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AN HUMBLE PLEA,

ADDRESSED TO THE

LEGISLATUEE OF CALIFORNIA,

IN BEHALF OF THE

LMMIGKANTS FliOM TIII^ EMPIRE OF CHINA

TO THIS STATE.

REV. WILLIAM S P E E R

SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. :

PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF THE ORIENTAL, NO. 68 MERCHANT STREET.

P U I X T E D BY S T E R E T T & CO..

Ill Wu-ihington Street, I.elow Sansome.

1856. '

AN HUMBLE PLEA ,

ADDRESSED TO THE

LEGISLATURE OF CALIFORNIA,

IN BEHALF OF THE

LMMIGRANTS FROM THE EMPIRE OF CHIM

TO THIS STATE.

BY THE

EEY. WILLIAM SPEER

SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. :

PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF THE OEIENT^U,, NO. 68 MERCHANT STREET,

PRINTED BY STERETT & CO.,

Ill Washington Street, below Sausome.

1856.

CO

PLEA IN BEHALF

OF THE

IMMIGRANTS FROM CHINA.

To the Honorable Senate and Assembly

of the State of Califoknia :

In despotic countries the humblest individual is allowed, at times, to approach the sovereign. The sceptre is extended to him, and he touches it and lives. And there are places also where he may stand and wait, with his private or public sup- plication, and cast the paper at the royal feet, and it is taken up and considered. A representative government grants its meanest citizen an equal privilege. Just so far as it is a common-wealth, aiming to act for the general good, and not by divine right, or for the benefit of a few, does it secure, and respect, and solicit an expression of reasonable opinion. There are circumstances which move the writer to open his mouth, he trusts, without presumption. His sympathies and principles as a Christian! minister, his patriotism, and his convictions, stir him. And not less his deep and heartfelt compassion for a race of strangers, most strangers in this land where we all are strangers ; a race on whom we have unthinkingly and unkind- ly set the heel. In their difficult and troubled condition, he feels a gratification in their resorting to him as their " friend." In attempting to simply do them justice, he distinctly states that he leans on no party, that he represents no one interest, that he would aggrandize or injure no district ; but seeks plainly, sincerely and earnestly to set forth the truth, believing that candid and earnest men will likewise hear, and will give to the facts and reasons presented all that attention the intrinsic weight of the subject deserves.

It is of great importance to take a comprehensive view of ourpositton. A man that knows his right hand from his left has certainly been impressed with the won- derful history of this continent. The inhabitants, for several thousands of years, had stood on the shores of the oceans all round it, like men at the foot of inaccess- ible mountains of sapphire. They saw the waves on the horizon like successive cliffs, whose translucent tops were surpassed by others higher and higher still be-

yond. The vast convexity on all sides of it was not surmounted by any men that returned again, through all the ages of the world's history, until a few years ago. Then this great, outspread, fertile, glorious land, like a valley between, was made known. The Divine Governor established in it a seminary, a seed-garden, of new principles. They ripened, and floated back from our East, and filled the countries from which we were gathered. And then we are suddenly called to its opposite limit to plough, to plant, and to enrich it in turn, and, as the Bible so beautifully says, to '• fill the face of the world with fruit." It is a stale historical statement, and a one-half completed prophecy, that the wonderful nation, of which we have reason for unceasing gratitude to God that we are citizens, is the world's school- house. Under their cover God teaches some of all races, and sends them home to impart again what they have learned. If these old asseverations, that have rung around every academy, court-house and church, between Maine and Texas, are substantial, we occupy a high place in the globe and in time. Then the discovery of America, the landing of the pilgrims, the declaration of independence, and the settlement of California, must constitute eras of the new world's advancement, and so of the progress of man, and the triumph of Christianity. Then future ages shall look upon us, and study our acts and characters as we do those of the im- mortal men that stood upon the summits behind us. Who trembles not under the gaze of millions of eyes ! Who is not afraid beneath the scrutiny of the Divine Being !

And this particular question is one that above all others needs a manly, sincere and liberal spirit to investigate it. Races long and widely seperated become pe- culiar, arrogant, and offensive. The Chinese and ourselves, both in their country and ours, find in each other's manners and conduct much to ridicule and hate. It will be observed that a large class on either hand of those who visit the other's country are the most bitter enemies of those among whom they lived. They have seen among them nothing to esteem, to imitate, or to adopt. But let us, boasting and possessing a real superiority in genuine civilization, in every species of power, in the truest refinement of human nature, and in the knowledge of a Heaven-de- scended charity and hope of salvation — let us, gentlemen, who do not only believe, but know, that we are superiors — put off the temper of meanness, and spite, and selfishness, and bigotry. I appeal to you as Representatives of an intelligent, whole-souled, progressive people. I appeal to men that can conceive the motives> and enjoy the expanded hopes, of the glorious religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are in slavery to no man, to no doctrine, to no limited interest of time and and place. If I am wrong in any of the views I shall offer, I desire nothing so much as a truthful and charitable correction of them. And I confidently expect that with a Legislature characterized by so much intelligence and moral principle as the present, what conclusions are palpably fair and just may be received with the honesty and candor with which they are respectfully submitted.

THE QUESTIONS AT ISSUE.

Two questions come before your Honorable body for discussion : first, the terms, and second, the extent, according to which mining by Chinese should be permitt- ed. The first is involved in petitions that the rate of license for Chinese miners shall be again reduced to the sum of ^4 per month, the same as for other foreigners ; the second, in petitions that the cai)itation tax of ^50 each on landing be diminished to $5 each. A simple repeal of two separate acts of the last Legis-

lature is asked, and the restoration of the laws previously existing on these points. The two questions, it may be noticed, are entirely distinct. The granting of the first class of petitions alone allows a continuance of the pririlege of mining to the Chinese in the State, but debars further immigration. This is the most important desideratum. The granting of both classes of petitions would restore the privileges of the miners, and also permt further inmiigration, for which many in the agri- cultural districts, particularly in Southern California, and interested in cultivating the swamp lands, are solicitous. It is quite possible some members may prefer ac- tion on the first alone, with the present light, leaving the rate of the capitation tax unchanged. To grant the second class of petitions alone appears to be a mat- ter of no consequence at present, as the Chinese would continue to leave the State as far as possible, and discourage the immigration of their friends ; nor, indeed, on the other hand, would an increase of even the present capitation tax be a matter of any importance to those unfriendly to them, since the sum of fifty dollars ac- complishes their object as effectually as would any larger sum, if the law be enforced.

The general view to be represented is this: that the interests of California forbid a policy calculated to exclude or debase Chinese immigration here.

This subject has never yet been thoroughly discussed. It will be my aim to lay before you such statements as appear to approximate the truth. If any of these are incorrect, they will probably be found in regard to facts and opinions, under- estimated. And I trust they may be scrutinized, and corrections be made of any that lean in the other direction.

WHO ARE THE CHINESE? NOT COOLIES.

To obtain a satisfactory view of the Chinese as we find them in California, it will be necessary first to ask, who are these people ? and how came they here ?

It has been said they are coolies. By this it is meant they belong to a general degraded caste in their native country. The word " coolie" is sometimes applied to Chinese laboring men, inferior servants, and farm hands, by Europeans. But there is no caste in China, any more thaa in the United States. The mistaken ideas which prevail on this subject have arisen from the confounding the Chinese people and customs with those of India, where the entire social system is widely diSerent. The English newspapers, familiar with Indian usages, and viewing all the nations of the East through the medium of the press in their great colonial presidencies of Bengal, Bombay and Madras, have originated in Great Britain and America gross mistakes in regard to the other countries of whose trade the East India Company held also a long monopoly. The Hindustani word "coolie" is one of those inflicted upon the Chniese, in whose language it has no equivalent, and who have no caste or class whom it represents. It would be justly held degrad- ing to style an English laborer of whatever occupation, in China, a " coolie," and it is not right to attach to Chinese the odium of a social debasement which is peculiar to another country, to other institutions, and to another and most dis- similar people. Their emigrants here are just what any other people are : laborers, cooks, boatmen, farmers, carpenters, stone masons, brick-layers, shop-keepers, book-binders, weavers, tea-packers, gardeners, and just what an equal number from any other land might be expected to present in the variety of their occupations. Some, that speak English best, have been scholars in missionary schools, or employees about foreign hongs. Here and there is a literary man,

though rarely seen, and his accomplishments unappreciated. Then, there is an abundance of the vilest classes— the gambler, the infamous female, and others, who prey upon the fortunate, the unwary, or the wanton of their own countrymen.

NOT SLAVES. THEIR COMPANIES.

Again, they were not brought here by capitalists, either Chinese or others. The very mistaken notions of our own people in respect to this subject arose from not understanding, as was natural enough, the nature of their " Companies." This was explained by me in a series of articles in the Oriental newspaper, last spring. The following extract will suffice at present for any who still labor under such erroneous ideas :

" Wlien the Chinese visit any other province of their country in considerable numbers, it is their custom to have a common quarters, or rendezvous, which they style an ui-lcun, that is, a gathering- place, or company's house. It is like a club-house, in being supported wholly by voluntary contribu- tions, and in the provision of food and lodging at their cost. And so_ when they voluntarily emigrate to any foreign country, in Asia or America, they at once contribute to erect a house. Agents or iuperintendents are elected, who register the members and manage its concerns. Servants are em- ployed to take care of the building, cook the food, and attend the sick. Provision is made for the interment of the de.id, repairs of tombs, and the semi-annual worship of the spirits. And, beyond all this, rules are agreed upon for the government of this club, or company ; and these are adopted or repealed at pleasure in the most democratic manner. The members are no more ' slaves ' than the members of an American fire-company, or any other voluntary association, governed by rules estab- lished by the majority, and electing their own officers at regular periods. They have all declared that the_v have never owned, imported, or employed any slaves. There is slavery, or peonage, of a certain kind, in China, but it is very different from the bondage of Africans in the United States. It is said there are a few, not a hundred, individuals of that class here ; but they never have been em- ployed by the Companies, and work probably on their own account. Americans, we are assured, have nothing to fear from that source. The funds of the Companies are not used for mercantile purposes, or to obtain revenue, and, indeed, are paid out nearly as fast as they come in. Tlie treasuries of several of these Companies are now empty, or in debt. There are at present in California five of these Chinese Companies. We present in a tabular form their computations of the total number of Chinese that have arrived in California ; that have returned hence to their native land ; that have died here ; and finally, their estimate of the number at present in the State. We can from this table ascertain more nearly than by any other method the Chinese population of California. There are probably not a thousand men who have not connected themselves with one or the other of these five Companies."

Names. Arrivals.

Yeung-wo Company, 16.900

Canton Com] lany, 8,400

Yan-wo Company, 2,100

Sze-yap Company,* 16.650

Ning-yeung Company, 4,899

Total, 48,949 8,929 1,333 38,687

INTEREST OF OUR SHIPPING.

At the ports of AVhampoa, Macao, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, these strangers come in contact with American and European commerce. Their unwieldy hulks, fashioned after antediluvian models, cannot navigate the broad Pacific beyond their own familiar coasts. The Chinese greatly prefer American clipper ships, on account of their superior speed, cleanliness, safety, and less liability to deten- tion on entering our ports. We cannot ascertain the proportion that have come and gone in our own and other vessels. The following tables have, however, been obligingly furnished from the imperfect records of the Custom-House :

* 3,450 of the Sze-yap Company ieparated, and with others formed the Ning-yeung.

TABLE.
DepaHures,	Deceased.	rreitent.
2,500	400	14,000
1,300	300	6.800
160	160	1,780
3,700	300	9,200
1,269	173	6,907

Statement of Immigration of Chinese to California.

Tear, ....	1849	1850	1851	1852	1853	1854	1855	Total.
Vessels,.. . Tonnage . . Passengers	13 3,700 323	22 7,708 447	35 11,700 2.716	84 43,144 18,434	54 25,535 4,316	52 28,021 15,063	37 15,527 3,212	297 135.335 44,511

Statement of Emigration of Chinese from California.

Year,

1851

1852

1853

1854

1855

Total.

Vessels, . . . Tonnage, . . Passengers.

96

51,241

261

120 72.596 2.056

89

53,349

4,405

113

85,689

2,386

92 r3,093 3,328

510

335,977

12,436

It will be observed that the lists of the Companies are not so numerous as the entries at the Custom-House. It is known that ship-captains have been in the habit of reporting less than the correct number, both to avoid fines and to save the hospital fees, which they always, however, exacted.

The first item of profit that may be noted is that upon passengers by sea. The passage-money, at the lowest estimate, has been forty dollars each in this direc- tion, and twenty returning. Adding to the Companies' estimate till December, 1854, that of the Custom-House for last year, we find, at these rates, the sum of two millions, three hundred and twenty-nine thousand, five hundred and eighty dollars, paid for passages. Shippers have frequently other charges to make for fitting up bunks, water-tanks, &c. ; and we do not consider the cost of provisions laid in here by those returning.

The hospital tax has been collected for the fall number reported. This has gone into the State Treasury. At five dollars each, it would amount to two hundred and twenty-two thousand, five hundred and fifty-five dollars.

The exports and imports between California and China cannot be ascertained, on account of the destruction of some of the records by fire, and the disordered condition of others. The following tables have been obtained, however, fi'om the Collector of the Custom-House :

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The article of coffee is not of Chinese growth, but still that, and many other products of the neighboring islands and countries, would open their way through a regular commercial route. The imports of the above table average near a million and a half dollars per annum. The car£roes of 1854 were valued in the whole, at $27,338 each, and those of 1855 at $40,963 each. Suppose that but one-third of the ships of the previous year arrived in its first six months, the val- uation of the cargoes of the 172 ship=! arriving since 1849, at $32,000 each, would amount to five millions, five hundred and four thousand dollars, without counting a balance for 1848. Then, we may fairly say, that nine millions of dollars worth of various imports have been brought to California from China.

But we hear some one oltjectiug that these goods were chiefly intended for Chinese consumption. True, but just at present we are showing the profits of the trade to the shipping interest ; and again, their use of imported provisions and clothing diminishes each year, as with ourselves ; and further, the profits upon many of the earlier importations by Americans, reached almost fabulous amounts.

