soon after bade me good-bye. It was a chance meeting, but full of interest, especially under the circumstances. Here was the hero who had captured the cannon and who had won laurels for himself and for his country. McKittrick also comes of a patriotic family, his father having laid his life on the altar of his country in the Civil War; and after the elder McKittrick is named the Grand Army Post of Ballston Spa, N.Y.—Post McKittrick. General Shafter was as modest on the day when I met him by the cannon as he was brave at Santiago. While the Republic has such worthy sons she has nothing to fear. Her mission is one of peace to her own people in all the States and Territories of the Union, and in all our Colonial possessions; and the motto of every citizen should be Non sibi sed Patriae. For every churchman it ought to be Non sibi sed Ecclesiae.



CHAPTER VII

CHINAMEN OF SAN FRANCISCO—THEIR CALLINGS AND CHARACTERISTICS

A Visit to Chinatown—Its Boundaries—A Terra Incognita—Fond of Mongrels—My Licensed Guide—The Study of the Signs—Men of All Callings—Picture of the Chinaman—Devoid of Humour—Confucius—Great Men from Good Mothers—Confucius to Women—Mormonism and Mohammedanism—How to Regenerate China—Slaves of the Lamp—Chinamen Impassive—Aroused to Wrath—How They Dress—The Queue—"Pidgin" English—Payment of Debts—Bankrupt Law—Suicide.

When in the City of the Golden Gate you will not fail to visit the Chinese Quarter, or "Chinatown," as it is popularly called. Just as in an Oriental city like Jerusalem or Constantinople you find different nationalities or races living apart from each other, so here in San Francisco you have "Little China" in the heart of Anglo-Saxon civilisation. It is as if you had unfolded to your wondering eyes in a dream some town from the banks of the Pearl River, the Yangtse-Kiang, or the Hwangho or. Yellow River; and it seems strange indeed that, without the trouble or expense and danger of crossing the waters of the Pacific, you can by a short walk from the midst of the teeming life of an American City, be ushered into streets that are foreign in appearance and where scenes that are unfamiliar to the eye attract your attention on every hand. With the exception of the houses, which, as a rule, take on a European or an American style of architecture, you might imagine that you were in Canton or some other Chinese city. The life is truly Asiatic and Mongolian in its character and in its display as well as in its customs. The home of the sons of the Flowery Kingdom in San Francisco is in the north-eastern section of the city, and may be said to be in one of the best portions of the metropolis of the West, sheltered as it is from the winds of the Pacific by the hills which are back of it, and with a commanding view of the Bay and its islands and the magnificent landscapes to the east, valleys and hills running up to the heights of the Sierras. The locality is bounded by Jackson, Pacific, Dupont, Commercial, and Sacramento streets, and embraces some eight squares; and within this space, crowded together, are the twenty-five or thirty thousand Chinese who form a part of the population of the city. There are Chinamen here and there in other parts of San Francisco, but nearly all live here in this quarter which we are now approaching. Here there are the homes of the people who came from the land of Confucius, here the famous shops, the theatres, the Joss-houses where heathen worship is maintained. As soon then as you set foot within the area described you feel that you are in a strictly foreign country; and if this is your first visit, the place is to you a sort of terra incognita. You will need a guide to take you through its labyrinths and point out to you its hidden recesses and explain the strange sights and interpret for you the language which sounds so oddly to your ears. If you have not some man to conduct you, a dragoman or courier, you will be likely to make mistakes as ludicrous as that related of an English woman. Sir Henry Howarth, the author of the "History of the Mongols," a learned and laborious work, was out dining one evening. It fell to his lot at his host's house to escort a lady to the dinner table; and she, having a confused idea of the great man's theme, surprised him somewhat by the abrupt question, "I understand, Sir Henry, that you are fond of dogs. Are you not? I am too." "Dogs, madam? I really must plead guiltless. I know nothing at all of them!" "Indeed," his fair questioner replied; "and they told me you had written a famous history of mongrels!" It is best then always to take a guide, and you will have no trouble in finding one, who will charge you from two to three dollars an hour. If you go with a small party, which is best, all can share the expense. It will take about three hours to explore the town thoroughly and study the life. The writer went through Chinatown on two evenings at an interval of a few days, and saw this Asiatic Quarter of San Francisco to great advantage. The first time was with a licensed guide of long experience, and the second time it was under the direction of a police-detective. Some five friends were in the party; and we started on our tour of exploration about half past nine o'clock at night. The night is the best time in which to study the life, for then you can see the Chinese in their houses and at their amusements, as well as many others who still are at work; for some of the Chinese artisans toil for sixteen hours a day, and long into the hours of the night. Here among them are no strikes for fewer hours, but patient toil, as it were in a treadmill, without a murmur. My licensed guide was Henry Gehrt, a man about fifty-five years old, of German parentage. He had been in the business for twenty-seven years, and he maintained an office on Sacramento Street. His badge was No. 60. All guides must wear badges according to law. As we went hither and thither we met occasionally groups of sight-seers, among them some of our friends, members of the Convention, Bishops, and clerical and lay deputies, who felt this was a rare opportunity to study heathendom; and I am sure all went away from this strange spot thanking God for our noble Anglo-Saxon civilisation, as well as for the knowledge of His Revelation.

