View more of Gordon-Cumming's observations about the Chinese in California. Use your browser's Back Button to return to this point. Their special quarter in this city is known as Chinatown. It is built on hilly ground, and its long steep streets are intersected by narrow alleys and wretched courtyards, where an incredible number of human beings are huddled together in the smallest possible compass. The houses are as crowded and as hopelessly dirty as in many parts of the old town of Edinburgh and other British cities, where the very poor congregate.
All precautions being utterly ignored, the district is foul beyond description.
Their detractors do not take into account the good sterling work by which the country is enriched, both at the time, and in some cases permanently. Many masters of large factories bear witness to the satisfactory nature of the work done for them by Chinese hands, in contrast with the manner in which it is scamped by white men, when they are tempted to yield to the general howl, and employ only white labour. . . . So, however little John Chinaman may be appreciated as the representative of the coming race, his departure from California would be bewailed by many, as a serious loss to the Granite State. Concluding Note . The month of May 1881 was marked by the most extraordinary anomaly which could possibly have arisen, among a people whose national existence is based on the Declaration of Independence, and the assumption of liberty and equality of all men, without distinction of race or colour.