The Skipping List in 1852 remarked :

'• The trade between this place and China was at the outset, from a variety of causes, much larger in proportion to the population of California, than it now is. Aside from the natural tendencies to extravagance which sudden wealth induces, making an extraordinary demand for the fancy articles of our Celestial neighbors, many of the early miners were Lower Californians, Jlexicans, and Cliilenos, who, in many cases, invested the product at the mines in Chinese goods ; and being in most cases of a class unacquainted with their value, they paid far more for them than they could be bought for near their homes, offering of course no inducement for a second adventure. Thej' were also bought by traders at the different towns along the coast, which at the outset was a fair business ; but since the yield at the mines has been less to individuals, their busines has also become of less value. A very perceptible difference was made in the demand when the law imposing the foreign miners' tax went into operation, as the foreign miners were the only purchasers in that section of the country."

The variety of the commodities open to owr export and import is but partially represented by the Custom House entries of the incipient intercourse of the past- few years. A reference to the tabular statements of articles subject to tariff, as specified in treaties at the close of the Opium War, will exhibit a range for the employment of unlimited capital. An oSicial list of commodities of export and import was drawn up at that time by Robert Thom, Esq., subsequently Consul at Ningpo.*

* The following is the list as given in the "Chinese Commercial Guide," by the Hon. J. R Morrison: Articles rif Impetrt to China.

1. Assafoetida. 2. Beeswax. 3. Betel nut. 4. Bicho de mar, 1st sort, or black ; do., 2d sort, or white. 5. Bird's-nests, 1st sort, or cleaned ; do., 2d sort, or good middling ; do., 3d sort, or unclean- ed. 6. Camphor (Malay), 1st quality, or clean ; do., 2d qu.ality, or refuse. 7. Cloves, Ist quality, or picked ; do., 2d quality, or motlier cloves. 8. Clocks, watches, spy-glasses, writing-desks, dressing- boxes, perfumery, cutlery, hardware, &c., ice. 9. Canvas. 10. Cochineal. 11. Coral, 1st, 2d, 3d and 4th qualities ; do. beads. 12. Cornelian ; do. beads. 13. Cotton. 14. Cotton Manufactures, viz. : 1st quality Longcloths, white ; 2d quality Longcloths, white ; 3d quality Longcloths, gray or un- bleached ; Twilled cloth, white or gray ; Cambrics and Muslins ; Chintz and Prints ; Handkerchiefs, large • do,, small ; Ginghams, Pulicates, Dyed Cottons, Velveteens, Silk and Cotton Mixtures, Woolen and Cotton Mixtures, and all kinds of Fancy Goods. 15. Cotton Yarn and Cotton Thread, lo. Cow Bezoar. 17. Cutch. 18. Elejihants' Teeth, 1st quality, whole; 2d quality, broken. 19. Fishmaws. 20. Flints. 21. Glass, Glass Ware, and Crystal Ware. 22. Gambler. 23. Ginseng, 1st quality ; do., 2d quality, or refuse. 24. Gold and Silver Thread, 1st quality, or re.al ; do. do. do., 2d quality, or imi- tation. 25. Gums : Benjamin ; Olibanum ; Myrrh ; Gums unenumerated. 26. Horns, Buffalo and Bullocks' ; do.. Unicorn or Rhinoceros'. 27. Linen, fine ; do., coarse, or Linen and Cotton Mixtures, Silk and Linen Mixtures, &c. 28. Mace, or Flower of Nutmeg. 29. Mother-of- Pearl Shells. 30 Met- als, viz. : Cojiper, unmanufactured, as in slabs; do., manufactured, as in sheets, rods, &c. ; Iron,

10

The intercourse Ts-ith the East must collect also many new commodities of trade, and materials for the exercise of our manufacturing skill. This may be illustrated by the gutta perclia trade, now annually becoming more valuable. This is but one of the recent botanical discoveries of the vast and as yet really almost unknown treasures of the East. It is noticed thus in an English newspaper :

" In twelve years the wonderful utility of this new material has been established in various applica- tions. But the gum would have remained comparatively useless but for the inventive spirit which has subdued every difficulty of a new manufacture.

" The substance is now applied to the humblest as well as the highest purposes. It is a clothes-line defying the weather ; it is a buffer for a railway carriage ; it is a stopping for a hollow tooth ; it is a sheathing for the wire that convei's the electric spark across the channel. It is a cricket ball ; it is a life-boat in the Arctic seas. It is a noiseless curtain-ring ; it is a sanitary water-pipe. It resists the action of many chemical substances, and is thus largely employed for vessels in bleaching and dyeing factories ; it is capable of being moulded into the most efficient materials for multiplying works of ornamental art.

"Tlie collection of gutta percha has given a new stimulus to the feeble industry of the inhabitants of Java, and Sumatra, and Borneo, and a new direction to the commerce of Singapore. It has brought the people of the Indian archipelago into more direct contact with European civilization."'

It is not California alone but the countries and people lying along the whole American coast from Alaska to Chili that are interested in the establishment of a regular and reliable commerce with Asia. Four years ago a commercial news- paper of this State looked forward to the necessities of such an intercourse, and made the following judicious remarks :

"The trade in sill; goods and articles of Chinese manufacture could be indefinitely increased, could

unmanufactured, as in pigs ; do , manufactured, as in bars, rods, tec. ; Lead, in pigs and manufac- tured ; Spelter ; Tin ; do. Plates ; QuicksUver ; Steel, unmanufactured English and Swedish ; Unenu- merated Metals. 31. Nutmegs, 1st sort, or cleaned ; do., 2d sort, or uncleaued. 32. Pearls. 33. Pep- per (Malay). 34. Putchuck. S5. Kattans. 36. Rice, Paddy, and Grain of aU kinds. 37. Rose Maloes. 38. Saltpetre ; sold only to government. 39. Sharks' Fins, 1st sort, or white ; do. do., 2d sort, or black. 40. SUins and Furs, viz. : Cow and Ox Hides, tanned and uutanned ; Sea-Otter ^kins ; Fox Skins, large ; do. do., small ; Tiger, Leopard, and Marten Skins ; LauJ-Otter, Raccoon, and Sharks' Skins; Beaver Skins; Hare, Rabbit, aud Limine Skins, 41. Smalts. 42. Soap. 43. Stockfish, &c. 44. Sea-Horse Teeth. 45. Treasure and Specie of all kinds. 46. Wine, Beer, Spirits, &c. 47. Woods, viz. : Ebony ; Sandal-Wood ; Sapan-Wood ; Unenumerated Woods. 48. Woolen Manufactures, viz. : Blankets of all kinds ; Broadcloths, Spanish Stripes, Habit Cloth.s, &c. ; Long Ells ; Worleys, Flannel, &c. ; Dutch Camlets ; English Camlets ; Imitation Camlets, Bombazetts ; Bunting, narrow ; Unenu- merated Woolen Good.*, Silk and Woolen, Cotton and Woolen Mixtures. 49. Woolen Yarn. Articles of Export from China. 1. Alum. 2. Aniseed Stars ; do. Oil. 3. Arsenic. 4. Bangles, or Glass Armlets. 5. Bamboo Screens, and Ware. 6. Brass Leaf. 7. Building Materials. 8. Bone and Horn Ware. 9. Camphor. 10. Canes of all kinds. 11. Capoor Cutchery. 12. Cassia ; do. Buds ; do. Oil, 13. China Root. 14, Cliiua Ware of all kinds. 15. Clothes, ready made. 16. Copper, Tin, and Pewter Ware. 17. Corals (or False Coral). 18. Crackers and Fireworks. 19. Cubobs. 20. Fans, as Feather Fans, ice. 21. Furniture of all kinds. 22. Galangal. 23. Gamboge. 24. Glass and Gla.<s Ware of all kinds. 25. Glass Beads. 26, Glue, Fish Glue, common, &c. 27. Grass Cloth of all kinds, 28, Hartall, or Orpi- ment. 29, Ivory Ware of all kinds. 30. Kittysols, or Paper Umbrallas. 31, Lackered Ware of all kinds, £2. I>cad, white, S3. Lead, red. 34. Marble Slabs. 3S. Mats, straw, rattan, bamboo, jjc. 36. Mother-of-Pearl Ware. 37. Musk. 38. Nankeens aud Cotton Cloths ; do., coarse Canton. 39. Pictures, viz. : I^arge Oil Paintings; do., Rice-Paper. 40. Paper Fans. 41. Paper of all kinds. 42. PearU (i. e. false Pearls.) 43. Preserves and Sweetmeats. 44. Rattan Work of all kinds. 45. Rhubarb. 46. Silk, raw, Nan-king ; do , Canton ; do., coarse or refuse ; do. Organzine ; do. Thread of all kinds ; do. Ribbons ; Piece Goods ; Satin, 1st and 2d qualities ; Senshaws; .Sarsnets; Pongees; Handkerchiefs; Parsee Scarfs ; Canton CYapes ; Silk Velvet ; Macedonians ; Plain Lutestring ; Striped do. ; Twilled do. ; Plain and Figured Silk ; Gold-figured Paraask ; Embroidered Silk Handkerchiefs ; do. do. Shawls. 47. Silk and Cotton Mixtures, Silk and Woolen Mixtures, and Goods of such class. 48. Shoes and Boots of all kinds. 49. Sandal-Wood Ware. 60. Soy. 51. Silver Ware and Gold Ware. 52. Sugar, raw, white and brown. 63. Sugar Candy of all kinds. 64. Tin-Foil. 55. Tea of all descriptions. 56. Tobacco of all kind.s, 57. Turmeric. 58. Tortoise-SheU Ware, 59. Trunks, of Leather, 60, Treasure (i, e. Foreign Coin). 01. Vermilion.

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traders from Ihe south coast be certain of always finding stocks from ■n-bich to select goods suitable to their wants ; but this will not, cannot be, until houses regularly established keep up constant sup- plies, for up to this time no traffic has been pursued with less system ; and shipments have been so often made at random, by parties on the other side, too often containing large amounts of goods en- tirely unsuited to the wants of the market, causing serious loss to the shippers, that it is not likely these experiments will be again repeated to mucli extent. In a word, this trade will not be developed until capitaUsts have taken the matter in hand, pursuing it steadily and systematically ; and not until then a rich reward awaits them."

The exports from California have been necessarily small to China as to all the rest of the world. They have consisted chiefly of gold, silver, quicksilver, cinna- bar, and a few manufactures. Our harvest has hitherto not been golden corn, but gold itself; not precious grain, cut from the sunny face of the hills, and win nowed with the wind, but more precious grains, dug from their dark interior or from deep ravines, and washed in the cold rushing streams. But the time is coming when we shall have agricultural and manufactured products to return. Until the pre- sent time a much larger number of vessels have crossed the ocean to Asia than from there. Oar clippers have pursued their course westward after landing their cargoes from the Atlantic States and Europe ; from the same cause the farmer and manufacturer in California will always have the advantage of merely nominal freights. And further, the tendency must be to throw the trade into the hands of American vessels. Thus the gigantic marine which has advanced with such amazing progress must by the aid of California, more than any other influence, control more and more the commerce of the whole Eastern world.

AGRICULTURAL AND MANUFACTURING INTERESTS.

By far the most desirable class of occupations for the employment of the Chi- nese laborers in California is in connection with the development of agriculture and the preparation of its proceeds for use by ourselves, and the nations of the East.

First in interest stands cotton. " Cotton is king," in many most important senses. The dress of the lower class in China is universally, in summer and winter, cotton. In summer, .it is but a short glazed frock ; in winter the number of these increases in the same proportion that the degrees of the thermometer diminish. It is often quizzically asked, " Well, /o^-cc, how many jackets cold this morning ? " It has been imported raw in immense quantities from India and America. lu 1842, there were entered at Canton 650,000 pecub (a pecul is a pound and a third); in 1843, 817,668 peculs, of which 578,775 were Bombay, 89,201 Bengal, 141,860 Madras, and 8,832 American. The average importation to China is about 750, 000 peculs, which sells ordinarily at §9 50 a pecul. So this one article draws from the country, annually, §7,125,000. The manufacturers in England have, on the whole, given an emphatic preference to American cotton, notwithstanding the efforts of government to encourage its production in their own territories. And so the Chinese, our merchants report, favor the American article, and its importation is likely to gradually increase. Cotton is a product for which the soil and climate of California appear peculiarly adapted. Three years ago, Major P. B. Reading, if memory serves, made some satisfactory experiments in its culture, upon his farm near Shasta. Within a few weeks past a sample of some grown here was sent to Mobile, for examination. The judgment was most " flattering." It was pronounced " beautiful." The following remarks are made by the editor :

"The cotton came in the bolls as it was picked, is pronounced of excellent qualitj-, is long staple, o^ very strong texture and of silky appearance, and, properly ginned, we are a.ssured, would be worth

12

Jiffeen cents aimund — as cotton now rates — in the Mobile marl%et. ?o pleasetl, inLlec<l, were the cotton men with its appearance, we found it difficult to resist tlieir importunities for samples and seed of it, and retain sufficient to bring back for the inspection of our other friends. It was grown, as our cor- respondent informs us, on a small lot owned by a Louisiana planter, now resident near Sacramento, who has strong confidence that cotton can be raised in the 'Golden State,' and will become a very important article of export. Tlie sample sent us is certainly of very sui)erior quality, and resembles closely a specimen of Brazil cotton, received by us two or three years since through an American gentleman for a time resident in that country.

"If California is capable of producing much of such cotton, the importance of that fact can hardly be over-estimated."

Cotton here comes back to its original cultivators. It was taken from Eastern Asia to Persia and Arabia. The common names of some of its tissues are derived from the Chinese. Nankeen, the ancient capital, is the region from whence the most substantial web has been obtained.

The name of this most valuable species of mallow has been, by some philolo- gists, derived from the Arabic ; but we may look for it, with more probability, in the designation of the district of Khoten, in the western extreme of the Chinese dominions, one of the most ancient and fertile spots in the world. The name is but slightly changed to Kustana, in the venerable Sanscrit of India. The word kat has passed into the Chinese. Marco Polo found cotton and skillful artizans there six hundred years ago. He says, that in the kingdom of Cotan " they have all things in abundance, a large supply of silk, with vineyards and good orchards. They carry on merchandize and manufactures, but are not men-at-arms." It still paj's its tribute to the Emperor in home-grown cotton, and a Chinese geographer states that the plant " covers the fields like yellow clouds.''

The favorite cotton region of China is the alluvial valley of the great Yang- tsze-kiang River, like the Sacramento in its moist, fat soil, and frefpient inunda- tions. However, it is also cultivated in Canton province. I have made inquiries and find there are some in California ■who are acquainted with the process.

