138 THE TROTTING RHINO 



As in Siam, so also in Malay, John Chinaman is 

 the industrial backbone of his adopted home. Ixi 

 the country, he controls the farms; in town, he 

 owns all the pawn shops (which outnumber those 

 of any other one kind), monopolizes the opium 

 and the kerosene trade, is the sampan and jin- 

 rikisha coolie, and supplies the labor for the tin 

 mines and the coffee plantations. Of Singapore's 

 about 200,000 inhabitants, two-thirds are China- 

 men ; and in that two-thirds is owned local steam- 

 ship lines, a considerable share of the wholesale 

 trade, over half the retail trade : it also furnishes 

 the city with practically all its carpenters, brick- 

 layers, tailors, shoemakers, market gardeners, fish- 

 ermen, and many of its clerks, for banks, offices 

 and shops. In fact, Singapore could not exist 

 prosperously, nor the Peninsula either, for that 

 matter, without the Chinamen. 



The Tamils and the Klings are boatmen and 

 general day laborers; especially trainmen and 

 railway employes; the Sikhs, England's fine and 

 dependable native Indian soldiers, are always rail- 

 way gate keepers; also they are the policemen of 

 Malay. And how they do bullyrag the natives, 

 especially poor John! The Malays supply the 

 boys about the clubs, houses, stables and boats, 

 where no constant hard work is required. They 

 are the syces (drivers) and canoemen of the 

 country. 



