The Shasta courier., 1859-06-11
HASTA COURIER
The Advantage of being a Chinaman.

Our readers will probably conceive the ca
ton of this article to be somewhat facetious, al
deny the proposition that Chinaman enjo
advantages over a white man in this State Y
it needs no very profound argument to mai
this appear A certain class of the populate
of China, from their earliest infancy, are prope
ty-similar in every respect, so far as regaro
the force of this term, to the negro slaves in Il
South. They are in effect bought and sold
the moneyed men of their country their seryic'
are hired to spectators for a term Of years, an
the product of their labor is the profit of the
master Should the head man of the compai
conceive it profitable to dispatch band of thes
pariahs to the Chincha Islands, they soon fin
themselves sweltering in the guano pits of Peru
If the gold fields of California be considered
more profitable, ship loads of them are imme
diately transported to our shores. Here the.
hold towards their owner exactly the relativ
position that Southern slave does towards hi
master. They are the property of the Chimes
grandee as et'ectually as the slave is the prop
erty of the planter Like the latter, they hav
no will of their own they take no ste
without his permission they go where they al
directed; do what they are commanded; an
are fed, clad and housed under the superintenC
ence of their masters. Although these are nS
guaranteed in their slave property by the Stat
utes Of our State, they are as secure and as Gel
tain in their possession of it, as if it were hel
J,- IL.
rible gulph which separates the Mongolian an
Caucasian races is the surest safeguard of til
master of the cooley in his property. If the race
could assimilate, it is probable that this specie
ofproperty would soon cease to be source c
profitable speculation, and the importation dis
continue But it is, the Chinese capitali.
| can invest in nothing more profitable or secur,
| and consequently our State is oVerrun with Asi
attic slavery. 1t may be said that the same doc
that opens slavery to the Chinese, is also ope
to the American capitalist. This, however,
not the case. An American would as soon thin
OF going to China and buying cargo of cooley
as would Chinaman of going to the South an
| purchasing band of negroes. The propert
| itself in either case would be safe enough unit
it was deported; and then in both cases it woul
cease to be either secure or profitable. 1t i
| however, impossible to draw an exact analog
between the Chinese people and any other pee
Pile; for no nation that puts forth the slighte:
pretension to civilization is SO isolated in man
ners, religion, and everything that goes to max
up the character of people, as the former
Certain it is that for this very reason they pos
sess an extraordinary advantage over ourselve!
and can thereby securely be possessed of pro
ductivc slaVe property in our State whilst ou
own people cannot 1t has long since been dc
cided that California is free State. This, how
ever, it would appear from the immense numbe
| of Chinese slaves in our midst is n mere fctio
of law, and will not stand the test of examna
ton. That every slave who is brought into th
State is held de jurs TO be free is certainly true
| but nevertheless, in the case of the Chinese W
| find some twenty thousand who have been her
for years, and are slaves de .fdcto. Practically
then, slavery exists to an alarming extent in Gal
ifornia; and practically Americans are exclude
from participating in the advantages of tha
slavery. Although twenty thousand slaves az
daily reducing the mineral resources of ou
State, not one Of them belongs or can belong t
ourselves. Surely there must be some gres
error in the statutory or constitutional system
a State that compcls its own people to obey a
organic law, and cannot prevent its violation b
a race held in universal contempt. h. Call.