Yet this is a department of agriculture which can only be encouraged by liberal inducements, as by grants of the tule lands, and by a legislation that shall en- courage the Chinese to make their homes among us, and impart a sense of security and a hope of permanent advantage. Their past experience has inclined them to only come, rush to our mines, and hasten home with a meagre prize, or in angry disappointment.

But some of the best men in the land shrink from the contemplation of the employment of these people upon the wastes of inviting cotton land in the State, through apprehension of the danger of a gradual debasement of the Chinese into a condition of peonage or slavery. But surely a result so deplorable can be avoided by intelligent and liberal legislation. There is no necessary connection between cotton and slaves. Chinese immigration, indeed, extends a hope of the emancipation of the negro. Towards the employment of their labor, as free, the West India Islands, and the state of the Southern United States, seem now inevitably teud- ino-. Their free labor would be cheaper than their labor as slaves. Ueasonable Southern men proclaim themselves glad to be relieved from the respf)nsibiiities, anxieties, hazards, and manilbld and continued burthens of such " property."* It

* A correspondent of the National Intelligencer, referring to the formation of an English company at New York, for the purpose of importing Cliiue.se to Cuba, says it is "an impression which many have cherished, that Cliinese laborers may at no distant day occupy the place of less productive laborers now employed in our Southern States.

"African slavery has become more and more unproductive, and has gradually been running out in every section of Northern and Southern America. An agitation — most unjustifiable, it is true, yet

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would be a terrible alternative for the Chinese. Better far drive them all out to- morrow, at the point of the sword, than dream of it. But it is safe to say that their present crushing and despotic treatment, by those that fear and would fling them away, this dealing with these unfortunate strangers like brutes, tends towards such a calamity.

The manufactured forms of cotton find a market in China in something like the following quantities :

White long cloths, 200,000 pieces, at ^2.75, amount to ^750,000

Gray " " 600,000 " " 2.90, " "1,740,000

Gray sheetings and drillings,. .. 500,000 " " 2.25, " "1,125,000 To this may be added a few chintzes, muslins and handkerchiefs. At the South the native looms have yielded but slowly before the fabrics of Eastern countries; but great changes are taking place in the whole trade, and American imitations of their own goods have been the most successful.

Now let any one reflect upon the circuitous and expensive routes which Ameri. can cotton must pursue, from the swamps of Georgia, by rivers, railways and oceans, through Lowell or Manchester, to the Hindoo and Chinese " go-downs ;" zigzagging all around the globe ; taxed, and tolled, and tariffed ; insured against the storms of the Antarctic capes and the typhoons of the tropics. The cotton bale in its journey, like sheep among thickets, leaves its fleece to warm the nests of an hundred different birds. Despite all arguments or theories, it seems self-evident, that by some means or other, this most universal and most valuable of all the figments wherewith the human race hide their nakedness, or shield them from the elements, must, in the course of time, be to a large extent grown and manufac- tured in California. Whether we hinder or prosper the issue, whether it be de- layed even till we are laid in our graves, this may be foretold.

The discoveries of coal, as the great pabulum of manufactures, are, in connec- tion with the supply of cotton fabrics to the myriads of the Asiatic continent, invested with superlative interest. And veins of this mineral seem to be opening favorably in various parts of this State and of Oregon.

And, gentlemen, in legislating upon a vast interest like this, it is well to look at the example of other nations. Now, how many of them are competing for the very opportunities, and the very labor, which you are throwing away? Are not England, France and Spain experimenting, making immense outlays, and im- porting this industrious and intelligent people to various colonial possessions? It is not necessary for me to illustrate this now, further than to quote the follow- ing instructive article from a recent number of the London Times :

"The enormous extent to which our cotton manufactures have increased, the exports amounting to between £30,000,000 and £40,000,000 sterling annually, or more than one-third of our total gigantic exports ; the large number of our population dependent on its prosperity for their daily food, and the vast amount of ^Mj^e contributed to the State by this source of industry, may well occasion the most serious alarm on viewing our position with respect to obtaining an unvaried supply of the raw materiaL That these important results are now dependent almost on a single country, and sustained

none the less effective for evil — has been prevailing for years at home and abroad, which is making the system of African slave labor more and more unpleasant and unproductive in our Southern States.

"It may be that, in the orderings of that Providence which is so much more benign and gentle and beneficent than man to his fellows, a gradual introduction of Asiatic laborers is to take the place of the African in our sunny South. Their habits, and the climate and productions of their country, specially fit the Chinese to be hardy and efficient tillers of the soil for Southern planter;, and active and intelligent porters for New Orleans and Charleston merchants."

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by the most precarious and vicious institution in existence — slavery— cannot be refuted. Should, unfortunately, any cause interrupt or deprive us of the American snjiply, Ihe consequences would be most disastrous. Even apart from other possibilities, the rapid extension ef cotton manufactures in the United States must ere long compel us to look for other fields of production, if we expect our re- sources to remain unimpaired, and to maintain the manufacturing predominance of this country.

"My object, however, is not to expatiate on the wealth or extent of our cotton industry, but to show in what way 'an unlimited supply of cotton can be produced at a cheap rate,' independently of any foreign source.

"The various places hitherto suggested for the extension of cotton cultivation — such as India, the West Coast of Africa, the West India Islands, ice, may always be serviceable as an auxiliary supply, but it will never be grown in sufficient quantities to influence the market. By the plan I propose, cotton may be grown so extensively that the short and inferior qualities would be only used in the manufacture of paper, for which there is a great scarcity of material.

"A tropical climate is undoubtedly the indigenous and most suitable one for the production of cot- ton the plant being perennial, and yielding two crops annually ; whereas, in the Southern States of

America the plant is annual, one crop only being produced, which is Uable to injury by the variable- ness of the season. Tlie requisites, therefore, are, to obtain a large tract of land, of adequate fertili- ty, at a nominal value, and a plentiful supply of laborers adapted to a tropical climate, who would work at a moderate rate of wages, and thereby render production as remunerative as slave labor. The great field for obtaining tropical laborers is China (India can also furnish a large number of emigrants). The low rate of wages they obtain in their own country makes them admirably adapted to compete with coerced labor, which they will eventually supersede. The natural disposition of the Chinese to emigrate in search of employment, which they cannot obtain in their own coilntry, is well known ; the 3U"-ar estates in Java, the gold mines of Borneo, &c., being worked principally by Chinese settlers; and even the wilds of Australia and California have long abounded with these enterprising people. In the British and foreign West India colonies and Brazil many have been imported, though the expense of transporting them such a distance is very great.

'• The large island of New Guinea, or one of the adjacent islands to the north of Australia, offers the greatest facilitj- for the establishment of a cotton colony on the grandest scale. With a fertile soil and within a few days' sail of China and India, there can be no doubt the most extensive and rapid colonization would take place, and that in a few years the settlement would become one of the most flourishing in the world.

"The natives of New Guinea are few in number, and lower in the scale of humanity than the abo- rigines of Australia. Existing on the spontaneous productions of the soil, they are now only a prey to the piratical Malays and Oiinese, who sell them for .slaves — a practice which constitutes nearly the ■whole trade carried on with the island. They would, doubtless, with the assistance of our missiona- ries, soon become more civilized, and serviceable for picking cotton, and other descriptions of light work.

" Our exports to China, with its population of 350,000,000, barely exceed those to Cuba, -with its 1,000,000 inhabitants ; and it may naturally he presumed that our trade would be materially increased by the extended intercourse which would result from our finding employment for their enormous surplus population. A large trade with the eastern part of the Indian archipelago would also be de- veloped."

There arc other great agricultural interests concerned in the treatment of the Chinese in California, though none comparable in national and supreme import- ance to that of cotton.

Another great textile export of their Empire is silk. It is an auspicious fact in the consideration of its future production here, that a vigorous native worm, spinning a fine and strong fibre, has been domiciliated in this city within the past few weeks. It has been found to feed upon, not the tender mulberry, but abund- ant local shrubs. The cultivation of silk offers inducements in two directions : first, as an export in some of the numerous webs of which it forms the whole or a constituent part ; second, in the raw state. Raw silk is worth now, in Canton, for the best tsatlee, which is brought from the North, 8510 a bale ; for inferior kinds, from various districts, as low as d'^do a bale. This trade has increased immensely within ten years. In 1845, 10,727 bales were exported to Great Brit- ain ; in 1847, 19,000 ; in 1851, 22,143 ; in 1852, 23,040 ; In 1853, 25,571 ; in 1854, 61,984 ; in 1855, for 11 months, some 8,G40 bales below the previous year.

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In 1849, 35 bales were sent to the United States, from the Northern port of Shanghai, which must be in time the chief point for this expor.. ; in 1852, 298 bales ; in 1854, 1,074 bales. The luxury induced in Europe and America by the gold of California and Australia, has thus been felt in the heart of China. The silk-worm of California may not unlikely furnish an important export, when the laborers are surrounded by peaceful and contented families, and virtuous Chinese females supplant the rotten creatures that have been the first to venture to these distant and strange shores.

There are several Eastern fibres of great value that have never been cultivated in the "West. One of these, the Chinese chu-ma, (Boehmeria nivea) or, " snowy nettle." The pearly " grass-cloth" handkerchiefs, and webs like linen, are made from this plant. It is seen over the whole East, from Siam to Japan. Besides its beauty, it is of great strength. While clean untwisted fibres of Petersburgh hemp sustained 160 pounds, this broke with from 250 to 343 pounds. In fineness it is superior to hemp. Great attention has been given to it very recently by Eng- lish botanists, with a view to its cultivation in ludia, Assam, Borneo, and other colonies. It is so easily grown as to be used by fishermen for nets.

Several other individuals of the nettle family are described by Dr. Royle. The pine-apple, cocoanut husk, several kinds of palm, of mallows, (to which cotton belongs) and the remarkable " Nepal paper plant" are all used in Chiua and the neighboring countries for cordage or the loom. The latter was introduced to Bhoo- tan from China some five centuries ago, and Dr. Campbell says it makes a paper "as strong and durable as leather almost, and quite smooth enough to write on, and for ofSce records incomparably better than any India paper." And some of these materials are applied to other uses, such as matting or carpet for the floor, foot or door mats, stuffing for beds, and brushes.

The numerous alimentary gifts in the power of the ancient Oriental world to confer upon our agriculture and horticulture the present opportunity will not allow me even to name. Rice is one of the most important — which supplies the princi- ple nourishment and beverages of two-thirds of the inhabitants of the globe. The cultivation of this article, and of sugar, have been abundantly urged in our public prints.

Tea, the delightful herb, " that cheers, but not inebriates," may yet find a home on our side. This seems probable for several reasons. The first is the distracted state of the empire that has hitherto been its almost sole nursery. A commercial circular of Messrs. Nye & Co. of Canton just received, states that teas must, for a considerable period, command prices greatly in advance of the old standards. It says :

" First, we have to regard the producing country, the only one in that category. China ; and we may say, without any extravagance of language, that we find it paralyzed and well nigh exhausted by Revolution at its core, and Rebellion in all its borders ; the peaceful pursuits of industry and com- merce having only a precarious existence. Concurrently and consequently, we find the production of Tea lessened and its quality deterioriated, the change in the latter respect foreshadowing the former change, while its full extent is not perceptible to superficial observers. * * * Here, at Canton, prices for Congou Tea have, by a gradual rise during four years, reached 100 per cent, advance on the prices of 1S51-C2 ; and even with this rise there is no amount of desirable, shipping qualities, — while the discouragement to new business in Tea ever^- native, as well as every foreigner, declares is greater than ever before. At Shanghae. the deficiency of desirable Black Teas is proportionably as great as here ; and we see there ruling this year, as they did last, the same unfavorable rates of exchange, — of 6s. id. (a) Os. 8d. per dollar, — whilst there can be no hope of material amelioration in it so long as the import trade is depres.sed by the Revolution, that being at the point where the settlement of the large Raw Silk trade is effected.

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" In the writer's experience of more than twenty years in the China trade, there never hare been similar vaUd reasons for a high scale of prices in the consuming countries, former periods having furnished causes which were temporary and uncertain, though justly regarded as important with ref- erence to this peculiar product of but one country. We have now, on the contrary, reached a point far beyond the domain of doubt and conjecture, where we can look back and look forward understaud- ingly ; and where, viewing the question wholly irrespective of any speculatively based reasons, and judging of it merely by ascertained results, the natural and sure process of causes which must be con- sidered as of a permanent nature, we can indicate with confidence, as the vital necessity for the pre- servation of the Tea trade, a materially advanced scale of prices in the consuming countries. Whether this will prove to be a remedy is another question, for the same speculative reasons which gave the impulse to prices in 1S53 still remain, superadded to the already obvious effects of the Revolution, nor are there wanting indications of aggravated difficulties in the interior ; and, in addition to all reasons hitherto alluded to, we are now in a position to intimate a very important new financial scheme of this Government, the particulars of which we are not at hberty to disclose, whose effect will surely be to obstruct and diminish the export for at least a year or two to come."

A second reason is the encouraging success of the English experiments in their Indian colonies. Bayard Taylor says :

"The introduction of the tea culture into India is an interesting experiment — if, indeed, it can still be considered an experiment. The Government, within the past len j"ears, has devoted much atten- tion to it. All the principal varieties of the tea plant have been imported, experimental gardens laid out, at different points in the Himalayas, from Assam to the north-western frontier of the Punjaub, and Cliinese workmen procured to teach the preparation of the leaves. Mr, Fortune, whose travels in China, on his mission to effect these objects, have excited considerable notice, had been dispatched a third time to that country, to procure fi"esh supplies of plants and workmen. The tea plant was first introduced into Assam, a district next to Bengal, and lying on the Brahmapootra river. A com- pany was formed about fifteen years ago, for the cultivation and manufacture of tea ; but, through ignorance and inexperience, it was for some time a losing concern. At present, however, it has so far succeeded as to produce 300,000 pounds of tea, and to pay 10 per ceut. annually to the company. The experimental gardens in the northern and western parts of the Himalayas have been established more recently, and the natives are now beginning to take up the cultivation of the plant."'

Thirdly, a number of people in our country have been exploring the capacities of the plant. I have received a number of applications for information in regard to it; the last from Clatsop Plains in Oregon, the previous one from Southern Cali- fornia.

