The children by these queer unions seem to be healthy, and nearly all of them speak Chinese in talking to their fathers, and their English has a decided brogue. Many of the Chinese decorate their houses with the letters they have received from home. These letters are curious collections of hieroglyphics, some of which are executed in brilliant colors.
There is a Chinese boarding house for sailors of that nationality in Baxter street, kept by a Chinaman and his wife, who is also an Oriental. These Chinese sailors are simply cooks or stewards of vessels arriving here from China or California, and not able-bodied seamen. They do not frequent the ordinary sailor’s boarding houses, and are never seen in the dance houses or hells of Water street. They pass their time on shore quietly in their countryman’s establishment, and some of them use this season of leisure in trying to acquaint themselves with the English language. All are opium smokers.
The main room of the boarding house in Baxter street is fitted up with a series of beds or berths, one above another, extending around it. At almost any time one may find several Chinese lying in these berths smoking opium. The opium pipe is a large piece of wood pierced down the centre with a fine hole. The stem is very thick, and is about eighteen inches long. The smoker has before him a box of soft gum opium and a small lamp. He takes a little steel rod, picks off a small piece of opium with it, holds it in the flame of the lamp for a few
minutes, and when it has become thoroughly ignited, places it in the bowl of his pipe and puffs away, repeating the operation until he is satisfied, or is insensible.
They are very fond of cards. Those used by them are brought from China, and are curiosities. They are about one inch in width and five inches long, and are gorgeously painted with old time Chinese men and women. To each card there is attached a certain value. The cards are divided into six lots of equal size. Each of the two players chooses one of these packs alternately. The first player places a card on the table, and his opponent places another immediately across it. The others are placed obliquely to these, in the form of a star, and each player scores the value of his card as he lays it down. The game is won by the player who has the largest score.
Altogether, in spite of the misconduct of a few, the Chinese of New York are, barring their bigamous affection for the Irish women, a very innocent and well-behaved class.
LXVIII. STREET CHILDREN.
In spite of the labors of the Missions and the Reformatory Institutions, there are ten thousand children living on the streets of New York, gaining their bread by blacking boots, by selling newspapers, watches, pins, etc., and by stealing. Some are thrust into the streets by dissolute parents, some are orphans, some are voluntary outcasts, and others drift here from the surrounding country. Wherever they may come from, or however they may get here, they are here, and they are nearly all leading a vagrant life which will ripen into crime or pauperism.
The newsboys constitute an important division of this army of homeless children. You see them everywhere, in all parts of the city, but they are most numerous in and about Printing House Square, near the offices of the great dailies. They rend the air and deafen you with their shrill cries. They surround you on the sidewalk, and almost force you to buy their papers. They climb up the steps of the stage, thrust their grim little faces into the windows, and bring nervous passengers to their feet with their shrill yells; or, scrambling into a street car, at the risk of being kicked into the street by a brutal conductor, they will offer you their papers in such an earnest, appealing way, that, nine times out of ten, you buy from sheer pity for the child.