Nashville patriot. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1858-1860, 1858-07-19

slant stream of Cbina-men who come back to
buy farms and send their sons to Examination
Halls. The West India islands are not so
popular, because they are further off, and the
returns are not SO large. but they also have
their adventurers. When General Strau-
benzee made a reconnaissance among the
suburbs of Canton he was suddenly arrested
by fat Chinaman, who asked him in good
sterling vernacular, and not Canton English,
''what the devil he wanted theres" The
General, being the pink of courtesy, stopped
to parley. and the Chinaman, being interro-
gated, said that he had resided several years
in Australia. that he had come back with
fortune, and had bought houses in that suburb,
and that he should hold the General response
BILE at law in the Queens courts If be did any
damage to his property.-The travelling
Chinaman was little wrong in bis English
law. but that happens to the best of us. He,
however. wus of class, and not small class
in China class which is gradually eieva-
ting the intelligence of the people Of China
above that of their rulers-a class which ii is
very much our interest to increase. To Gen.
StraubenZee's Chinese acquaintance Mel
bourne was what Calcutta has been to thou
sands of our middle classes. He had shaken
the pagOda tree in Australia, and probably
had many neighbors who had been a success
full in San Francisco and in Demerara. 1t is
true that the annual transport of Chinese to
our West India Islands has not hitherto much
exceeded 1000 men; but that is not the fault
of the Chinese. The kidnapping trade is
more profitable. and the legitimate traffic is
is clogged with unnecessary official forms.
Any one who reads the Chinese passenger
act will see that the object of the trainers of
the statute must have been to put down the
trade; the forms are onerous and inefficient.
The one single and sufficient provision would
have been to have government emigration
agent on board every ship, to make him
report all the circumstances of the voyage.
and to hold him responsible for the facts of
his report. The transport trade is gainfu1.
and would we'll afford the expense of such an
official. We have heard the heads of great
mercantile houses say that it is only under
such guarantee against misrepresentation
that they would trust their characters to this
branch Of business. But phiLdnthropists of
past age must not be alLoced 10 bring their eighteenth
century notions 10 bear upon these poor Cinnamon
and Indians, and shut them mp IN their own country
TO Starve, for fear they should Rot hare first rate
accommodations on board ship.
We ought to apologize, perhaps, for sug-
costing that the interests Of mere pale face
should receive any considerations; but We must
still take leave y observe, that as the Indian
and Chinese coolies are destitute of honest employ
ment, 80 the planters Of our West India possessions
are destitute Of labor! While the highest aspi-
FallOt1S OF IL CnlnaLlan OF u l1lnuOO are, III uls
own country, to gain two shillings a week. the
planters in our possessions contend for his la
Dor at The wages of dollar day. In these
islands the cultivated lands are running back
10 jungle for want of labor. and the old pop
ulation of blacks is dying out from epidemic
disorders sweeping over free, an idle. and
improvident race. There is starving popu-
lation on one shore, and the most fruitful is
lands of the world negotiating to waste upon
another; yet that ocean must not be crossed.
Stringent British laws keep watch over both
shores. The same British ship which carries
1000 soldiers shall only carry 800 tawny la
Lorers. A happy English boy may be kicked
and cuffed through every climate and seek
his fortune where fate may drive him; but an
African must gather cowries in slavery and
starve on seaweed; Chinaman must feed on
vermin and die of hamilton; HindoO must
wait till his turn comes to be swept away by
pestlence-and all for fear lest he should
nave to put up with the straitened contine-
ment in a transport ship which an English ma
rine bears cheerfully THIS Is not philanthropy.
II IS philanthropy run mad. Burke says that
men with good humored faces have set their
hands to documents that have made Europe
groan. We have men among us who have
hearts of wax and faces beamng with human
ity, who do more practical harm in trying to
do good than was ever wished for by drunk
en- Roman Emperor, or imprecated by mis-
anthrope in a melodrama.