Dr. Junius Smith of Greenville, S. C, in 1850, attempted the cultivation of tea. He says, " Although the winter has been rather severe, and the spring remarkably cold and wet, and protracted a month later than it was last year, yet the same laws which govern the plant in China, Java, and India, govern it here. Not a single deficiency in my small garden ; every plant had taken effective root, and early in April the leaf-buds came out in great profusion, all standing Irom the foot of the old leaf-stalk. * * * I could now gather a sufficient quantity of leaves to make a small supply of first-rate tea." He argues that the tea possesses a rich and pre- cious aroma that cannot be preserved through a long voyage, which requires in that case a firing and roasting that destroys its finest qualities. He adds, '• we have abundance of fine, cheap, land; with all the diversity of soil, climate, and as- pect that the plant can require." The Chinese interior and ocean carriage will be saved. '"With all these exclusive privileges in our hands, if we do not cultivate our own tea, then I think we ought to be tributary to those who call us barbarians."

It seems to me then a probability that with kind treatment, the patient develop- ment of their knowledge, and especially with the gradual introduction of their wives and children, California may become a tea-producing State. Its topographic advantages cannot be excelled. And I see no inseparable obstacle. AVe need but willingness to wait.

There is a great variety of inferior, but valuable products of the soil — of

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vegetables, fruits and flowers — that will hereafter cast their seed upon the cur- rent that flows hitherward from that old continent ; but my present purpose does not call for their specification. The class of oleiferous nuts and seeds is one of great usefulness. The fa-shang, or pea-nut, has already been tried in the tule land near Stockton. The vine flourishes vigorously there, and produces an abundant crop. It will be remembered that most of the common lamp oil of the Chinese, which burns nearly as brightly, though not so long as sperm, and is used largely now in our families, is expressed from this nut. It can be furnished now from China at fully one-third lower rates than sperm. Or notice might be taken of the capabilities of the bamboo, which aeems to me calculated to meet some great wants of the farmers on the plains and unwooded hills. It is employed in various parts of the world for fences, grows rapidly in brakes, and affords a nutritious food, when young, to cattle. There are many very different varieties, unlike in color, size and wood, and adapted to many valuable purposes. Poles, ropes, furniture, tubes, paper, cups, and a thousand useful and ornamental things are made out of the bamboo. It is really hard to say to what purposes this most serviceable of all the gifts of nature may not be applied.

But I did not propose to offer a treatise on agriculture, or floriculture, or arboriculture ; only to indicate a few of the priceless advantages to be procured for these departments of a people's solid opulence and independence, by treating with consideration that waif of a strange stock, and generation, that this bound- less new ocean, on whose shores we have come to make our half-built homes, casts among the sand at our feet.*

* It is with great pleasure I refer to the intelligence and spirit which have characterized the agri- cultural adTancemeut* of California. The Alta California says :

"The ENecutive Committee of the California State Agricultural Society held a meeting recently in San Jose, and decided upon a list of premiums to be awarded at the next State Agricultural and In- dustrial Exliibition, which is to be held in San Jose on the 7th of October next. A number of good premiums are offered, with the object of encouraging the experimental production of articles which it is hoped, may become staples in California, but which have not yet been fairly tested here on any ■ thing like a large scale. In this class of premiums are the following :

For the best acre of cotton $75

' ' second best acre of cotton 2.5

" best acre of tobacco 75

" second best acre of tobacco 25

" best acre of hemp 75

" second best acre of hemp 25

' ' best acre of sugar-cane 75

" second best acre of sugar-cane 25

" best acre of rice 150

' ' second best acre of rice 50

" best fifty pounds of sugar manufactured from any California product prom- ising to be profitable 50

" second best do do do d« 20

" best five pounds of sewing-silk 50

" second best five pounds of sewing-silk 25

" best exhibit of silk cocoons 25

" second best exhibit of silk cocoons 15

"Premiums are also offered for basket willow, starch, letter or printing and wrapping paper. If these premiums will have the effect to incite our agriculturists to give the above articles of produce a fair trial, much good will result to our State. If it can be proven experimentally that the immense tule marshes, now lying as waste lands on the borders of the San Joaquin and Sacramento river.?, can be made available in the culture of rice, valueless as they are now, they will at once assume an agri- cultural importance, and we have here the Chinese population, just the men to be employed in work- ing them. The cultivation of rice, we believe, has never been tried here, even on a small scale, nei- ther has sugar-cane, both of which are enumerated in the above list. Cotton of a very superior quality has been raised, in the vicinity of Sacramento, as has tobacco also. Hemp has, we believe, teen grown in very small quantities."

2

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TRAXSPORTIXG INTEREST.

The Chinese on landing in San Francisco usually remain there but a few days. The permanent residents in the city do not number above a few hundreds. They then proceed by the steamers to Sacramento, Stockton, Marysville, and other points on the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. They are guided very much by the information and opinions of those who have been in the country longest, and had most experience here in the mines. And it may be remarked that their deference to those in whom they find they can confide is one of the most remarkable traits in their character.

The amount of pecuniary benefit derived by steamers, sailing vessels, stages, wagons, and such conveyances of passengers and goods by land and water, can scarce be computed. On the river steamers they have travelled by hundreds on a single vessel, particularly during the periods when their direct immigration has been most large. Allowing each individual in the fifty-three thousand arrivals and twelve thousand departures but a single trip at seven dollars, and each of these here one downward and upward trip during their residence till now, which will not seem too great on the whole, since many of them make repeated jouruies in a single year, and we see this interest during the past few years benefitted over a million of dollars in passage money. The imported from their own land, and the American groceries, clothing, and other merchandize, consumed by them annually would pay towards the sailing and steam vessels, in freight, fully in proportion to their com- parative population. They drayage in cities and towns has come in for its share of support. I have made some inquiries as to the profits of wagoners and stages. A gentleman well acquainted with the former business in Sacramento tells me " the Chinamen employ on an average about fifty teams. The amount of loads per mouth is about three hundred and twenty. I think the loads average forty dollars each. The stages probably carry out and in to the city about sixteen Chinamen per day ; they pay from five to ten dollars each. The amount of goods they buy here is difficult to give any kind of an estimate, but at least many thousand dollars." If we understand the calculation, these teamsters have a rev- enue of twelve thousand eight hundred dollars a month, or a hundred and fifty- three thousand six hundred dollars annually. A Marysville merchant estimates the number of teams employed there, not alone by Chinese freights, but also in merchandize for their use, as at least " twenty-five to thirty a week." This, for for twenty-five a week, would amount, at the rate given above, to fifty thousand dollars a year. These facts afi'ord some ground of conjecture as to the amounts that reach this hard-working class, whose employment brings them to all parts of the mining region. And there are some, we are informed, who have become rich through the profits derived from Chinese customers.

INTEREST OF MINING AND LABORING POPULATION.

We will now suppose the Chinese immigrants to have made their way into the interior towns, up into the gulches, and to occupation in mining and labor of various kinds. As far as we have considered the question, most persons would agree with the truth of what has been said ;— but here there spring up some objections. These we would treat with respect. Some have made them in the mere spirit of captiousness and bad temper. But it is natural that our novel

19

and most peculiar state of society ; their twanging and guttural sounds, without the remotest analogy to the sonorous and flexible language that rolls from our throats ; their shy and timid habits ; their industry, even when all others were lying by; and the offensiveness of their vices, should create impressions unfavor- able to them and dislike to their presence, even among some of the best men. The wiser would of course reflect that there must be a commixture of good peo- ple and bad ones among them ; that evil as well as good must come from their presence ; that the evils would be first manifested, and that the advantages would be more slow ; that they must be understood to be fairly judged ; that they could not be expected to be patterns of morality, where they were surrounded by so many temptations and examples to the contrary. And, again, the Christian would look upon them with a pitiful heart. But still, it was not strange that the mul- titude were against them.

The objections may be classed under two heads : — First, that these strangers are of no pecuniary benefit to California ; that they interfere with American labor ; and that they carry nearly all they make out of the country. Second, that their vices make them dangerous to our people, and to our posterity.

Now, let us meet these difiSculties fairly ; and first, as to their profitableness, not alone to the commercial interest, in their transit, and to the agriculturist prospectively, but in their present employments, and as they are.

It is assumed that there are about forty thousand men, and a couple of thou- sand women, in the State. It is assumed that full three-fourths of the men are miners, and no allowance will be made for the nec^sary outlays of the women.

FOREIGN miners' LICENSES.

The income from the Chinese about which most has been said in our newspapers is that from " foreign miners' licenses." The report of the Comptroller of State, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1855, estimated the half coming to the State treasury during the next year, at ^150,000. The last report estimates that for the year ending June, 1856, at $160,000. The Hon. Messrs. Crenshaw and Nor- man, in a committee report to the last Legislature, stated that " the whole num- ber of foreign miners' licenses issued to the mining counties in this State, for the year 1854, was 103,1-40, worth $412,560." And yet the actual receipts acknowl- edged fall below even these estimates. The question is, what have the Chinese probably paid ? I confess myself dissatisfied with the apparent result. The irregularities in official reports, and the acknowledged deficits of several of the Collectors, still do not come up to the estimates of merchants, miners, the Chi- nese themselves, and the presumption in the case. Allowing full ten thousand, which seems a liberal proportion — one-fourth of the Chinese — to be engaged in other employments ; then granting that but two out of three are at work, that is, one-third of the miners sick, traveling, or unemployed ; and we still have twenty thousand subject to the tax. Grant but the half of the miners employed, and there are still fifteen thousand. And yet, at four dollars a month for the license, (though it was six dollars the last quarter,) the sum of three hundred thousand dollars would show collections to have been made last year from but six thousand two hundred and fifty. One cannot conceive how the labor of six thousand working miners can support some twenty-four thousand men in this costly State. Most certainly it is within the power of the State, without oppression, and at the rate of four dollars per month, at least to double its present

20

income from this source ; and the counties of course share proportionably with any reform there malj' be in this department. It is needless to attempt an esti- mate of the aggregate income to the various treasuries from a variety of taxes> licenses and assessments, the sum of which is considerable, and helps to that extent to sustain the local ofBcers and aid public improvements.

INTEREST OF LANDED PROPERTY.

The amount paid for rents, and for mining claims, is an immense sum ; higher, in proportion to the value of the property obtained, than by any other people. It is beyond more than a vague conclusion. The following estimate, from the best evidence I can obtain, affords some basis for calculation. There are in

San Francisco, about 30 houses, averaging §120 per month, in all, §3,600

40 " " 100 ". " 4,000

" " " 60 " " 60 " " 3,600

'' " storage, say, : 2,000

Total, §13,200

Sacramento, 50 houses, averaging §60 per month, in all, 3,000

Marysville, 20 " " 50 " " 1,000

Stockton, 8 " " 40 " " 320

Auburn, 30 " " 40 " " 1,200

Jackson, 20 " " 30 " " 600

Monthly total, .§19,320

Annual total in the six places, §231,840

There are many towns and camps through the country, where three, five or ten houses, it would be found on inquiry, are rented, for various sums, to Chinese. At first mention it may seem questionable, yet possibly the entire income from rents and leases, in all parts of the State, might prove to be half a million a year. This must be acknowledged, however, to be only a conjecture.

MINING CLAIMS AND IMPLEMENTS.

In addressing gentlemen, many of whom are from the mining districts, it is needless to say that their superior knowledge will find some of the estimates un- der the following heads, placed too high, others too low. Yet, I will endeavor to follow such light as I have been able to obtain from personal visits, conversa- tions, and the newspapers of the State.

To get an idea of the ordmary expenditures, let us notice, first, the amount of money invested in claims. "We may hear of as much as §1,500, or more, having been paid by a company of Chinamen, though such instances are rare ; but §300, or §500, is often given for ground that is worked out in a few weeks. It has been considered not an exaggerated estimate, that twenty thousand, or two-thirds of the mines, would pay four dollars a month, the same amount as the license, on this score. Yet this would make an aggregate, of eighty thousand dollars a month, when we count up all that are scattered over the State. However, lest even this be objected to, let us include under that head the outlays for water, which is rated often at two dollars a day. Add for mining tools, sheet-iron, lumber, canvas for tents, leather, and other expenses connected with mining and shelter, six dollars a month. These items, in some I'espects the most important connected with their labor, amount to two million, four hundred thousand dollars

21

in the year. Some of the most experienced American miners say that the Chi- nese lay out as much money for these articles as themselves; and that amount would, in this case, certainly not seem a large estimate.

BOARDING AND PROVISIONS.

In the towns the Chinese indulge in a greater variety of food ; while in the mountains many articles are more expensive. They think three dollars a week, say twelve dollars a month, a low calculation. This is a hundred and forty-four dollars a year for the whole number. A large share of this goes to butchers and farmers in the mines, and to our own traders.

CLOTHING AND BEDDING.

The immigrants bring always a chest of clothes and a bundle of bedding. But the amount of these articles is small, so that in a year or so you may notice American pants, then shirts, then coats and caps or hats. Servants, and a few merchants, dress in good broadcloth — some quite handsomely. Many purchase watches, and a less number rings, fanciful studs or buttons, and other jewelry. Allow, however, for pantaloons, shirts, coats, and caps or hats, thirteen dollars in the year. For blankets and other articles of household use, say seven dollars a year.

BOOTS AND SHOES.

But the first thing our friend John mounts, is a pair of the largest boots he can find. Working in the water, they sometimes knock out a pair in a month. These cost them three to five dollars the pair. They complain of this outlay as one of the heaviest to which they are subject. Put down boots at a lower figure than some of them sanction, and say, for boots, and also shoes, which are worn about the camp slipshod, twenty dollars a year.

Eight dollars a year would certainly not cover miscellaneous expenses.

Eeckon up these items, connected with mountain life and labor, and we may be surprized to find the result. And yet that result might be shown by more complete information to be much below the truth. It is —

For mining claims, implements and water, ^2,400,000

" boarding 5,760,000

" clothing 800,000

" boots and shoes 800,000

" miscellaneous items 320,000

Total ordinary outlays .$10,080,000

THEIR SMALL PROFITS.

It is the opinion of some of our citizens that the Chinese spend but little here, and carry the larger part of the proceeds of their labors home to China. But after the fullest inquiry among themselves and our people I am satisfied this is not correct. Their claims are the poorest, and there are many draughts upon them for licenses, taxes, assistence of their poor countrymen, their companies, charitable purposes, &c. ; they meet with many losses from robberies, ignorance, and in other ways, so that but few send or carry back any large amounts.

