San Andreas independent., 1857-11-21
Written for the San Andreas Independent.
THE CHINESE QUESTION.
CHARITY SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME"

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{" CHARITY SHOULD BEGIN AT HOME"
The above ancient and admirable maxim
has its foundation in human nature, and
needs no advocate to render it popular
among men. 1t has been quoted here to
illustrate the fact that many wicked dis
courses may be preached from faultless
text; and that by latitudinarian con-
struction, the most wholesome truths may
be nicely adapted to the basest purposes.
n man with more courage than industry,
unaided by fortune, and unrestrained by
education or principle, takes to the high
way and robs, in the plea that "charity
begins at home" He is a bold rascal
who would, on pinch, knock St. Peter
down with the family Bible, and rush into
heaven over his PROSTATE form. Another,
blessed with affluence; and a soul of flint,
contrives to consummate some game of
legal theft, by which his unsuspecting
brother is victimized and pauperized,
appealing to the text with uplifted hands
and hypocritical sighs, would deem it
sound christianity to purloin the clothes
of fellow traveller up the highway to
heaven, and pass the venerable Apostle
under cover of an assumed garb. Both
these classes of men are adopts in subter-
fuges, and when anything is to be made
by dirty trick, are never at a loss for
maxims culled from Holy Writ, to give
face and color to their work. They are
of those who
Steal the livery of heaven to serve the devil in"
Thus paraphrased, we are introduced
at once, and through the proper avenue,
to our subject. Among all the multiform
questions which have arisen in this State,
to battle the judgment of the wise, and
tax the patience of honest statesmen, not
one has been so novel and vexed as TIE
question of permitting Chinese emigra-
ton and tolerating Chinese labor in the
mines" 1t has been the subject of Ex-
ecutive admonition and Legislative de-
bate; it has been agitated in almost every
precinct throughout the mines and su-
per6cially skinned over by the newspa-
per press. AT one time, so great was the
feeling against this denizen population,
that all the conservative elements of the
State barely sufficed to stay the hands of
violent expulsion from the mines, by the
miners. Soon after, the reaction which
followed this wild storm, more than rein
stated them in the privileges they at first
enjoyed; they literally overran the noun
tain counties; and the more shrewd and
far-seeing amongst them, taking advan-
tage of the wind that blew in favor of
their countrymen, enlarged their field of
operations in mercantile way, as we'll in
the country as in the cities. Thus, the
money which their laboring classes had
before exchanged with the American ira
der, is now, for the most part, kept within
the exclusive circle of their own CASTE
But short time since, many of our own
people, urged by real or pretended SYM
pathy, manifested an anxiety that the
Chinese should be placed upon an equal
ity with citizens in the matter of an oath
in criminal proceedings in courts of JUS
ticel And, though this proposition met
with rebuke in the late Legislature, Gin
which body the mining counties have
majority yet, from the temper which
pervaded the press in our large cities, it
was clear that the mercantile and COM
mercial interests were catering to the
Asiatics, and encouraging their immigra-
tion with a hearty good will. This is not
strange; for it is scarcely in human ma
ture to run counter to self interest, and
the ken of that class of men is never so
far-seeing as to overlook the narrow
bounds of trade in patriotic effort to pro-
tect the Commonwealth. Money and
ships form their god. With the former,
they hope to be able to control the policy
of the State; with the latter, when the
State shall have been overrun by the
swarthy children of the East, they will
be able to leave for a more congenial
cline 1t is plain, therefore, that on the
Chinese question" there are two great
opposing interests: if the surplus mill
ions of the Celestial Empire can be foisted
upon us, the commercial and shipping
classes of the State will grow rich upon
the carrying trade alone; butthe mines will
be raked and scraped to enrich people
of a strange religion, a baneful morality,
and unyielding prejudices in favor of Ab-
solutism, who will only remain long
enough on our soil to impoverish us; for,
we cannot expect the living to establish
themselves among us, or to become at
tached to our laws and government, when
they will not even permit their dead to
lie buried here Hence the miners will
oppose them.
In this view of the case, it is not to be
hoped that the citizen miner will favor
their immigration in the future, or rest
easy under the presence of the seventy
thousand already here. The Chinese will
continually be debarred the rights of cit
lzenship; they will ever be the victims
OF robbers and scoundrels; their oaths
cannot be admitted in our courts for
though, at first view, it would clearly sub
serve the ends of justice in thousand
instances, yet, the principle in an en-
larged view, would conflict with public
policy and result in heaven only knows,