The houses, I observed, are three, and sometimes four stories high, with balconies and windows, which give them a decidedly Oriental appearance. On most of them were signs displayed in the Chinese language. You also see scrolls by the doors of the private houses and on the shops. The signs are a study in their bright colours and their mythological and fantastic adornments. Yellow is the predominant colour, and the dragon is in evidence everywhere. This emblem of the Celestial Empire is represented in gorgeous array and with a profusion of ornament. A splendid dragon is the sign and trade mark of "Sing Fat and Co.," who keep a Chinese and Japanese Bazaar on Dupont Street. On their card they give this warning, "Beware of firms infringing on our name;" and it seems as if the dragon on the sign would avenge any invasion of their rights. The signs are a study, and if you are ignorant of the language, you ask your learned guide to interpret them for you. He will tell you that Hop Wo does business here as a grocer, that Shun Wo is the butcher, that Shan Tong is the tea-merchant, that Tin Yuk is the apothecary, and that Wo-Ki sells bric-a-brac. Some of the signs, your guide will tell you, are not the real names of the men who do business, that they are only mottoes. Wung Wo Shang indicates to you that perpetual concord begets wealth, Hip Wo speaks to you of brotherly love and harmony, Tin Yuk means a jewel from Heaven, Wa Yun is the fountain of flowers, while Man Li suggests thousands of profits. Other of the signs relate to the muse. They do not at all reveal the business carried on within. The butcher, for example, has over his shop such elegant phrases as Great Concord, Constant Faith, Abounding Virtue. There are many pawn-brokers who ply their vocation assiduously. They tell you of their honest purpose after this fashion: "Let each have his due pawn-brokers," and, "Honest profit pawn-brokers." In the Chinese restaurant, to which we will go later, you will be edified by such sentiments as these,—The Almond-Flower Chamber, Chamber of the Odours of Distant Lands, Garden of the Golden Valley, Fragrant Tea-Chamber. The apothecary induces you to enter his store with inviting signs of this character: Benevolence and Longevity Hall, Hall of Everlasting Spring, Hall of Joyful Relief, Hall for Multiplying Years. Surely if the American druggist would exhibit such sentences as these over his shop he would never suffer for want of customers. All are in pursuit of length of years and health; and I think the Chinese pharmacist shows his great wisdom in offering to all who are suffering from the ills to which flesh is heir a panacea for their ailments. It takes the fancy, it is a pleasing conceit for the mind, and the mere thought that you are entering Longevity Hall gives you fresh courage!