THEY SPEND FREELY.

It it the testimony of the most reliable merchants in the countrv, that no idea

22

concerning the Chinese is more incorrect than that they live on the meanest diet, and that almost wholly imported from China. They are very economical, and are sharp traders ; yet the statement is repeatedly made, in the mines, with an air of truth, that the Chinese live even better than any other people; that they yield more to animal gratifications ; and indulge in feasts, some of them celebrations of religious or national holidays, others mere convivial occasions with friends. And when these occur they appear wholly regardless of expense, paying several dollars for a single fowl. They are fond of neat and rich, but not gaudy dress, and not a few sport costly gold watches and ornaments.

EMPLOYED BY MINERS.

The practical miners are not only profited by the purchases of claims, and the sums paid to their hydraulic companies, but also by the employment of the Chi- nese to work as hands. In some portions of the State, the Chinese are exclu- sively employed in this, preferring to work at reasonable steady rates rather than be subjected to the expenses, uncertainty, and difiSculties connected with holding claims of their own.

"In El Dorado county, says the Mountain Democrat, they rarely interfere with the miners. They generally work in old deserted claims, where they cannot realize more than from two to three dollars a day, and seldom this much. When they get a good claim they buy it and pay liberally for it. Business in some of the small mining camps in our county would be wholly suspended during the summer months were it not for them. They are content to work laboriously for two dollars a day, and work claims which no others would. They make good hands, and are frequently hired by the miners. AYe have heard but little com- plaint against them by the miners, and the feeling which at first existed against them, and which was greatly exaggerated, is fast wearing away. They are a sober, quiet, industrious, inoffensive class of men, and, in our opinion, are a great benefit to our county. They pay annually into our treasury, for licenses alone, from sixty to eighty thousand dollars — a sum we cannot afford to lose. They pay our merchants promptly for every article they buy. They attend to their own business, and are rarely engaged in brawls. The mines they work would be un- productive were it not for them, being too poor to pay others for working them. "Where is the miner in our county who would toil from ' early morn till dewy eve ' for two dollars a day, with no prospect of obtaining more? A Chinaman will do it cheerfully, but other miners will not. For the last year but few of them have worked on their own account, being principally hired by miners."

COREOBORATION OF THESE GENERAL STATEMENTS.

To place this branch of the subject in the clearest light possible, I have ob- tained the opinions of intelligent friends, resident in the mountains, or having ex- tensive dealings and intercourse with the Chinese there.

The first is a letter from a gentleman whose employment leads him to travel through the length and breadth of the State, and to become acquainted with all classes of men. He says :

"At your request I present you in brief my views respecting the Chinese in our country, that most unfortunate and least appreciated class of foreigners, with whom we are here brought into contact. Now, in the cities are seen the very worst specimens of them; but in my travels through the different parts of the mining

23

regions of California since '49, and especially during the past nine months, in frequent journeys extending from the head waters of the Feather to the Mer- ced, I can say decidedly I believe, that among the American mining pojDulatiou there is no other class of foreign miners who do not speak our language, who sustain as high a character for industry, honesty, and direct patronage of Amer- ican productions and enterprise. I have often enquired of merchants as to their business with the Chinese, and almost always been answered that their trade was very extensive and important ; that while they consume large quantities of im- ported provisions from China, yet that they purchase much that is A.merican, often even that which is most expensive, even luxuries such as chickens, eggs, fresh meats in cans, pork, even when it might be twice as dear as beef, melons, fruit, &c.; that the Chinese would purchase when the expense was such as to deter Americans, for the Chinese would have what they wanted, cost what it may. They are generally free from drunkenness, quarrels, and lazy habits which charac- terize many others in the mines, and labor faithfully, satisfied when none others will work. I have just called upon an agent of the California Stage Company in this place, and was told by him that, to the best of his judgment, taking all their stage routes together, full one-quarter of their passengers during the last year had been Chinese ; that they patronize public conveyances in proportion to their numbers more than Americans. I find, also, that the Chinese are often employed as cooks, and are very well spoken of as such, as also in other kindred occupations. They seem almost to be universally respected among the mining and laboring portion of the inhabitants. I can say decidedly, I believe, that among the working classes in the mountains, they are truly considered as worthy of much regard, and the strong feeling is that they ought not to be taxed as high as they are; that they ought to have legal protection from those who rob and steal from them, even to murdering them, for they have no redress un- less an American is witness to the deed, and comes in with the law to their relief; and that their oath ought to be allowed in legal tribunals, at least so far that a jury or court might, if it judged best, receive their testimony. I am strongly of opinion that the opposition to the Chinese arises from prejudice, and not from their interfering with any American interests; and is almost entirely confined to the unproducing class in our country — to gamblers, loafers, liquor dealers, &c. If the question should be proposed to the working miners, not shall we encourage other Chinese to come here, for this might not be best, but shall we protect and encourage, aid and benefit those who are already now here, equally with the Spanish and other foreigners who do not speak our languao-e ? their almost unanimous reply would be decidedly, Tes ; for they equally benefit us, are equally worthy of respect, and have equally a right to protection ; let their present onerous tax be reduced, and their oath be allowed, so as to have redress against those who steal, rob and extort from them, even to murdering them in many cases."

The following is a letter from an influential merchant in the city of Marys- ville :

" It is impossible for me to give an accurate estimate of the amount of goods sold in this city to Chinamen. I have conversed with several of the mountain merchants, and they give it as their opinion that more than three-fourths of their sales to Chinamen are for American products. Almost every merchant in the mines has more or less Chinese trade, and a good many of them are dependent al- most entirely on them for their business. The following are the kind of goods,

24

provisions, etc., they consume the most of : potatoes, cabbage, pork, chickens, flour, and almost every article of vegetables raised in this State — they buy cloth- ing, shoes, boots, blankets, American brandy, whiskey, gin, hams, beans, lard, codfish, lobsters, and almost every article of American production to some extent. As they become Americanized, the demand for American products increases with them. Their trade is valuable, being almost entirely cash. They are generally prompt in meeting their contracts. They are shrewd and close dealers, but spend their money freely for luxuries and comfort — it is said when a Chinaman does not live well it is because he has not the money to procure such as he would like. The Chinamen say that the estimate is made that they spend iu the country seven- tenths on an average of all the money they make. Dealers with them iu the mines are of the opinion their estimate is nearly correct; that is, of those I have conversed with. There are about twelve or fifteen teams on an average per week leaving this city with loads for Chinese merchants in the mines. Tliis I should think is about correct, but the amount taken out by American merchants to supply their Chinese trade is a great deal more. To say the amount is equal, it would give employment to twenty-five or thirty teams per week, which I think is under the actual number. Look at our public conveyances, and you will see them generally crowded with Chinamen — for a Chinaman was never known to walk when there was any chance to ride. Many of the stage routes could not be sustained were it not for them. They are fond of travelling, and do not remain long in one place. From these hints you can draw your own estimates. I am pleased to learn that some steps are about to be taken to endeavor to get the exhorbitant and unjust tax reduced; and have no doubt, could the people vote on the subject, a large ma- jority would decide against the present tax."

Mr. S , a butcher in the Southern mines, says : " I often sell as much as

four hundred weight of beef a day to the Chinamen, and charge them sixteen to twenty cents a pound. They hardly ever ask for it for less if they are treated fairly and get good weight. I liked them very much as a people, and used to befriend them in many of their troubles, in which they used to always come to me.

They preferred pork, even at twenty-five cents a pound. I have sold iu one day as high as fourteen hogs, averaging seventy-five pounds each. They will pay as high as a dollar a pound for nice dried sausage. They are very fond of fowls, and buy a great many. For a large one they pay two dollars, the general price now is about a dollar and a half. But I have sold a fat chicken at three dollars and a half, for a feast. They like fiish too, whenever they can be got, and use dried or salt fish daily.

As for the clothes they buy, I would rather have a trade with them than with white people. Small stocks will do, and they are not so particular about fits. It is a great advantage to men that have not much capital to trade with. The profits are greater than on finer goods. They use most of the articles we do, and like to dress well on particular occasions. They wear not only flannel shirts, but check also, and a good many French prints.

The general articles they use are profitable. There is as much made on liquors sold them as almost anything else. Men put on them shameful mean stuff; and they alw.iys keep liquor in the camp, and they use it at their meals. They like a milder tobacco, — get a considerable amount of American tobacco, and shave it down, to smoke, and make little cigaritas. They have just as good tents, every bit, as other people, and use a great deal of drilling and canvas for hose.

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The Chinamen are the best customers the stages have. They never ask for passage free, and pay down without trouble. Nearly every good citizen in this country would vote to keep them here, and in fact takes their part when they get into difficulty. They are amoner the quietest and best we have."

We have the following testimony that the Chinese use all kinds of American groceries and merchandize, from a gentleman engaged in heavy business :

"The principal articles purchased by the Chinese population, in my line of business, take a very wide range, embracing nearly all those in use amongst our general population. I have found the Chinese particularly prompt in fulfilling their engagements with me, both in sales and purchases, and I have transacted a comparatively large amount of business with them. I find, on reference to my book, that the articles most permanent in my sales are, salt fish, pork, lard, salt, liquors, flour, tea, sardines, preserved meats, raisins, olive oil, maccaroni and ver- micelli, paper and matches, together with a variety of other articles that are either the product of American industry, or pay a large profit in the way of trade."

An auctioneer in San Franciseo, who sells daily to Chinese customers, writes that " butter " is the only article, to his knowledge, that they do not buy.

" Being engaged in the provision trade in the city of San Francisco since 1850, we say with pleasure, that we have had a fair proportion of the Chinese trade. They use the luxuries, or we may say danties of life, in a greater profusion than our own countrymen, being, as a general thing, extremely fond of good living, and sparing no expense to attain it. They are consumers of every variety of mer- chandize, with one exception. Butter is an article not used by them, but no doubt will be as they become used to our manners and customs."

The North Californian, a spirited paper published in Oroville, Butte county, gives us a specimen of what we frequently of late have seen uttered by the press of the mountain districts :

" As we have once said, so do we now repeat, that we are ready to sanction any honorable measure to prevent our country from being overrun with fresh hordes of Asiatics, but while we are willing to do this, we protest against the application of the rack and thumb-screw to the poor and unassuming Mongolians now unavoidably among us.

" For two years past, a very large portion of the gold taken from the mines has been the product of Chinese labor ; and the traders in mining localities can attest that a very small portion of this has ever been carried out of the country, the assertions of city editors to the contrary notwithstanding. Chinese labor has literally kept alive the trade of most of the mining towns during the past season. The richer mines — all claimed or owned by the whites — have been poorly supplied with water ; little work has been done, and little gold has therefore been drawn from that quarter ; but all the time the patient and plodding Johns are delving among the rocks and ravines of the foot-hills — in places where a white man would starve, rather than work in at all — packing water in buckets to rock out their six bits a day to buy their daily provender, and pay the tax gatherer for the poor privilege of working.

" John Chinaman always has a little money ; because he must and will work, whether he earns much or little. He must have cash or starve, for he can't get trusted for his food, and so he comes ' down with the dust.' In this way, and by means of the oppressive tax which he pays for the privilege of laboring, he con- tributes more to sustain trade, and to support a government which refuses him 2*

26

the least protection, than many worse specimens of humanity of a more favored race, who affect to sneer at him as being no better than a beast. ' Let justice be done thou2:h the heavens should fall,' and let it be done to John Chinaman."

The Empire County Argus presents the following views, which are Important as speaking the sentiments of people in one of our heaviest mining counties ; and they have been repeatedly expressed by some of the most intelligent and influen- tial men from other parts of the mining region :

" If foreigners are to be excluded from the mines at all, let the sweep be universal — excluding every tongue and nation, in the absence of full and complete papers of naturalization .

"We doubt the policy of excluding the Chinese, even, as well as other foreigners, from the mines. Such a procedure will appear like a violation of good faith. The policy of the State and General Gov- ernments, hitherto, has been to encourage the immigration of people from all coun tries. This has been done with the implied if not direct promise of equal privileges. All that should now be done is, to impose an effectual check upon an obnoxious immigration, and not violate good faith with people already within our borders. It is well to remembar, that to exclude the Chinese from our mineral lands will deprive the State of one great source of revenue, besides throwing a large class from one locality, where they now earn their living, into another portion of the State, where their presence is now comparatively unknown. Nothing can be gained on the score of public policy, by removing a, nuisance from one parallel of latitude to another. The ide» of excluding the Chinese from the mines, under penalties to be enforced by the sale of their claims and effects, is sheer nonsense. In ninety- nine cases out of every hundred, their claims and entire collection of wares would not sell under execution for a dime. Being forbidden to work in the mmes, no title to their claims would follow a sale, and their goods are notoriously of no value wh.atever except to themselves. Hence, with a pro- vision onlj' of this kind, they could and would repeat the offence daily, of extracting gold, with im- punity. Besides, a course of this kind would require ten thousand sheriffs, to look up and punish the celestial offenders.

" Again, we would like to know why a citizen of the State, engaged in mining, would not have just as good a right to hire foreigners ineligible to citizenship to work for him in the mine§, as an agricul- turist has to employ him in cultivating vegetables. We are of the number who believe the Legisla- ture of this State has no power whatever to make a distinction of the kind ; and furthermore, the miners of this State will not permit a distinction of the kind to exist.

" In point of revenue derived from foreigners. El Dorado count3- is an example. This county to-day is out of debt, and has in her treasury a respectable amount of cash, in the shape of an available surplus. Had it not been for the foreign miners' tax collected in this county within the past two years, we should now have been wofully in debt, with our scrip selling at thirty and forty cents on the dollar — unless, forsooth, the rate of taxation had been doubled on our citizens.

"Within the fifteen months ending Jan. 3d, 1855, our county treasury has

Received from foreign miners $41,134 87

Receipts in State treasury, from same source 41,1 34 87

Offlcers collecting this revenue have received for their services 32,3f 2 40

Balance somewhere, but unaccounted for 947 86

Total collections for fifteen months $115,580 00

'■Send the Chinese out of El Dorado and the mines generally, and our citizens will have $35,000 to $40,000 per annum to pay out of their own pockets, instead of deriving it from the labor of Cliina- men, as uow. Besides this, four or five tax-collectors will be, in the aggregate, out and injured to the tune of $30,000 per annum. Meantime, the State treasury will be loser in the game in the snug sum of about $150,000 per annum, from the several mining counties."

