"Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand;
It was euchre: the same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table
With a smile that was childlike and bland.
"Yet the cards they were stacked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.
"But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made.
Were quite frightful to see—
Till at last he put down the right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.
"Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me:
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, 'Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinee cheap labour'—
And he went for that heathen Chinee."
There are all kinds of jugglers in Chinatown and among them are numerous fortune-tellers. This kind of pastime is as old as the human race, and you find the man who undertakes to reveal to you the secrets of the future among all peoples. The Orientals are always ready to listen to the "neby" or the necromancer or the fakir or the wandering minstrel, who improvises for you and sings for you the good things which are in store for you. We see this tendency among our own people who would have their destiny pointed out by means of a pack of cards, by the reading of the palm of the hand, in the grounds in the tea-cup, and by other signs. It was with some interest then that we glanced at the mystic words and signs which adorned the entrance to Sam Wong Yung's fortune-teller's place.
Passing on, we next visited a hardware shop, where you could purchase various kinds of Chinese cutlery. Among other things that attracted my attention was a simple-looking Chinese fan, apparently folded up. On examining it I found that inside of the fan-case was a sharp knife or blade like a wide dagger. This could be carried in an unsuspecting manner into the midst of a company of men, and in a moment, if you had in your breast the wicked spirit of revenge, your enemy could be weltering in his life blood at your feet. It suggested all kinds of tragedies, and no doubt its invention had behind it some treacherous impulse. The writer ventured to purchase it, but he hastens to announce to his friends that his purposes are good and innocent. Though in the same category as the sword or dagger hidden in a walking-stick or a concealed weapon, this bloodthirsty knife will repose harmlessly in its fan-case like a sleeping babe in his cradle.
A Chinese boarding house next claimed our inspection. It was rather a forbidding place, but no doubt the Chinaman was well content with its accommodations. It was a long, rambling structure, and it seemed to me as if I were going through an underground passage in walking from room to room. The various halls were narrow, indeed so narrow that two persons meeting in them could not without difficulty pass each other. The beds, which brought a dollar a month, were one above another in tiers or recesses in the walls. Generally a curtain of a reddish hue depended in front of them. They reminded one of the berths in a ship or of the repositories of the dead in the Roman Catacombs. Two hundred and twenty-five persons were lodged in this dark, mysterious labyrinth. In another house there were five hundred and fifty people lodged in seventy-five rooms. Possibly the owners of tenement houses in our large cities, who crowd men and women into a narrow space and through unpitying agents reap a rich harvest regardless of the sufferings of their fellow-beings, have been taking lessons from the landlords of Chinatown. I said to myself, as I went to and fro through these narrow passages, dimly lighted with a lamp, and the lights were few and far between, if a fire should break out, at midnight, when all are wrapt in slumber, what a holocaust would be here! And whose would the sin and the shame be? There are good and ample fire-appliances for the protection of the city, but the poor Chinamen hemmed in, as in a dark prison-house, would surely be suffocated by smoke or be consumed in the flames. When the old theatre was burned down, twenty-five men, and probably more, perished, although there were means of escape from this building. I was told that the wood from which the largest hotel in Chinatown, its Palace hotel so to speak, was constructed in the early days, was brought around Cape Horn, and cost $350 per thousand feet. This was before saw-mills were erected in the forests among the foothills and on the slopes of the Sierras. The kitchen of the big boarding house was a novelty. It was nothing in any respect like the well-appointed kitchens of our hotels with their great ranges and open fire-places where meats may be roasted slowly on the turnspit. On one side of the kitchen there was a kind of stone-parapet about two feet and a half high, and on the top of this there were eight fire-places. As the Chinamen cook their own food there might be as many as eight men here at one time. I asked the guide if they ever quarreled. His answer was significant. "No! and it would be difficult to bring eight men of any other nationality together in such close proximity without differences arising and contentions taking place; but the Chinamen never trouble each other." There was only one man cooking at such a late hour as that in which we visited the kitchen, about half-past ten o'clock at night. He used charcoal, and as the coals were fanned the fire looked like that of a forge in a blacksmith's shop.