You will find here in Chinatown men of all callings, the labourer who is ready to bear any burden you lay on him, the artisan who is skilled in his work, the grocer, the clothes' dealer, the merchant, the apothecary, the doctor, the tinsmith, the furniture-maker, the engraver, the goldsmith, the maker of paper-shrines for idols, the barber, the clairvoyant, the fortune-teller, and all others of every calling which is useful and brings profit to him who pursues it. But we are deeply interested in the men whom we meet. At first view they all seem to look alike, you can hardly distinguish one from another. They are a study. Look on their solemn faces, sphinx-like in their repose and imperturbability. They are a riddle to you. You rarely ever hear them laugh. They are like a landscape beneath skies which are wanting in the sparkling sunbeams. They seem to you as if they had continual sorrow of heart, as if some wrong of past ages had set its seal on their features. The Chinaman has very little sense of the ludicrous, and he is lacking in the elements of intellectual sprightliness and vivacity which lead a Frenchman or an American to appreciate and enjoy a sally of wit, a bon mot, or a joke. Life indeed is better, and a man can bear his burdens with more ease if he has a sense of humour. Some of the great characters in history have often come out of the depths with triumph by reason of the spirit within them which could perceive the flash of wit and apply its medicine to the wounds of the heart. I think it may be said, as a rule, that the Asiatic has not the power to appreciate wit and humour like the old Greek or the Teuton or the Celt. He is not wanting in his love of the beautiful, in his appreciation of poetry, in the vision which perceives the flowers blooming by the waters in the desert, and in the hearing which catches the sound of the harmonies of his palm-trees and lotus flowers, but in the sense or faculty to seize on mirth and appropriate her to his service in burden-bearing he is sadly deficient. He is but a child in this respect. While the Chinaman has inventive faculties and keen intellect and wonderful imitative powers, yet in other respects he is behind the progressive races of the world. He has made little advance for thousands of years. His isolation, his narrow sphere, his simple life, and his religion even, which, while some of its maxims and tenets are admirable, still is lacking in the knowledge of the true God and in lofty ideals, have had a marked effect upon his thoughts and habits and pursuits. His great teacher, Confucius, who flourished five centuries before the Christian era and who spoke some sublime truths, was nevertheless ignorant of a Revelation from heaven and inferior in his grasp of religious truth to such sages of Greece as Socrates and Plato. In his system also woman is practically a slave. She is simply the minister of man, and therefore unable to rear up children, sons who would reflect the greatness of soul of a noble motherhood. It has often been remarked that great men have had great mothers. I think experience and observation will bear out this statement. Glance over the pages of history, and eminent examples will rise up before the view. Whence spring the Samuels and the Davids, whence a Leonidas and a Markos Bozzaris, whence the Scipios and the Gracchi, whence the Augustines and the Chrysostoms, whence the Alfreds and the Gladstones, whence the Washingtons and the Lincolns, whence the Seaburys and the Doanes, and many another? Are they not all hewn from the quarries of a noble motherhood? Are they not sprung from the fountain of a womanhood whose living streams are clear as crystal and sweet and refreshing? The first Chavah, Eve, is rightly styled the mother of all living; and a generation or race of men to be living, active, noble in achievement, distinguished in virtues, must issue from a well-spring which vitalises and beautifies and magnifies the spirit and the intellect, as Engannim waters her gardens, and Engedi nourishes her acacias and lotus-plants, and Enshemesh reflects the sun's golden beams the livelong day. But what, you ask, are the exact teachings of the sage Confucius, who influences Chinese society even to this day, with regard to woman? Hear him: "Moreover, that you have not in this life been born a male is owing to your amount of wickedness, heaped up in a previous state of existence, having been both deep and weighty; you would not then desire to adorn virtue, to heap up good actions, and learn to do well! So that you now have been hopelessly born a female! And if you do not this second time specially amend your faults, this amount of wickedness of yours will be getting both deeper and weightier, so that it is to be feared in the next state of existence, even if you should wish for a male's body, yet it will be very difficult to get it." Again another saying of Confucius is: "You must know that for a woman to be without talent is a virtue on her part." With such teaching then ever before them, do you wonder that Chinese women do not excel in virtue, and that they are the mothers of a race of men who are practically like standing water instead of a flowing fountain to refresh the waste places of human life? The teachings of Mormonism and Mohammedanism with regard to woman also degrade her and rob her of the beautiful crown which her Maker has put upon her head; and hence it is that such peoples are not virile and progressive like the nations where woman is looked upon as man's helpmeet, where she stands upon his right hand as a queen. The Mormons are better in many respects than their faith; and if the first generation was hardy and aggressive and brave in subduing the desert and changing Rocky Mountain wastes into a blooming garden, it was because they had been trained in the school of Christianity and had imbibed lessons of wisdom at the fountain of a pure faith and inherited from Christian fathers and mothers those qualities which are stamped on the soul through upright living and a creed that is formulated in true doctrine. But Mormonism is dying out, and woman in Utah is receiving the rightful place assigned her by her Creator in the work of building up the race and perpetuating the virtues and forces of a true manhood. The followers of Mohammed are still numerous and powerful, and the Religion of the Koran has shown great vitality for centuries. The nobility of character, however, which has manifested itself in such lives as that of Saladin the Great is the product of other causes than the specific teachings and views of Islam respecting domestic life and the position and office of woman. The destinies of men have been determined often by their environments. We must also bear in mind that from time to time, under the sway of the Crescent, different sections of the civilised world have been brought under the rule of the Sultans, and all that was good and noble in the lives of peoples newly incorporated into the faith of the Arabian Prophet has contributed in no small degree to the strength of a system which has in its own bosom the seeds of decay and which will ultimately become effete and pass away. Mohammed Ali, the founder of the present Khedivial house of Egypt, had in his veins old Macedonian blood, and his views respecting marriage and domestic life, as well as the traditions of his family in his old home at Kavala, had much to do with the development of his character and his brilliant career; and hence neither he nor others like him in the Turkish Empire can be singled out to prove that a religion which looks upon woman as an inferior being to man is excellent in its tendencies and produces a noble fruitage. What Napoleon once said with respect to France, that she needed good mothers, is true as regards China. Where woman is held in honour and where the domestic virtues are woven into a beautiful chaplet of spring-time blossoms to bedeck her brow, there you will find good and great men. Our own nation is an example of this. To regenerate China then, to improve the morals of Chinatown in San Francisco, or Chinatown in New York where there are between seven and eight thousand sons and daughters of the Flowery Kingdom, you must create pure homes, and to do this you must first of all sweeten them with the precepts of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Confucius will fail you. The Son of God will reform you and save you! Such thoughts and reflections as these naturally sprang up in my mind in my walks through Chinatown. I saw its people on every hand. Sometimes they were in twos, again in groups of a half a dozen or more. They scarcely noticed us as we walked by them; they showed no curiosity to observe us, but went on their way as though intent on one object. They moved about like automatons, as if they were a piece of machinery; and such as were at work in shops heeded us not even when we stood over them and watched them as they handled their tools. It was work, work. They were doing their masters' bidding like the genii of the lamp; and in the glare of the light in which they wrought on their bench or at their stand the workers in gold and silver, the makers of ornaments and jewelry, were like some strange beings from another world. They work to the point of endurance. They have their amusements, their holidays, as the Chinese New Year which comes in February, their processions from time to time, but their great indulgence is in the use of opium. Once or twice a month the ordinary labourer or workman gives himself up to its seductive charms, to its power more fatal to his manhood than intoxicating drinks taken to excess. The Chinaman is so stolid and impassive that it is hard to arouse his wrath. He will bear insults without a murmur for a long time, but in the end he will be stung into madness and he will give force to all his pent up fires of hate that have slumbered like a volcano. He may wait long without having punished his oppressor, but he will bide his time. So it was with the Boxers in China whose story is so painfully fresh in the memories of the great legations of the world in Pekin.

