The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-10-02
Communicated.
Immigration.
New YORK, September &c, 1866

New YORK, September 26, 1865.
Editors Richmond Dispatch:
Dear Sirs,-Your highly interesting arti-
Gle of the Oath instant, Inferior Races not
Wanted" has, no doubt, great deal of
truth in it. Allow me few remarks on
the subject.
The countries whittier the Chinese, So
called coolies, have migrated during the
past twenty or ten years have been Java,
Singapore, Australia, California, and Cuba.
There are some on the Chincha (guano)
islands. They number $4,000 in Cuba, and
about as many in California. In California
they do not enjoy the franchise they may
eventually claim it, | think, under the Bur
lingame treaty; but the probability IS they
never will. The Central Pacific Railroad
Company is now employing 10000 of them
on their line, and they have been used il
tunneling the Sierra Navada; in fact, nc
other laborers have been used in this great
undertaking, and they have given entire
satisfaction. Their pay is twenty-five dol
lars per month, on an average.
! The kind Of work the Chinese, besides
working abandoned gold mines, have been
employed in Of their own accord has been
vegetable gardening lin which they exccl)
washing and ironing, fishing, wood-gather-
ing, and, finally, as domestic servants,
| especially as cooks.
Although the Californians have at all
times given them the cold shoulder, they
have been very nearly Indispensable. In
fact, do not know how we Californians OF
the old pioneer times should have got along
| without them. On the whole, they are
sober, Industrious, frugal, and saving
they are very intelligent, and the better
class of them (the Chinese merchants OF
San Francisco for instance) are looked upon
as highly respectable. Some of their firms
own half q dozen vessels, and freight
them for their own account. They, all OF
them, peaceably follow their vacations, and
never trouble themselves about politics,
like the negroes do in our southern States,
| and like the mongrel races Of South Ame-
RIGA, the West Indies, and Mexico, do.
There are several serious biections raised
| against them, and not without reason but
| like nearly every question in this world of
ours, has two sides from which it ought to
be contemplated; SO, very naturally, has this
Chinese question. The principal objection,
Mr.. Editor, a general one, you have named
yourself, and nobody will dissent from you,
nor do |. Another objection is that they
are, or at least many of them, given to
opium smoking and gambling; but, on the
other hand, they never use intoxicating
drinks. Aud furthermore, they have, with
the exception of their merchants, who
many of them bring over their wives from
China along with them, nearly in every in
stance arrived single, and men only. And
finally they work cheap, and thus lower
wages in certain departments l have al
luded to; although in California, as gen.
eral thing, wages are as high as ever, and
all newcomers who mean to work are
placed at something like four dollars gold
per day the day of arrival through their
new labor exchange at San Francisco. |
mean the white immigrants able to do the
usual hard labor.
/: However, all | have said is of little direct
interest to yourself and readers, as am
pretty sure you will never have any Chi
nese in Virginia, except stragglers, like our
Chinese cigar-yenders in New York. But
though this so-called coolie or Chinese
question viii never be brought to your own
doors, it is Of the very greatest Importance
to the gulf States and South Caroliua, the
Chinese and Madras, as well as Calcutta
coolies, being the only ones capable Of
working in cane and rice-felds as well us
IN miasmatio countries (swampy regions)