ILLUSTRATION — CHINESE CAMP.

As an illustration of the advantages of the settlement of Chinese in any given mining locality, let us adduce the case of " Chinese Camp," Tuolumne county. And no doubt many could be furnished equally satisfactory. A gentleman there has compiled for my use the following complete and interesting exhibit :

"Firstly, Giinese Camp and Montezuma City, three miles distant, have been established and grown up into fine towns through the influx of Chinese. The principal portion of the houses, in the most business portion of the town, are rented from Americans resident there. The number of houses thus occupied, and the names of the parties from whom they are obtained, I give below. It is con- •idered best to furnish these definitely, as some might otherwise doubt the verity of the statement.

27

I am personally acquainted with the proprietors of the houses, together with their names. I also furnish the number of houses, and the rate per month. When I told the wealthiest merchant in the township, a few days ago, the large amount paid by the Chinese for rents alone, he could not be- lieve it until 1 showed him the list of houses. He was amazed, and exclaimed to me ' why that is more than the benefits, or rather the profits, on all trade, mercantile and mechanical, in the town- ship ; ' and he remarked tome ' if it were not for Chinamen here we'd shut up shop; business would be too slack for one half the people here.' The following is the list referred to :

Messrs. Cobb & Co., 1 house, monthly rent $50 00

" Miller & Co., 1 " " " 25 00

Mr.Miller, 1 " " " 25 00

Mr. Martin, 1 " " " 65 00

Mr. Feltner, 1 " " " 65 00

Mr. Holraan, 1 " " " 65 00

Messrs. Buck is Co., 1 " " " 135 00

Dr Sill, 1 " " " 25 00

Mr. Johnson, 2 " " " 50 00

Mr. Graham, 1 " " " 25 00

Messrs. Raymond & Co., 1 " " " 125 00

Mr. Gooding, 2 " " " 105 00

Mr. Goodridge, 1 " " " 40 00

Mr. Boynton, 1 " " " 15 00

Mr. Danielson, 1 " " " ")

Mr. Smith, 1 " " " V 120 00

Mr. Brown, 1 " " " J

IN MorrEzujiA cnr, as follows :

Mr. A. Sampson, 1 " " " $30 00

Mr. Toomy, 1 " " " 12 00

Messrs. Brown & Co., 1 " " " 40 00

" " " 1 " " " , .... 35 00

Total paid for rents there, monthly, $1,042 00

Or, in annual amount, $12,504 00

"Then as for their mining, look at what becomes of its proceeds. First, |there are about six hundred of them mining in the township. Admitting that five hundred of them pay the monthly tax of S6 each, they help the revenue to the County, State and collectors to the amount of $3000 a month, or $36,000 a year. They have paid heavy sums to the Hydraulic Companies for the water t!iey used to mine with ; thus, in Montezuma and Belvedere Flats there are at the least calculation from fifty to seventy long toms that pay $2 daily, which would rate over SlOO per diem. The Chinese miners have bought their claims from the American miners in the township, which cost them in all, this fall and winter, over $10,000. Even for the water in Chinese Camp alone they use for cooking purposes they pay $15 00 per month to each well. There are four hotels in Chinese Camp and one in Montezuma, the proprietors told me they paid over $30 00 per month each for firewood, which is $150 00 per mouth. Admitting the remainder of the mercantile houses only paid $80 00 to other parties monthly, which is too small a calculation, this would make the firewood bill $230 00 per month. There is on an average each month about $500 00 paid to the farmers for hogs and fowls. There are six blacksmith shops, and the seventh is erecting at present in the township. There are four carpenter's shops where a number of mechanics are employed, at which they say upwards of one-half of their business is from Chinese. There are two livery stables in the township, both well supplied with horses, and paying well at present. The principal patrons, they say, are Chinese. There are two Shoemaker's shops, of which the proprietors told me that seven-eighths of their trade are from the Chinese. They pay team- sters for hauling their goods from Chinese Camp to the place where they work from two to four hun- dred dollars per month. There are six American merchants, and two clothing stores kept by Jews in Chinese Camp, and several others in the township. One of the American merchants told me that seven-eighths of his frade was from Chinese. The balance have told me that the full half, if not more, of theirs was from them. If it were not for the Chinese we would not have one-half of the present stage coacheg. More than one-half of their receipts are from Chinese. So it may weU be said that they help to enrich our mountains and our vallies, our farms and our towns. They foster our trade, and consume our products, and at the present time there is scarce a man amongst us, from the mer- chant to the miner, that does not reap benefits either directly or indirectly, from them. Though many amongst us cannot see their folly as yet, in seeking to drive them out, yet the most of the intelligent classes do see it, and therefore sympathise with them in their exigencies. On the whole, probably the tide of popular prejudice is ebbing as fast as it formerly flowed against the Ckinae in the mines. I have often been gfrieved to see the poor fellows driven off their claims at various places in California by a few rowdies. They, in most cases, were the men who had sold the Chinese the claims they were work- ing on, and drove them off for the sake of plunder. The law seldom took heed of such. The Justices of the Peace, lest they might loose the votes of the rowdies, when they sought for office, seldom inter- fered with then. But they always do now, so that the lawless sway of vagabonds has nearly terminated, through the present improved state of society. Young men now of a Sunday spend their time in

28

Church, which they formerly spent in the finJ.ingo. I hope that in a few years more, we in the mountains of California will not be far behind the more civilized parts of the Christian world. A short time, since when I was travelling for my health, I observed that every town throughout the mines where there were many Chinese, had improved rapidly."

DOMESTIC INTEREST.

Our wives and families have a very deep interest in the presence and labors of the Chinese. In a country where females are yet few, and the cares of large households exhausting to their feeble strength, the aid of these patient, busy, eco- nomical people, many of whom have had a previous training in various depart- ments of domestic drudgery in the houses of American, English, and other foreign residents at various ports along the Chinese coast, has been felt to be a boon. And the best influence that has been exerted upon these strangers has been by the intelligent and gentle women of America. The grateful pleasure cannot be uttered which one feels in observing their unostentatious kindness, the patient ef- forts to instruct in the rudiments of our tongue and our knowledge, and the silent but powerful impressions for good thus made. Women, true to the charac- ter of their sex, are the best ministry that philanthrophy and the gospel can em- ploy in elevating and ennobling the wanderers from a land of gloom.

MISCELLANEOUS ADVANTAGES.

This subject is one so expanded and comprehensive, that with the barest glance at only its chief features, a number of interesting points must still remain unnoticed. The development of the marine treasures of our coast is one of these. Valuable species of fish, precious shells, and other products of the ocean's shoals and shores, must lie always ungathered unless we can employ the gleaners and divers from the Asiatic side. And so there are other occupations that await them, the which time alone can fit them for, and fully display to us.

But I cannot dwell further on the numerous points of advantage spread before us in the immigration to this new American territory of a race who were civil- ized long previous to ourselves, and who, though now surpassed in some depart- ments of national improvement, yet in some others are not so much behind us as our superiority to a great portion of those poorer specimens that have emigrated here, and the ignorance of the language and character of the rest, and as our pride, would permit us to acknowledge. This much has been shown, from a great variety of facts and arguments, that the general emolument to this State, resulting from the Chinese itnmigration, cannot be counted within millions of dol- lars ; that every interest that is important to us as a people is deeply involved in their various labors, in humane treatment of them, and in prudent and equitable legislation on matters affecting them.

MORALS OF THE CHINESE.

The SECOND general class of objections made in California to the presence of the Chinese is, the evil influence of their morals. On this score, no defence is attempted. The writer sees all the pollution, and all the baseness, that must characterize mankind where there is no Divine revelation to instruct and reform. He knows what exists among the Chinese, abhors it, and is often made most deeply sensible of their moral inferiority to the specimens of purity and excellence produced by genuine Christianity. But these considerations he may offer in pal-

29

liation. First, they are immeasurably superior to any other unchristianized peo- ple whom he has seen, or of whom he has read ; and we must either seclude our nation from the rest of the world, or else we must rise above the influences that stream upon us for evil, from every other kind of immigration as well as from this. Secondly, that they are not likely to be allowed to immigrate to such an extent as to resist influences for their transformation ; and their vices should be restrained and punished by the arm of the law. Thirdly, they have been brought here, if the providence of God is read aright, that they may see Christianity, and come in closer contact with its influences. Fourthly, that the power of our civilization and our religion have subdued other races far more numerous in our midst. The negro is the most debased form of humanity ; yet the number of negroes con- verted to Christianity is greater, proportionably, than of whites, and some of the most sincere Christians in the land have a black skin. The Indian, also, is slowly yielding, wild as beast of the forest though he is originally. The Indian tribes are abandoning the religion of their forefathers ; and, better still, numbers of them are exemplary members of evangelical sects, whose missionaries labor among them. The Cherokees, for instance, are equal to some of the whites. A late number of a Cherokee newspaper, I believe, contained an address from one of their chiefs. Speaking of the recent death of one of their number, he says :

" Among the earliest of his people to learn the arts of civilized life, he lived to witness the great change wrought in their condition, and left them a people redeemed from barbarous ignorance, blest with a government of written laws, with its various departments clearly defined, and with schools and churches and the concomitants of civilization. This improvement in our condition has not been accomplished, however, without expense of time and means, and it is our duty to allow no retrograde to occur, but constantly to bear in mind the truth con- tained in the clause of the constitution which declares that ' religion, morality, and knowledge are, being necessary to good government, the preservation of liberty and the happiness of mankind."

But there is another consideration, though it be painful to advert to it. Can a heathen people outshine a Christian people ? Look at the licentiousness and vices -that exist irrespective of the Chinese. It is very doubtful if their removal would affect to any sensible degree the tone of society in this respect. And, again, it is a shocking, a revolting fact, that their most infamous places are sustained to some extent by abandoned whites. Further, their better men have opposed and exerted their natural influence to have these bad classes removed from the country* but have been actually hindered by fees to American courts. They throw the blame of the corruption of morals amongj their own people upon ourselves ! Let any of you read the address last spring by Mr. Lai Chun-chuen, in behalf of the Chinese merchants, to Governor Bigler, and judge if it will not compare with most documents that emanate from a people that claim, and surely not without foundation, principles of morality and jurisprudence above theirs. The following extracts exhibit its spirit :

" It is objected against us that vagabonds ' gather in places and live by gamb- ling.' But these collection of gamblers, as well as the dens of infamous women, are forbidden by the laws of China. These are offences that admit of a clear definition. Our mercantile class have a universal contempt for such. But ob- noxious as they are, we have no power to drive them away ; and we have often wished these things were prevented, but we have no influence that can reach

30

them. We hope and pray that your honorable country would enact vigorous laws, by which these brothels and gambling places may be broken up ; and thus worth- less fellows will be compelled to follow some honest employment ; gamblers to change their calling ; and your policemen and petty officials also be deprived of opportunities of trickery and extortion. Harmony and prosperity would then prevail ; and the days would await us when each man could find peace in his own sphere of duty. Such is the earnest desire of the merchants who present this."

" It is, we are assured, the principle of your honorable country to protect the people ; and it has benevolence to mankind at heart. Now, the natives of China, or of any strange country, have one nature. All consider that good and evil cannot be in unison. All nations are really the same. Confucius says : "Though a city had but ten houses, there must be some in it honest and true." Suppose then we see it declared that " the people of the flowry land are altogether with- out good," we can not but fear that the rulers do not exercise a liberal public spirit, and that they defer their own knowledge of right to an undue desire to please men."

The American practice of receiving^ money for the legal toleration of gamb- ling strikes the Chinese with surprise. The question has been asked us, " You acknowledge it to he a crime, by enacting laws forbidding it, as is done in China. But why has money been received by your city government, at various times, for its license ? Do you authorise wrong, and sanction cheating ?" The Chinese ure greatly addicted to this vice, and succeed in ' shutting the eyes' of mandrains by occasional bribes ; but it is rendered penal in their laws, and is denounced in their moral writings. Gambling-houses are forbidden by statue, and their keepers liable to be beaten with the bamboo. If officers of governmen, the punishment is increased. The penal code says, " All persons convicted of gambling, that is to say, playing at any game of chance for money or for goods staked, shall be forfeited to the government."

HONOR IN PAYING DEBTS.

The remarkable honor in paying just debts, so often noticed by our merchants, is, in one sense, a national characteristic. In their native land, every man is ex- pected to have his accounts settled, or be declared bankrupt, at the close of the year ; and it is one leading object of their association into their voluntary com- panies, to have agents at San Francisco who shall prevent the return to their native land of any in debt, either to Americans or to each other. An instance is mentioned of a Chinaman who called at a store to settle a bill of half a dollar incurred months before by a friend. Thousands of dollars worth of merchandize have been trusted to the miners in particular neighborhoods, with small or no loss. In conversation with merchants in the mountains, the frequent testimony was that their pay is the best pay, and their trade the best trade in the mines. A friend has supplied the following communication, illustrating pleasantly their mode of dealing :

" During the years of 1852 and '53, I kept a store on the North Fork of the Yuba river, and among my customers were about forty Chinamen. They seemed to like the location, as there were sufficient surface digging to keep them em- ployed, and itinerant Tax Collectors not so abundant as in some sections of the mining region. Their purchases from me amounted to from ten to twelve thou- sand dollars a year.

31

" My testimony with regard to the Chinaman as a customer, in the mines, is de- cidedly in his favor, above any and all other classes of foreigners ; and so far as honesty goes, in the way of paying up, (a very material point with those who fur- nish the goods for consumption,) even better than that of my own countrymen. For they subsist, mostly, upon a vegetable diet ; yet, at the same time, it is won- derful what an amount of preserved meats, such as chickens, turkey, oysters, &c., they consume. These pay the trader a fine profit, and are not considered perishable articles. Again, they use quantities of codfish and drink American brandy at meal times as we do coffee. I always allow them to have goods on the credit sys- tem, and never lost one dollar thereby. I kept a book wherein every one registered his name, with the amount he might be owing for goods at the time, and never knew but one solitary case where a ' John' could not write his own name ; which fact coming to the knowledge of the others, cast the poor fellow into utter disgrace.