The men and women of Chinatown dress very nearly like each other; though you do not meet many women. The Chinaman wears a blouse of blue cotton material or other cheap, manufactured goods. This is without a collar, and is usually hooked over the breast. There are no buttons. Wealthy Chinamen, and there are many such, indulge in richer garments. As a rule they have adopted the American felt hat of a brownish colour. The shoe has the invariable wooden sole with uppers of cotton or some kind of ordinary cloth. The hair is the object of their chief attention, however, in the making up of their toilet. It is worn in a queue or pigtail fashion as it is commonly styled. It is their glory, however, this long, black, glossy braid. It is the Chinaman's distinguishing badge. It gives him dignity in the presence of his countrymen. If cut off he feels dishonoured. He can never go back to the home of his ancestors, but must remain in exile. He wears this mark of his nationality either hanging down his back or else coiled about the head. When at work the latter style is preferred, as it is then out of the way of his movements. Some of the men whom you meet have fine intellectual heads. The merchants and scholars whom I saw answer to this description. As a rule they can all read and write. They have a love of knowledge to a certain point, and a book is prized by them. The great desire of the Chinamen who reach our shores is to learn the English language. They know it gives them an advantage. It is the avenue to success. Sometimes they will become members of an American Mission or Bible-class in order to learn the language. They still, however, have their mental reservations with regard to their native Joss-houses and worship. But they are not singular in this respect. Mohammedans and Jews in the East allow their children to attend schools where English is taught, because with the knowledge of this they can the more readily find employment among tourists and in places of exchange. This is particularly true in Egypt and in Syria. But the Chinaman in his attempt to learn the Anglo-Saxon tongue finds great difficulties. Very many speak only what is called "Pidgin" or "Pigeon" English, that is Business English. Business on the lips of the new learner becomes "Pidgin." They like to end a word with ee as "muchee," and they find it next to impossible to frame the letter R. For example the word rice becomes lice in a Chinaman's mouth, and a Christian is a Chlistian, while an American is turned into an Amelican. Of course this does not apply to the educated Chinaman who is polished and gifted in speech as is the case with any well-trained Chinese clergyman or such as minister Wu Ting-Fang in Washington.

