DISGRACEFUL PERSECUTION OF A BOY. 



IN San Francisco, the other day, "A well-dressed boy, on his way to Sunday- 

 school, was arrested and thrown into the city prison for stoning Chinamen." 

 What a commentary is this upon human justice ! What sad prominence it 

 gives to our human disposition to tyrannize over the weak ! San Francisco has 

 little right to take credit to herself for her treatment of this poor boy. What 

 had the child's education been ? How should he suppose it was wrong to stone 

 a Chinamen? Before we side against him, along with outraged San Francisco, 

 let us give him a chance — let us hear the testimony for the defence. 



He was a " well-dressed " boy, and a Sunday-school scholar, and therefore, 

 the chances are that his parents were intelligent, well-to-do people, with just 

 enough natural villainy in their composition to make them yearn after the 

 daily papers, and enjoy them ; and so this boy had opportunities to learn all 

 through the week how to do right, as well as on Sunday. 



It was in this way that he found out that the great commonwealth of Califor- 

 nia imposes an unlawful mining-tax upon John the foreigner, and allows Pat- 

 rick the foreigner to dig gold for nothing — probably because the degraded 

 Mongol is at no expense for whisky, and the refined Celt cannot exist without it.' 



It was in this way that he found out that a respectable number of the tax- 

 gatherers — it would be unkind to say all of them — collect the tax twice, instead 

 of once; and that, inasmuch as they do it solely to discourage Chinese immigra- 

 tion into the mines, it is a thing that is much applauded, and likewise regarded 

 as being singularly facetious. 



117 