On our way to the Chinese Restaurant we stepped into a goldsmith's shop. There were a few customers present, and the proprietor waited on them with great diligence. At benches like writing desks, on which were tools of various descriptions, were seated some half a dozen workmen who were busily engaged. They never looked up while we stood by and examined their work, which was of a high order. The filagree-work was beautiful and artistic. There were numerous personal ornaments, some of solid gold, others plaited. The bracelets which they were making might fittingly adorn the neck of a queen. I learned that these skilled men worked sixteen hours a day on moderate wages. Their work went into first-class Chinese bric-a-brac stores and into the jewelry stores of the merchants who supply the rich and cultured with their ornaments.
But it is time that we visit the restaurant. This is located in a stately building and is one of the first class. It overlooks the old Plaza, though you enter from the street one block west of the Plaza. You ascend broad stairs, and then you find yourself in a wide room or dining hall in two sections. Here are tables round and square, and here you are waited on by the sons of the Fiery Flying Dragon clad in well-made tunics, sometimes of silk material. As your eye studies the figure before you, the dress and the physiognomy, you do not fail to notice the long pigtail, the Chinaman's glory, as a woman's delight is her long hair. The tea, which is fragrant, is served to you out of dainty cups, China cups, an evidence that the tea-drinking of Americans and Europeans is derived from the Celestial Empire. The tea-plant is said, by a pretty legend, to have been formed from the eyelids of Buddha Dharma, which, in his generosity, he cut off for the benefit of men. If you wish for sweetmeats they will be served in a most tempting way. You can also have chicken, rice, and vegetables, and fruits, after the Chinese fashion. You can eat with your fingers if you like, or use knives and forks, or, if you desire to play the Chinaman, with the chop-sticks. In Chinatown the men and the women do not eat together. This is also the custom of China, and hence there is not what we look upon as an essential element of home-life—father and mother and children and guests, if there be such, gathered in a pleasant dining-room with the flow of edifying conversation and the exchange of courtesies. Confucius never talked when he ate, and his disciples affect his taciturnity at their meals. Though in scholastic times, in European institutions and in religious communities, men kept silence at their meals, yet the hours were enlivened by one who read for the edification of all. The interchange of thought, however,—the spoken word one with another, at the family table, is the better way. Silence may be golden, but speech is more golden if seasoned with wisdom; and even the pleasant jest and the bon mot have their office and exercise a salutary influence on character and conduct.
The food of Chinamen generally is very simple. Rice is the staple article of consumption. They like fruits and use them moderately. They eat things too, which would be most repulsive to the epicurean taste of an Anglo-Saxon. Even lizards and rats and young dogs they will not refuse. But these things are prepared in a manner to tempt the appetite. After you have partaken of your repast in the Chinese Restaurant, if you request it, tobacco pipes will be brought in, and your waiter will fill and light them for you and your friends. You can even, with a certain degree of caution, indulge in the opium pipe, the joy of the Chinaman. As you draw on this pipe and take long draughts you lapse into a strange state, all your ills seem to vanish, and you become indifferent to the world. The beggar in imagination becomes a millionaire, and for the time he feels that he is in the midst of courtly splendours. But, ah! When one awakes from his dream the pleasures are turned into ashes, and the glory fades as the fires of the pipe die. Sic transit gloria mundi! On the walls of the restaurant were various Chinese decorations. The inevitable lantern was in evidence. Here also were tablets with sentences in the language of the Celestials. But there was one thing that struck me forcibly as I examined the various objects in the rooms. In the rear half of the restaurant, on the north side of the room, stood a Chinese safe, somewhat in fashion like our ordinary American safe. It was not, however, secured with the combination lock with which we are all familiar. It shut like a cupboard, and had eight locks on a chain as it were. Every lock represented a man whose money or whose valuables were in the safe. Each of the eight men had a key for his own lock, different from all the other seven. When the safe is to be opened all the eight men must be present. Is this a comment on the honesty of the Chinaman? Is this indicative of their lack of confidence in each other? And yet as a house-servant the Chinaman is trusty and faithful and honest. He is also silent as to what transpires in his master's house and at his employer's table. The writer has conversed with people who have had Chinamen in their service, he has also visited the homes of gentlemen where only Chinese servants are employed in domestic work, and all bear testimony to their excellence and faithfulness and honesty.