All debts among the Chinese are paid once a year, that is when their New Year comes around in our month of February. There are three ways in which they may cancel their debts. First, they pay them in money, if they are able, when accounts are cast up between creditor and debtor. If in the second place they are unable to pay what they owe they assign all their goods and effects to their creditors, and then the debtor gets a clean bill and so starts out anew with a clear conscience for another year. This in few words is the Chinese "Bankrupt Law." But, in the third place, if a man has no assets, if he be entirely impoverished, and cannot pay his debts, he considers it a matter of honour to kill himself. Death pays all debts for him, settles all scores, and he is not looked upon with aversion or execrated. Even Chinese women have resorted to this extreme method of settling their accounts. But what of their settlement with their Maker who gave them life, who holds all men responsible for that gift, who expects us to use the boon aright? A Chinaman does not value life with the same feeling and estimate as an Anglo-Saxon. Should he fail in any great purpose, should he meet with defeat in some cherished plan, he will seek refuge in the bosom of the grave; he will voluntarily return to his ancestors whom he has worshipped as gods. In the late war between China and Japan, in which China was vanquished, some of her generals committed suicide. It presents, alas, a degenerate side of human nature. It is most pathetic. Better far to live under the smart of defeat and bear its shame, carry the cross, endure the stings of conscience, and meet the frowns of the world, than flee from the path of duty, than dishonour our manhood. The greatest victory is to conquer one's proud heart, and to suffer, and do God's will. The teachings of Christ show us the value of life, tell us how to live, how to die, how to win the divine approbation. To Him we bow and not to Confucius.



CHAPTER VIII

A CHINESE NEWSPAPER, LITTLE FEET, AND AN OPIUM JOINT

In Chinatown—A Chinese Editor—His Views of Chinese Life—A Daily Paper and the Way in Which it is Printed—A Night School—The Mission of the English Language—A Widow and Her Children—Pair of Small Shoes—Binding of the Feet and Custom—Mrs. Wu Ting-Fang on Small Feet—Maimed and Veiled Women—The Shulamite's Feet—An Opium-joint—A Wretched Chinaman—Fascination of Opium—History and Cultivation of the Poppy—The East India Company and the Opium War—An Opium Farmer—How the Old Man Smoked—De Quincey and His Experiences—"I Will Sleep No More."

