ch. ii.] Chinese Settlers. 23 



small their earnings, they generally contrive to save 

 something. Indeed it is difficult to say whether 'tis their 

 industry or their thrift which most deserves commenda- 

 tion. Of course they have their faults as a people, and 

 most serious some of them are ; and wherever they are 

 admitted as emigrants, a strong hand is needed to keep 

 them in order. 



For opening up new trading enterprises or colonies in 

 the East their aid is invaluable, as they are most frugal, 

 and possess a peculiar habit of making the best of cir- 

 cumstances. In Sarawak, and also in the British colony 

 of Labuan, the money derived from the opium and spirit 

 farms form a main feature in the revenue, so that eastern 

 colonies, in favouring Chinese emigration, add to their 

 revenue by their expenditure as well as by their labour. 

 Many, by thrift and frugality, rise to positions of afflu- 

 ence, and then it is curious to see how thoroughly the}' 

 fall into the ways of the class to which they reach. This 

 makes a Chinese colony so prosperous as a rule ; for if a 

 man has money he is sure to spend it either in trade, or 

 in a fine house, garden, servants, horses and carriages, 

 and other luxuries. As a rule they deal with their own 

 class, but they take to European luxuries very kindly. 

 I was asked out to dine several times at the houses of 

 wealthy Chinese whilst in the East, and was at first 

 rather disappointed at the thorough European character 

 of the repast. Clean cloth, knives and forks of course ; 

 and every course might have been prepared in Pall Mall, 

 if we except the curries ; and it is but natural that the 

 curries of the East are inimitable elsewhere. You get 

 most delicately prepared pastry, and ten to one, roast 

 beef and plum pudding, which are all the world over 

 understood to be our national dishes. 



A gentleman told me that once when in Paris, just 



