162 THE SEA. 



other missiles, and hooting 1 and jeering-, on the part of the lower classes of the community. 

 This is not the place to enter into a discussion on the political side of the question. Suffice 

 it to say that they were and still are a necessity in California, where the expense of reach- 

 ing the country has kept out " white" labour to an extent so considerable, that it still 

 rules higher than in almost any part of the world. The respectable middle classes would 

 hardly afford servants at all were it not for the Chinese. All the better classes support 

 their claims to full legal and social rights. The Chinamen who come to San Francisco 

 are not coolies, and a large number of them pay their own passages over. When brought 

 over by merchants, or one of the six great Chinese companies, their passage-money is 

 advanced, and they, of course, pay interest for the accommodation. On arrival in Cali- 

 fornia, if they do not immediately go to work, they proceed to the " Company-house " of 

 their particular province, where, in a kind of caravanserai, rough accommodations for 

 sleeping and cooking are afforded. Hardly a better system of organisation could be 

 adopted than that of the companies, who know exactly where each man in their debt is 

 to be found, if he is hundreds of miles from San Francisco. Were it possible to adopt 

 the same system in regard to emigrants from this country, thousands would be glad to 

 avail themselves of the opportunity of proceeding to the Golden State. 



One little anecdote, and the Chinese must be left to their fate. It happened in 

 1869. Two Chinese merchants had been invited by one of the heads of a leading 

 steamship company to visit the theatre, where they had taken a box. The merchants, 

 men of high standing among their countrymen, accepted. Their appearance in front 

 of it was the signal for an outburst of ruffianism on the part of the gallery ; it was 

 the "gods" versus the celestials, and for a time the former had it all their own way. 

 In vain Lawrence Barrett, the actor, came forward on the stage to try and appease 

 them. He is supposed to have said that any well-conducted person had a right to his seat 

 in the house. An excited gentleman in the dress-circle reiterated the same ideas, and was 

 rewarded by a torrent of hisses and caterwauling. The Chinamen, alarmed that it might 

 result in violence to them, would have retired, but a dozen gentlemen from the dress- 

 circle and orchestra seats requested them to stay, promising them protection, and the 

 merchants remained. They could see that all the better and more respectable part of the 

 house wished them to remain. After twenty or more minutes of interruption, the gallery 

 was nearly cleared by the police, and the performance allowed to proceed. And yet the 

 very class who are so opposed to the Caucasian complain that he does not spend his money 

 in the country where he makes it, but hoards it up for China. The story explains the 

 actual position of the Chinaman in America to-day. The upper and middle classes, ay, 

 and the honest mechanics who require their assistance, support their claims; the lowest 

 scum of the population persecute, injure, and not unfrequently murder them. Many a 

 poor John Chinaman has, as they say in America, been " found missing." 



The sailor ashore in San Francisco may likely enough have an opportunity of feeling 

 the tremor of an earthquake. As a rule, they have been exceedingly slight, but that of 

 the 21st October, 1868, was a serious affair. Towers and steeples swayed to and fro : tall 

 houses trembled, badly-built wooden houses became disjointed; walls fell. Many build- 

 ings, for some time afterwards, showed the effects in cracked walls and plastering, dislocated 