As my guide and I went forth to visit the places of interest in Chinatown, we directed our steps first of all to the Chinese newspaper office. This is located at No. 804 Sacramento street, corner of Dupont street. On being ushered in I met with a cordial welcome from the managing editor, Mr. Ng Poon Chew, who, before I bade him good-bye, exchanged cards with me. He, I learned, is a Christian minister and is the pastor of a Chinese church in Los Angeles. His literary attainments and business capacity peculiarly fit him for his work on the Chinese paper, and he is held in high esteem by Chinamen generally. He is a man about four feet five inches in stature, and possibly forty years old. It is hard, however, to tell a Chinaman's age, and so he may be five or ten years older. He is what you would call a handsome man, with a fine head and a beaming countenance. He showed great warmth in his greeting—and this was the more remarkable as the Chinaman is generally cool and impassive. He was dressed in the Chinese fashion with the traditional queue hanging down behind. He presented altogether a striking appearance, and you would single him out from a crowd as a man of more than ordinary cultivation and ability. He talked English fluently, and it was a pleasure to listen to him. He has well defined views regarding China and other countries. When questioned about the Flowery Kingdom, he said that the people were very conservative, that they do not wish for change, and that Chinese women dress as they did thousands of years ago. He remarked, however, that there is a younger generation of Chinamen who long for a change and for reform in methods, I suppose after the manner of the so-called "Young Turks" in the Sultan's dominions. They would like the improvements of European and American life, and would shake off the trammels of the past to a large extent, just as Japan has shaken off the sleep of centuries and is marching towards greatness among the strong nations of the world. With the modern appliances and advances in civilisation and armies well drilled like those of England or the United States of America, and with great war-ships well manned, they would be able to meet the world and to defend themselves and repel every invader from their country. He says the Chinese have good memories, that they will never forget the manner in which opium came to them, and the opium war of 1839. When he was a child he was taught to pray to a wooden god, and he had to rise as early as 3:30 A.M. to go to school to study the teachings of Confucius. As the custom is to go so early in the morning to school, the children sometimes drop to sleep by the way as they are hastening on. Chinamen will tell you that they have the religion which is best for them. This is the doctrine of Confucius; but Confucius, while a great scholar, was not a saint. He taught men "to improve their pocket," but did not teach them much about their soul. In order to see the real effect of the teachings of Confucius, you must go to China. Confucius may make men whom you may admire, but he cannot make men whom you can respect. The religion of Confucius is dreary and is lacking in the warmth and blessing which come from a belief in the Bible.

It is most certainly refreshing to hear this learned Chinaman talking and giving his impressions and opinions about matters of such vital importance. Ng Poon Chew, at my request, gave me the business card of the newspaper. This states that the paper, which is published daily in Chinese, is called "Chung Sai Yat Po," and that it has the largest circulation of any Chinese paper published outside of the Chinese Empire. The card further tells us that "this paper is the organ of the commercial element in America and is the best medium for Chinese trade." In addition to the daily issue of the newspaper, "English and Chinese Job Printing" is done in the office. The work of interpreting the English and Chinese languages is carried on here. Mr. Ng Poon Chew spoke with evident pride about his paper, and informed me that he gave a daily account of the proceeding's of the General Convention, then in session in Trinity Church, San Francisco, in the "Chung Sai Yat Po."

The editing of a Chinese newspaper is no easy matter. The printing of the paper is difficult and requires great skill and patience. There are, for example, forty thousand word-signs, all different, in the Chinese language, and to represent these signs there must be separate, movable type-pieces. It is said that it takes a long period of time to distribute the type and lay out "the case." The typesetter must know the word by sight to tell its meaning, otherwise he will make serious blunders. Then it is a hard matter to find intelligent typesetters. The editor, too, must be a man of business. The paper is watched by spies of the Chinese Government, and if the editor expresses himself in any manner antagonistic to the Emperor or the Dowager Empress or any of the viceroys of the provinces, his head would be cut off if he ever ventured to set foot in China. There is another obstacle in the way of a Chinese newspaper of liberal views, like the "Chung Sai Yat Po." It cannot get its type from China, as the Government is opposed to every reform paper. The type for such a journal is cast in a Japanese foundry in Yokohama. It is said that about ten thousand word-signs are used in the printing of the newspaper. The type-case is usually long, for the purpose of allowing all the type-pieces to be spread out. The type runs up and down in a column, and you read from right to left as in Hebrew or other Shemitic languages. The characters are as old in form as the days of Confucius. The "Chung Sai Yat Po" has a very large circulation and finds its way to the islands of the Pacific Ocean and into China.

