i 9 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the sacrifice. Bought and sold, kidnapped and forced into a life 

 of prostitution and helpless misery, woman is indeed among the 

 Chinese an object of pity and commiseration. The evidences are 

 constantly before our eyes in our own country, wherever the 

 Chinese are gathered in communities, that her lot here is in no 

 way ameliorated, nor have her Christian surroundings so far, in 

 any perceptible degree, tended to work her elevation or emancipa- 

 tion. It is a work that must first be successfully begun and car- 

 ried out before we may indulge in the idle dream of Chinese con- 

 version to the doctrines of Christianity. It is another if not the 

 most important factor in the Chinese problem which we are called 

 upon to solve, in so far as the Chinese who are to remain among 

 us are concerned, and adds perhaps the most serious complexity 

 to the puzzle. 



The children born upon our soil so far are in the main illegiti- 

 mate, and in all cases are, by the very nature of their surround- 

 ings, barred out from possible education in common with the 

 children of our population in general. There can therefore be no 

 common school system which in its proper sense can be made 

 applicable to them. What then occurs ? Either they must be de- 

 barred from being educated at the public expense, or a school sys- 

 tem must be devised for their own separate teaching. In the lat- 

 ter case there will no longer be a common school system, but a 

 line of class distinction will at once be drawn, and the virtual in- 

 troduction of the caste system will begin. "Will not this even 

 build higher still the barrier between Christianity and idolatry, 

 and will not the way of conversion be made still more difficult 

 than before ? 



It has been truly said of the Chinese as they exist in the San 

 Francisco colony that " they are not only not amenable to law, but 

 they are governed by secret tribunals unrecognized and unauthor- 

 ized by law." These tribunals " levy taxes, command masses of men, 

 intimidate interpreters and witnesses, enforce perjury, regulate 

 trade, punish the refractory, remove witnesses beyond the reach 

 of the courts, control liberty of action, and prevent the return of 

 Chinese to their home in China without their consent/' And this 

 system grows out of the inherent quality of the Chinese mind. It 

 is part and parcel of their natures to be their own masters, to ac- 

 knowledge no law or rule of action not of their own making. It 

 is this quality of mind, this ancestral inheritance, that must be 

 eradicated and changed before the Chinese can be made to stand 

 upon an equality before the law with other American citizens. It 

 adds another to the many complications of the Chinese problem 

 which is before us for solution, and as it involves a change of nat- 

 ural proclivities which can not be brought about except by the 

 slow evolutionary process through successive generations, it be- 



