SOCIETY. 43 



Chinese immigrants, and a tax of $4 per month on all Chinese 

 miners, have been declared void by the Courts ; and the stat- 

 ute forbidding them to testify against a white man was re- 

 pealed by the new Code, in a clause of which the people knew 

 nothing till after its adoption. Public sentiment and partizan 

 policy in California are decidedly hostile to the Chinamen, 

 have shown them no mercy, and have not insisted on the pun- 

 ishment of the numerous crimes committed against them. The 

 Chinamen have no votes, elect no officers, support no news- 

 papers, and have few advocates. ^ 



Riots, to beat and murder Chinamen, to destroy their \ 

 houses, and to drive them away from places where they were 

 employed, have been frequent in the State. Many public 

 meetings have been held to fan the hatred against them into 

 flames. A prominent politician, in a public speech, expressed 

 a wish that the Pacific Mail steamers which bring immigrants 

 from Canton, should be burned. A Jesuit priest, in 1873, de- *- 

 livered an anti-Chinese address in a Catholic Church in San 

 Francisco, and in its course thus addressed his auditory : 



" If, I say, they [the Chinese] should ever become domiciled 

 in our country, your posterity will be doomed to a miserable 

 fate a fate against which it will be useless for them to strug- 

 gle, for it will not have the power to resist ; and bitter, aye 

 bitter, will be the curses on your memory, when you are gone, 

 for the legacy which you have left to it." 



The address was published in full in the Monitor, the lead- 

 ing organ of the Catholic Church in California, and was com- 

 mended editorially as an " admirable discourse." 



Chinamen are exposed everywhere to insult and injury, as a 

 hated and helpless race must be everywhere, if there are ruf- 

 fians among their enemies. They are, besides, exposed to mob 

 violence in case they should enter into new employments. 

 They would not dare to work in the gold quartz mines at Grass 

 Valley or Sutter Creek ; nor would it be safe for them to un- 

 dertake to do work of stevedores or hod-men in San Fran- 