From the newspaper office we wended our way to a little Baptist mission chapel for the Chinese. There were about forty persons congregated here, among them some ten or twelve Americans who were teaching the Chinese the English language. This night school is popular with young, ambitious Chinamen, for when they learn our language it is much easier for them to obtain work in stores and offices, and even as house servants. The books used had the Chinese words on one page and the English sentences opposite. Sometimes converts to Christianity are made through the medium of the night school, but it takes time and patience to win a Chinaman from the religion of Confucius. It is worth the labour, however. The difficulties in the mastery of English are a great barrier to conversions. Nevertheless they do occur. A Chinaman is readily reached through his own language. Hence the importance of raising up native teachers of the Gospel who can speak to the hearts as well as to the understanding of their countrymen. As we observed in the foregoing chapter, in the Orient, as in Syria and Egypt, Jews and Mohammedans sometimes allow their children to attend the English schools, and to a large extent from a worldly motive. The Syrian or Arab who can speak English is in demand as a dragoman, an accountant, an office clerk in the bazaar, or a camp-servant or boatman. Indeed a great revolution is now taking place all through the East. Nearly all the young Egyptians can talk English, and this is the first step towards their conversion to the faith of the Gospel. When they are able to read the books of the Christians in the English, they are led to look favourably on the Church. They catch the spirit of belief in Jesus Christ from the Christian tourist. They lose the narrowness and bigotry which the mosque or the synagogue fosters, and in time they examine the claims of a religion which has built up the great nations of Europe and America. The future has in store great developments for the Church in Palestine and the old land of the Pharaohs through the agency of the English schools, and I believe the readiest way in which to convert the Chinese people, whether in Chinatown in San Francisco, or in China itself, is to teach them our language and give them access to the Holy Scriptures in our noble tongue. Our Church schools in China are doing a great work in this respect. So is St. John's College in Shanghai. They should all be liberally supported with offerings from America, and what we sow in this generation will be reaped in the next, a splendid harvest for Christ and His Church!

After leaving the night school our guide conducted us up narrow stairs to the rooms occupied by a Chinese woman. She was a widow with four children, daughters, and rather petite in form, and lacking the physical development and beauty of the Caucasian race. They seemed shy and timid, for Chinese women are not accustomed to the society of men. In fact there is among them no such home-life as we are familiar with. They were dressed in a measure after the fashion of our girls, and had long, black hair. The mother said a few sentences in broken English, and welcomed us with an air of sincerity, though not a little embarrassed. She was a woman of about forty years, and from the expression of her face had evidently met with trials. Brought over to San Francisco from Canton when a young girl, she had married Shan Tong with all the ceremony and merry-making which characterise a Chinese wedding, with its processions and feasting and the noise of its firecrackers; but some four or five years ago death claimed her husband, and she was left to do battle alone, while he was laid to rest in the Chinese burying-ground at the west end of Laurel Hill Cemetery. But she did not suffer from want, for Chinamen are kind to the needy of their own race. Among the objects which excited our curiosity were the tiny shoes of the small-footed woman. These were not quite three inches in length, and looked as if they were more suited for a doll's feet than for a full grown woman's. Yes, here was the evidence of a barbarous custom which deprives a human being of one of nature's good gifts, so necessary to our comfort and happiness. Think what you would be, if, through infirmity, you were not at liberty to go hither and thither at will like the young hart or gazelle! We grieve naturally if our children's feet are deformed or misshapen at birth, but what a crime it is to destroy the form and strength of the foot as God has made it! It is true that the Manchu women in China rejoice in the feet which the beneficent Creator has given them. The Dowager Empress—of whom we have read so much of late, and who rules China with an iron rod, has feet like any other woman; but millions of her countrywomen have been robbed of nature's endowment through a foolish and wicked custom which has prevailed in China from time immemorial. The feet are bound when the child is born, and they are never allowed to grow as God designed, as the flower expands into beauty from the bud. Chinese women realise that it is foolish, that it is a deformity, but it is the "custom," and custom prevails. It is like the laws of the Medes and Persians which alter not. Women are powerless under it. It is in vain to a large extent that they oppose it. There is in China an Anti-foot-binding League, which receives the support of men of prominence. Even centuries ago imperial edicts were issued against it, but custom still rules. It was Montaigne who declared that "custom" ought to be followed simply because it is custom. A poor reason indeed. There should be a better argument for the doing of what is contrary to reason and nature. Nature is a wise mother, and she bestows on us no member of the body that is unnecessary. The thought of her fostering care was well expressed by the old Greeks who lived an out-door life, in their personification of Mother Earth under the creation of their Demeter, perfect in form and beautiful in expression and noble in action. This is far above the conceptions of nature or of a presiding genius over our lives, taking into account social order and marriage vows, which we find in Chinese literature or mythology. It is not difficult to perceive the reason why the Greeks, who rule the realms of philosophy and art and literature to-day, after the lapse of many centuries, are the superior people. Well does that master-mind, Shakespeare, characterise evil custom:

