NEW PHASES IN THE CHINESE PROBLEM. 185 



them no penalty other than that of being sent back if they are 

 detected, will keep them out, when the fear of death has been 

 found wholly ineffective to do so ? "Will exclusion exclude under 

 such conditions as these ? Moreover, can any law ever be enacted 

 by an American Congress that would not shock the Christian 

 world by the inhumanity of its penalties, that will ever be effect- 

 ive in excluding them from our soil ? For violations of State and 

 municipal laws the jails and prisons have been crowded with 

 Chinese for months and years, and all to no purpose. The con- 

 stant perpetration of the same offenses manifests but too plainly 

 the utter inutility of dealing with the Chinese by any such meth- 

 ods as these. 



The race that is reared under the fear of the " cangue," the 

 " bastinado," and limb and bodily torture of hideous ingenuity 

 as punishments for trivial offenses, can not be restrained or terror- 

 ized by prison penalties as ordinarily provided under American 

 laws. Much less can they be prevented from attempting to gain 

 entrance into the country by the mere fear of being sent back 

 if detected. And it may well be believed that thousands upon 

 thousands would still continue the attempt, in willing exchange 

 for free board and lodging in a well-kept American prison, with 

 hard labor, were that penalty made to attach to the act. 



Under such circumstances as these, will exclusion exclude, in 

 the way and manner provided in the " Scott Exclusion Act " ? 

 More than this, can any remedy for Chinese immigration be de- 

 vised that does not look to the stationing of an army of thousands 

 of men along our northern and southern borders, and at a cost 

 bordering upon the permanent prosecution of a defensive war, 

 except by treaty co-operation on the part of the British provinces 

 on the north and Mexico on the south ? 



The inefficiency of this hasty political measure of exclusion is 

 only equaled by the public disgrace involved in the manner of 

 its inception and enactment, which the most radical believer in 

 the policy of Chinese exclusion can not fail to admit constitutes 

 the most shameful page in American history. 



If we are to assume that this or any other legislation that may 

 be had by Congress can be made to result in effectual Chinese 

 exclusion, the problems that present themselves for consideration 

 are hardly less interesting and deserving of study than if this 

 class of immigration were to be tolerated indefinitely. Already 

 there are probably more than 200,000 Chinese upon American 

 soil. In mode of life, costume, religion, clannishness, social vices, 

 and language, they may be said to have evinced no perceptible 

 change during the forty years that have elapsed since they found 

 lodgment here. Had they, during all this period, remained in the 

 heart of the Chinese Empire, they could not have been more in- 