The difference between the Chinese miner and the pale-faced miner, is this : the former manages to live always within his means ; the latter, too often, beyond. So that the profit the storekeeper derives from his Chinese customer is apt to be lost by crediting the French, Irish and Americans.

As an illustration of their honesty, I may mention that Ah-Chong, one of their number who seemed to be looked up to among those in my neighborhood, examined my book every few days, and if there appeared a name with which he was not satisfied, he would take the account away with him, find the debtor, and procure the money. I have had goods charged to as many as thirty different Chinamen at one time — some owing to the amount of six hundred dollars — and yet, as I said before, never lost one dollar by them.

In the summer of 1853, AhChong and others associated themselves together, at my suggestion, and built a large flume of some four hundred feet in length, the river above and below their claim being owned by companies of Americans, and their flume connecting. The flume built by the Chinese proved to be a fine piece of workmanship, and was acknowledged the tightest and most durable of any on the river. It, however, was a bad speculation for all concerned — the bed of the river would not pay above three or four dollars per day to the hand — yet the Chinese, with that industry and perseverance peculiar to the race, continued to work on their claim and paid for the lumber, which they had purchased on a credit, long after the other companies had abandoned their sections of the flume, and betaken themselves to other parts of the State, in arrears for lumber and other articles used in building."

But looking from the list of vices, which are always harder to reach by legis- lation, let us observe the character of the Chinese in California as relates to crimes. In this respect it may be boldly said, they compare favorably with any class of people in California. Almost the only crime for which they are brought before our Courts, is that of petty theft, committed by a few of the most poor and miserable creatures among them. Their timidity — their disguised pride — their industry, and the harshness exercised towards them, prevents ordinary crimes, which they might otherwise commit. No people are so scrupulous, for the same reasons, in paying their debts. They allow no poor , though there are enough of them, to go wandering round as beggars. Nor do they ever permit themselves to be seen drunk in the streets. Can such testimony be borne in

32

behalf of any other people in California, that they have so few beggars, so few drunkards, and so few criminals ?

They may safely be compared, in those respects, with any Continental immi- gration to the United States. There are no complaints of hordes of paupers in almshouses and hospitals, and criminals filling the prisons. The few that do apply at our hospitals find difficulty in obtaining entrance or an effectual cure. Yet the European immigration has advantages that overbalance its evils, and we therefore M-elcome it. Shall we expect any Asiatic immigration to which we shall not also find great objections ? Certainly none less objectionable than the Chinese.

THE LEGISLATION NEEDED.

Justice to this subject, which is as important to the United States bordering on the Pacific ocean as intercourse with Europe is to the United States border- ing on the Atlantic, and its ramifications into every interest of our people, and into the great future, demands, then, intelligent, wise, and judicious legislation. The Chinese are a people unaccustomed to our mode of government. Their laws are old, few, and, on the whole, in principle at least, just. Frequent and special legislative interferences gall them. Changes distress them. They become anx- ious, bitter, and petulant. And, beside, special legislation in reference to any class in a community tends to degrade that class. It creates dangerous and unwise distinctions. And it throws stones in the way of improvement.

If the views presented in this Plea commend themselves, gentlemen of the Legislature, to your judgment as reasonable, your knowledge of the modes in which they may be applied to the present state of affairs doubtless leaves little more for me to say. When we ask the sphere of legislation, four points may be indicated as requiring their attention. 1. The number allowed to immigrate to this country should not be too great. "VVe may not be prepared to afford them useful employment. They may come in excess, and not settle down, and assimi- late to our institutions and wants.

It is therefore the preference of many judicious men, and not unreasonable, to allow for the present the law which fixes a capitation tax to remain, provided it is so administered as not to interfere with commerce, and the passage to and fro of those engaged in regular business. And judgment can only indicate future duty from observation of its results, or in compliance with the future wants and desires of our own people.

2. The amount of the license required from miners deserves consideration. The amount fixed by the jjreseut law is oppressive. Few are possessed of good claims. It beggars them. It drives them to the mountains and thickets like wild beasts. It fills them with hunger, sickness and despair. It turns them, what their honorable character with our trading population in the country shows is not necessary, into cheats and liars. It will in time fill our prisons. And makes them loathe and hate us as a people, and our name, our country, our government and the Christian religion, v/hich they understand we profess. If put to the former standard of four dollars per month, the sum affords a handsome State and County revenue, and they appear willing to pay it. If put lower, as some have pro- posed, there is danger of new legislation, in two or three years, to increase it again.

This appears, after the brief experience of a few months, to be the opinion of

33

the people generally in the mining districts. A Foreign miners' tax collector in the Southern mines made to the writer the following statement :

" It is my opinion that the American portion of this population are not favorable to the increase of the foreign miners' license t(f six dollars per month, as provided by the law of last winter ; they would prefer it to be lowered, as the Chinese cannot make expenses under it, and they do not desire them to be driven away. In nine- teen cases out of twenty, I would almost say forty-nine out of fifty, the jumping of their claims and other troubles are caused by foreigners. During four years duty as tax collector among them, I can testify to their general industry, and express the hope that more equitable and lenient laws may be enacted in their favor. Unless the tax is lowered, in two or three years we will have multitudes of them on our hands as paupers."

Mr. S , another Foreign miners' tax collector, made a similar statement.

He said, " I think the tax ought to be reduced, instead of being raised. It is very hard on them at present. It ought to be two dollars a month. Then they would all cheerfully pay it. Now, when they see a collector coming, they make signals up and down the gulches, and maybe most of the men working a claim will run away and hide, leaving three or four to save appearances."

The same sentiment was repeated on all hands to the writer, in a late trip through some of the mining districts. And the voice of the mountain press has been heard loudly demanding, for the sake of humanity, and in behalf of the revenues, whose loss was in some places severely felt, that the law of last winter should be repealed, and the license fixed at not above four dollars. The follow- ing are quotations from some of these papers :

The Calaveras Chronicle says: " The effect of the new License Law for this people is becoming apparent in our county. The Collectors at the principal points state that numbers are being driven away. This subject should at an early day engage the attention of the Legislature. The opinion of the press throughout the mining region has been fully expressed, and generally in favor of a reduction of the present tax. The reduction, and the increase of the income derived from this source, is of the utmost importance to the mountain counties, and consequently should be regained by the representatives from them. The immediate repeal of the amend- ment imposing six dollars, and substituting one imposing three, would largely increase the revenue."

The Marysville Herald says that the amount of money collected in Yuba county, from foreign miners, for the year commencing December 15th, 1854, and ending December 15th, 1855, was :

Total, exclusive of per centage, $31,670 00

Add Sheriffs commission, 12,896 25

" Auditor's per centage, 1,481 75

Total amount collected, $46,058 00

A repeal of the increased foreign miner's tax law is demanded by this paper, which says : — " The burden is more than they can bear. For several months past, the Chinese in most sections of the mines have not averaged six dollars a month, and if they are required to pay this to the collector, starvation is their portion. Aside from the question of humanity, the increased tax is causing a depletion of the county treasuries." 3

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The Coloma Argits gives the following as the receipts in the treasury of that county, from foreign miners, exclusive of pcr-ceutages and the share paid to the State : ,

In 1853, 836,692 57

" 1854, 32,806 34

" 1855, (9 months) 24,475 71

Total, $93,974 62

It adds the remark : — " On the 1st October the increased license tax went into operation, since which the monthly receipts have diminished uearlj one-third, iu spite of the most strenuous efforts to collect. The law of last session, increasing the foreign miners' tax, was a foolish piece of legislation, and ow^ht to be repealed immediately."

This I may add also, that unless the rate of not above four dollars a month is determined upon by the Legislature, large numbers of the Chinese have their minds made up to return to their own country. "When ship-loads of them were leaving iu the autumn and winter, and the mountain papers began to see the evil and express the willingness of the people in the mines to reduce the tax again, I notified them at once through the Chinese columns of the Oriental, and the state- ment was spread abroad as widely as possible. They are now awaiting the re- sult. They cannot remain with the present oppressive rate unrelieved. Nor will one that can help himself, engage iu any other occupation in a country whose people they consider so fickle and so despotic.

3. The mode of collecting the Foreign miners' licenses is a matter which de- mands the attention of the Legislature. It is to be feared there is something radically wrong in the present system. How often do you read of Chinamen shot, or stabbed, or whipped, or stripped and searched, or maltreated and insulted in some other way, by the collectors. How frequently do we read, under the " items" head of our newspapers, announcements like this one : " Three Chinajiex

gnoT. — A Foreign miners' tax collector of County, ou Wednesday last, shot

three Chinamen who resisted him in the discharge of his duty. The difficulty took place on the River."

Now it is admitted that these people are provokingly slow ; are fearful and suspicious ; are cunning iu evading the collector, and play many tricks to worry him. But have they no excuse ? Or further, if they have none, are they so dan- gerous and ferocious ; savages that yield to no reason, and must be dealt with like furious beasts of the forest? Does the humane administration of law not extend west of the American Desert? Are men to be murdered at will by au irresponsible petty officer, for resisting a mere pecuniary obligation, and that of questionable constitutionality ? Is such an officer licensed to slaughter a man that is not nimble ; or because he don't understand English ; or because he is a stranger, and poor, and sick, and friendless ?

There are some humane and right-minded men engaged in the collecting of the licenses. To them we would render all praise, and indeed peculiar praise. But the conduct of others, that are monsters in human form, is not unknown to you ; their unjust and unauthorized modes of extorting the barren gleanings, so hardly scratched out from the rocks by these poor men ; their barbarity to those who resist or hesitate — often, if the case were understood, for sufficient reasons ; and again their downright robbery, though clad with the honorable authority of offi-

6b

cers of the State, by demanding payments for previous periods, by forcing an in- dividual in a camp to be paymaster for t^fcpt^who may be as irresponsible to him as Patagonians ; by distraining, and^piBnw bidding off to some miscreant of our own color, their necessary tools, and t*ir very bed-clothing, and the gar- ments not on their back. You have heard of all these things, so that your teeth involuntarily gritted, and your face flushed with anger and shame.

But the worst is not that bad men do bad things. It is that the system makes bad men irresponsible ; it is that the system has no power, and no provision* against bad acts. A Foreign miners' tax collector may be a good man, and be honest and lenient. But his commission does not hinder him from being the opposite. It really tends to make him so. He may exercise fiendish cruelty, and plead the necessity of fulfilling his duty. " I was sorry to have to stab the poor creature ; but the law makes it necessary to collect the tax ; and that's where I get my profit." " He was running away, and I shot to stop him. I did'nt think it would hit." " I took all the dust the rascal had. There were seven beside him. And they did'nt pay me last month." This outrageous conduct is the fault of the system itself. And some of our papers have spoken out manfully against it. Notice,. for instance, the remarks of the Nevada Journal:

It says : "There is a species of semi-legalized robbery perpetrated upon them. Many of the collectors are gentlemen in every sense of the word ; but there are others who take advantage of their position to extort the last dollar from the poverty-stricken Chinese. They date licenses back, exact pay in some instances for extra trouble in hunting up the terrified and flying Chinamen, and, by vari- ous devices, fatten themselves upon the spoils thus obtained. The complaints of the injured and op- pressed find no open ear, for is it not declared by the Supreme Court, the highest tribunal of the land, that their oaths are not to be regarded ? Of what avail are their complaints, uttered not with the solemnity of an oath? Under this state of things, the life of the Chinese in California is one of hard- ship and oppression. For the honor and reputation of the national character, let us either adopt the rigid esclusiveness of the Japanese, or treat them with the consideration due to ourselves, and the kindness due to human beings."

With such a system, it is clear that a clean sweep of the worse class of Foreign miners' tax collectors would not remedy the evil. The place depraves the man. But there are two things that can be done. Firs*^, the penalties of non-payment of the miner's license may be defined, and they may be guarded so as to prevent acts of brutality ; to encourage men of a desirable character to perform the duties ; and also so as to be a benefit to the region. Legal gentlemen can readily devise such penalties. For instance, liability to work upon the county roads, at a certain rate per day, until the demand of the license is satisfied.

Second, it seems almost equally necessary to constitute an office, or to appoint an ofiBcer, to whom those ordinarily subject to the Foreign miners' tax may ap- peal from the collector in special cases, and who may decide the circumstances that warrant a remission of the tax. There are some cases of exceeding hard- ship arising from the caprices and the covetousness of the collectors. They have no rules. One told me that he " let old men, boys, packers, and sick people go free." There are no definitions, and no real responsibilities in the whole mat- ter. It is mere spoliation.

4. Better protection must be extended to Chinese residents generally. Some means should be devised by which the statements of Chinese should be received in regard to crimes affecting their lives, persons, and property. They do not perhaps understand sufficiently the nature of an oath to be admitted in our courts to enjoy an equal privilege with those acquainted with the sanctions of Christian- ity. But no other means probably than receiving their affirmation, allowing it

;: 36

the credence that according to intcrnaL^i'idence and the accompanying circum- stances it seems fairly to deserve, j»vuF|l|vent degraded and outlawed creatures from robbing, bruising, cheating oc KHi^ a Chinaman, when no white witness is near.

The protection of the Chinese miners from marauders is vital to their quiet, and to their usefulness to ourselves. They can have no heart for industry, and no respect for laws, where they are plundered by night and by day, by infamous ■wretches, who boldly rob a camp in the face of a hundred, if no whites are pres- ent, and who have no compunctions in murdering even the unresisting. There have been hundreds of such cases. An interior newspaper says of these robbers :

" The Chinamen in this neighborhood have been greatly annoyed and outraged by a baud of desperate fellows, who have made a practice of attacking and rob- bing the helpless and unprotected creatures whenever they could find them by themselves. To such an extent has this robbing of. Chinese been carried, that the citizens made strenuous exertions to discover and arrest the rascals, but so far unsuccessfally. The scoundrels take care that no witnesses shall be present

except Chinese. These outrages are tending to drive the Chinese from M ,

and numbers are stopping at or near D ." Some read like this : " Be- tween S and W are fourteen Chinese camps, all of which were

robbed in one night by five men. On the night following, they committed still

further robberies at M , at R '- , at S , at B , and at F .

The entire amount which these villains have succeeded in obtaining in Y

is estimated at §20,000. They are masked, and never disturb American camps."

The licenses have been forged and sold, as in a case which a friend mentions by letter, which is one thing that accounts for the fear of " collectors."