"That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat, Of habits devil."

But a better day is coming for Chinese women. Wherever Christianity has touched them in the past they have been uplifted and benefited. The sun seems now to rise in greater effulgence on the Kingdom of the Yellow Dragon. The wretched custom of dwarfing and destroying the feet of a child whose misfortune, according to Confucius, it is to be born a female, is giving way under pressure from contact with the enlightened nations of the world. The teachings of the Christian Church are having their salutary effect and Chinamen are beginning to learn the value of a woman's life from the Biblical standpoint, and the daughters of the Flowery Kingdom will, as time goes on, become more and more like the polished corners of the Temple, or the Caryatides supporting the entablature of the Erechtheum at Athens. It is Madame Wu Ting-Fang, wife of the Chinese Minister at Washington, who has recently returned from a visit to her old home, who says: "The first penetrating influence of exterior civilisation on the customs of my country has touched the conditions of women. The emancipation of woman in China means, first of all, the liberation of her feet, and this is coming. Indeed, it has already come in a measure, for the style in feet has changed. Wee bits of feet, those no longer than an infant's, are no longer the fashion. When I went back home I found that the rigid binding and forcing back of the feet was largely a thing of the past. China, with other nations, has come to regard that practice as barbarous, but the small feet, those that enable a woman to walk a little and do not inconvenience her in getting about the house, are still favoured by the Chinese ladies."

The custom of binding and destroying the feet, no doubt, arose from the low views entained by Chinese sages concerning woman, and from a lack of confidence in her sense of honour and virtue. She must be maimed so that she cannot go about at will, so she shall be completely under the eye of her husband, held as it were in fetters. It is a sad comment on Chinese domestic morality, it fosters the very evil it seeks to cure, it destroys all home life in the best sense. The veiled women of the East are very much in the same position. If a stranger, out of curiosity or by accident, look on the face of a Mohammedan wife, it might lead to her repudiation by her jealous husband, or the offender might be punished for his innocent glance. The writer recalls how at Hebron, in Palestine, he was cautioned by the dragoman, when going up a narrow street to the Mosque of Machpelah, where he had to pass veiled women, not to look at them or to seem to notice them, as the men were very fanatical and might do violence to an unwary tourist. The Chinese women of small feet, or rather no feet at all, walk, or attempt to walk, in a peculiar way. It is as if one were on stilts. The feet are nothing but stumps, while the ankles are large, almost unnatural in their development. It is indeed a great deformity. The feet are shrunken to less size than an infant's; but they have not the beauty of a baby's feet, which have in them great possibilities and a world of suggestion and romance and poetry. If the Chinese custom had prevailed among the ancient Hebrew people, think you that King Solomon in singing of the graces of the Shulamite, who represents the Church mystically, would ever have exclaimed,—"How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter!" We should have lost, moreover, much that is noble in art, and the poetic creations of Greek sculptors would never have delighted the eye nor enchained the fancy.