" This last year a great many spurious papers were passed on the Chinese. Quite a number of vagabonds were making a living by putting off spurious tax receipts, of both mining tax, and poll and road taxes. I took a number of the spuri- ous papers up to the sheriff, but got no satisfaction. The practice is still going on. I will send you some of these spurious papers next week. I heard an Irish- man a few days ago saying to another vagabond like himself, that he ' had no mo- ney to keep Christmas with, but went amongst the Chinamen and sold them to the amount of nine dollars of counterfeit tax receipts.' "

The Nevada Journal comments upon the treatment of the Chinese as follows :

" By the payment of fifty dollars, the Asiatic, if not invited to participate in the advantages which California oilers, is at least supposed to be guarantied the protection of life and property. But such is not the case. No .looner here than a monthly tax is exacted from him in the mineral district.^; but, worse than all, he is robbed of all power to obtain protection from our laws by being deprived of his evidence before a court of justice. He is thus left at the mercy of every thief and cutthroat ■who chooses to extort from him his hard-earned gains. And such is the prejudice existing in the minds of Americans against the race, that the two do not labor generally in the same locality. If a Chinese discover a rich deposit, the whites on some pretext drive him from the fruit of his enterprise and industry, and he is fain to take up his abode in some poor or abandoned district, away from his oppressors, where he is the prey of every vagabond who prefers a life of plunder to one of honest toil. No whites being near, there is no competent evidence ; robbery is practised, and there is no redress in the courts."

The way in which these shocking abuses lead on to murder and lynch law, and scenes that make the name of " California" a fearful byword in the mouths of millions, and terrify those that might have come to plant in our midst homes of industry and virtue, is illustrated by an extract :

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Dr. "Wilkinson gives, in the Auburi:^j^'g-, the following account of a horri- ble transaction : ^^^^^

"On the night of May 3d, about 12 o'clock, a I^^^HPs'^^ or ten Chinamen, encamped on Shirt Tail Canon, about 150 j-ards above the Iowa Hill afIS Yankee Jim's trail, were attacked by a party of four Americans, when a scene of fiendish butchery was enacted, which makes the blood thrill with horror in the narration. Armed with the noiseless knife, these rulEana commenced their horrid work upon the helpless Asiatics. Two of the Chinamen were killed on the spot, one by a stab under the left nipple, the other by a wound under the diaphragm. Four others were wounded : one stabbed in the left temple, the knife striking the bone and glancing downward ; the second a little to the right of the fontanel ; the third was struck with a stone in the right breast, and severely, though perhaps not fatally injured ; the fourth \va3 mangled in a most horrible manner — one wound in the breast reach- ing nearly to the navel, through which the entrails protruded, and, when found, the wretched crea- ture was holding them in his hands ! — another wound was on the right thigh, just missing the femoral muscles and cutting the thigh about one-third off ! He was also wounded in the left arm, and has died. When Dr. Wilkinson arrived at the scene of slaughter, the next morning, he found the wound- ed persons much chafed by their coverings. The murderers, after robbing the dead and wounded of about forty dollars, fled up a steep bluff towards the Iowa Hill trail. Such is the history of this devilish affair, and such will continue te be weekly occurrences, and the guilt}' parties be secure from detection and punishment of the law, and no remedy is apparent. The courts of the land, knowing that truth cannot be obtained from the Chinese, have excluded their testimony, and as long as no white man witnesses the murder of the Chinaman, the murderer is safe. The only hope we have is, that the popular courts of the divide may find some satisfactory clue to the perpetrators of this trag- edy, and punish them in their own summary manner."

Mercy, justice, order, the name of our State, all the considerations affecting our prosperity, our quiet, our honor, appeal to you to prevent these crimes !

- -EELATIONS OF THE SUBJECT.

Gentlemen of 'the Legislature : This plea has laid before you a few of the facts relating to this great subject, and a few of its bearings upon ourselves, and yet a very few, and only in a brief and merely suggestive form.

To you as statesmen its intelligent and serious consideration is a matter of great importance. A few years ago the Union was divided into the North and the South. Now it is divided into the North, the South, and the West. Though those two portions of the Atlantic States can scarcely realize that ten years have put the several States on the Pacific coast in a position of influence which it required them ten scores of years, generations of men, and rivers of blood, and stupendous labors and expenditures, to occupy; yet it is none the less true. The gold of California has sustained the commercial credit of the Union. It has saved shaking fortunes ; it has comforted millions of pining eyes and hoary heads ; it has filled the world with fleet and hurrying ships. Yellow gold, the crop of this soil, is as essential now to the prosperity of the Union as the wheat of the North, and as the cotton of the South ; and we'll balance our bars against either the sheaf or the bale.

And in the external relations of our tripartite Union, not less than those properly internal, we hold as honorable a place. History will look back and discern the mission of the New Continent, found in the end of time. The North with its ten thousand ships, running in weekly scores to all the ports from Mar- seilles to St. Petersburgh, and with its line of four thousand miles conterminous with the French and British populations of Canada, and with its steam presses, telegraphs, and millions of newspapers and books, which despotisms in vain endeavor to exclude or mangle, has its charge. The South, with its three mill- ions of sable pupils, has its charge. A continent is given to each! And when at length America is prepared, another, and the last and greatest continent, is

2\)3U27

38

added to her Heaven-ordained trust : and the West also has its charge. Asia, moth- er of the human race ! whose surfiice^jjHfcourth larger than the two Americas conjoined; whoso shore-lino is a fifth ^^^^Vended than that of any other conti- nent; whose populations sum the hsn^Wmiraan kind; where alone history, and where art, and where revelation, resided until past the mediaeval era of our race; the scene of perhaps the greatest events of coming time, — to us, we tremble while we speak it, to us, Asia is committed. No sooner do we buy and colonize this soil, but her sons begin to come with outstretched hands.

And further, gentlemen, circumstances of amazing interest are crowding round us rapidly. We find now the Atlantic and Pacific at length united at several points in Central America. And fiive different Hues have been surveyed, and a na- tional railroad virtually determined upon, which shall, throughout its whole length in republican territory, and in a straight line, and the shortest, connect the great commercial interests of the two Oceans.

Ilumboldt says, " Tke problem of the communication between the two seas is im- portant to all civilized Europe. At a time when the new continent, profiting by the misfortunes and perpetual dissensions of Europe, advances rapidly towards civilization, and when the commerce of China, and the Northwest coast of America, becomes of greater importance, this snhiect \s oHhe greatest interest for the balance of commerce and the political preponderancy of nations." '• Should a canal communication be opened between the two oceans, the productions of Nootka Sound, (fur, oils, &c.) and of China, will be brought more than two thousand leagues nearer to Europe and the United States. Then only can any great change be effected in the political state of Eastern Asia ; for this neck of land, the barrier against the waves of the Atlantic ocean, has been for many ages the bulwark of the independence of China and Japan."

And I cannot but here advert to the political fatuity of some who describe, in glowing language, the results of the gigantic plans which are to link the sides of the continent, and then connect these opposite continents, by steam, and talk of the " riches of the Indies;" and who yet spurn and crush the first ambassadors which the Indies send us, even though, like the Gibeonites, they have " old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them, and all the bread of their provision was dry and mouldy," — men who see that in a sense we shall pos- sess the earth, and have come to make a league with us, and lay their possessions at our feet. The Chinese are a reading, thinking people ; who tell, and who put on record what they know. Some may despise the influence of those who come to California. But even now among the men nearest the Imperial throne, are those who are sought on account of their previous intercourse with for- eigners. Poor boys educated at missionary schools have been taken into the confi- dence of the ministers of state. It is folly, it is insanity, to think, however men may reason or protest ^o the contrary, that the impressions of America received here will not, to a large degree, shape the whole future intercourse of the nations who are now for the first time saluting each other.

And it is of great consequence for us to mark the beginning of things. A late letter from Hongkong says :

" The heretofore increasing China emigration, and consequent commerce to San Francisco, has turned toward Australia. With a little encouragement, our commerce with China would soon become great, and steadily increase ; but if the tide is not turned to our shores in its incipiency, so much are these people ad- dicted to follow the course of their ancestors, that it will be hard to change the current in after years.

39

Since the beginning of the troubles in China, the Chinese have commenced traveling by steam, and now prefer it to any other mode.

Two native firms have an interest in steamers on the Canton river, and others are preparing to increase the number. Eight steamers now ply on the said river, and five more are soon to be added. Mucii of the Chinese travel between this' and Singapore, and also between this and Shanghae, is by steamers ; and I feel confident that a line of steamers from this port to San Francisco, would find it a profitable business, (if it were to carry Chinese freight and passengers alone,) and that foreigners in all China and the East Indies, instead of travdliag to Europe via Egypt, would take the_JOut£_via_California.'^

And we may be sure that if we reject the opportunities offered tc us, others will not. One of the most experienced men in India said on the occasion of the anne.xation of Burraah, that itiwas but one step further towards Englaud's pos- session of Asia, from the Yello^v Sea to Ceylon. The Chinese respect the digni- ty and equity of British jurisdiction, as illustrated at Hongkong. An intelligent Chinaman said to me in this ciiy, " Why do not the English take possession of the Province of Canton ? We|are tired of the Tartars. We are tired of weak- ness and rebellion and piracy. Many of mj countrymen say they wish the Eng- Ijish would take the control of affairs." But see how we fling away our dower!

Tne spread of the Chinese race, going on in an astonishing nianneTwithin^T few years, over the whole globe, makes it of incalculable importance to improve our opportunity. But it becomes us, in whose hands are the interests of this Western shore, to notice the caanges now going on in the Pacific world.. Not only are Australia and California suddenly filled with the strange race whose laws a few years ago impededj their emigration; but the same Almighty hand that seems to be changing the facd of the whole world, and shifting, for some great, though yet unseen end, its natpns, is leading to the numerous and beautiful archi- pelagoes in its ocean, colonies from the old and withering Empire on its Western shore. The Sandwich Island:^ the group nearest to our country, most important to our whaling interest in the Pacific, lying so directly on the route to China that clippers pass in sight of tiem without stopping, and whose people have most deeply awakened the sympathi;s and prayers of the Christians of America, is now in the process of being occupira by Chinese. On the one hand we see it gradually being depopulated by diseasesJand intercourse with whites. Dr. Hildebrand in are- port to the Agricultural Socie y says : "The Hawaiian nation, which, seventy years ago, was estimated variously at from 200,000 to 400,000. now only counts 70,000, a decrease within this period octwo-thirds. Yast tracts of lands do not harbor a human soul ; fertile kalo lancfe, once under cultivation, are left to the rule of grass and weeds. The Island of tauai, remarkable for the productiveness of its soil, and capable to sustain a popijlation of one hundred thousand, contains only six ■thousand." Were this to continue, it must become a desert. But we see on the other hand the only Asiatic race capable of withstanding the pressure of the Anglo-Saxon and of working by its side, already led by an invisible power to oc- cupy their place. There are at present five or six hundred residing at the Islands. About three hundred are at Honolulu ; the remainder are scattered in small com- munities, probably the larg^t numbers being at Maui and Lahaina. Some have been there a number of years, married Kanaka wives, and live at their ease. There are several enterprising Chinese at Honolulu, who do quite a considerable trade. The principal firm has amassed a fortune of fifty thousand dollars. Another that is also wealthy, has five or six branches in the other Islands, one of which is at Maui, and another at Lahaina. And there are some sixteen other stores and shops

40

of various kinds in the place. A few of the goods sold by them are imported from China ; but the largest quantity is obtained from California. These consist chiefly of articles suitable for the use of the searaeu of the whaling fleets and clothing for the natives.

Several Chinese commenced plantations for the cultivation of sugar. These employ Chinese overseers and operators, who boil the sugar, and perform the more difficult parts of the labor. But thev prefer natives for other work, as they can be employed more cheaply. But a few years must pass before the former soft and thriftless people shall have wholly disappeared, and their places be filled by the hardier and more valuable race from the cortineut of Asia. And so shall it be with all the Islands of the Pacific. The races that inhabited them for a time are dving, like the aborigines of this continent. We cannot populate them. Eu- rope cannot, and will not be allowed to popuUte them. Who shall till their garden soils, and pluck their luscious fruits, anl dive for their pearls, and hew their spicy woods, and make them hospitable caravanserais of the sea? No an- swer need be given to those who have observet how the peopl^" "f China are now fettling every group, and how the few whites aie anxiously inMcmgthem to come. But, gentlemen, had this subject not possessed a moral aspu.: ^ the sublimest importance, I would not have felt it to be my calling to utter a word upon it. I should have quietly continued my work of " preaching the gospel to the poor," did I not feel that work to be fearfully embar.-assed, and its success among the Chinese postponed, by the wretched condition io which they are brought in this " Christian " land. I can scarce hope for success as a minister of the gospel in leading them to adore our God, or love onr Sivior, so long as the present state of things continues.

But I look beyond this dark and stormy tme. If you will hear : well. If you will not, I commit the matter, undoubting and in peace, to the Almighty Ruler of nations and men. Whether any agree or disagree with the views I have expressed, — and no doubt in many things I an mistaken,— may we each act in the fear of Him. And when the affairs of empres and individuals shall all have been settled, each shall receive according to his work.

And, gentlemen — if you will excuse the seriousness of the parting thought — it is a blessed thing, for which we all may feel thmkful, that neither our laws nor labors, nor other aid, are materially necessary to the great progress of humanity ; and further, that our littleness, and selfishness, md folly, and wrong, even when we think we are right, are no lasting or great ibstruction. We may look con- fidently to the regeneration of China, and of the whole continent of Asia, wheth- er as individuals or a generation we have a sliare or not. The soil in whose heart Eden was planted shall be an Eden again, to its utmost seas. The Qonti- nent in whose centre the race of man was created, on whose Western extreme^ the Son of God in his humiliation made atonemei t for man's sins, shall perhap^onf its Eastern shores display the widest a'ld most glo-ious triumphs of His exaltation. Asia was the seat of the knowledge of the Father through the law and the proph- ets; Europe has been that in which the manifestation of the incarnate Son has been chiefly published and believed ; and America seems in the history of redemp- tion reserved for the scene of the great promised outpourings of the Holy Spirit, sprinkling drops of which already it has at times enjoyed. And though now, therefore, America and California may not understand their calling, that day comes when our land, and when the State of which we are citizens, shall be a blessing to all within their borders, and shall be blessed and honorable in the eyes of the world. . ' /

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