The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1870-08-13
The Chinese in Tennessee.

n Chinaman, says correspondent Of tn,
Nashville Republican, is almost as versatil,
as Yankee. He can make wooden clocks
and wooden nutmeg for that matter. He i,
an excellent farmer, shoemaker, can make
brick without straw, build houses and rail
roads, play poker, keep hotel, wash and
iron, nurse the baby, edit newspaper, run
for Congress or play the piano and enter
tain company.
The owners of woollou factories praise
them as the best of workmen. The officers
Of the Central Pacific railroad, on which
ten thousand Cinnamon were employed,
speak in the highest terms of them. Their
work Is said to be full and honest, no lag
ging, no storytelling, no whiskey drinking
few fights. Ovcrseers dcclair they can drill
more rock and move more dirt with China
men than with an aqual number of men
who claim this kind of work as their spec
ialty.
Twenty years of contact between the two
races in California have done little toward
removing the prejudice against the Chinese
They have poured into and out of the coun.
try; but surrounded by barriers, they have
boen forced to form a world of their own.
Within this some fifty thousand men have
been thriving, while many have amassed
large fortunes. Many an enterprise, too, has
swamped in failure, which would have given
brilliant returns but for the tyranny of
white workmen, who prevented the employ
ment of chep Chinese labor.
1t remains to be seen how John China
man will be received in the South. The oz-
pertinent is to be made on a scale worthy
of the great national question of labor. Five
hundred Chiuamen have been landed, or
will be landed at Memphis in few days,
and thence will be scattered through the
large and small towns of the South. The
next two months experience will be rife
with deeper interest than appears upon the
surface. It remains to be seen how the Or.
ental will stand the stern Anglo-Saxon
Southern test of labor, capacity and availa-
oility.
What be wants is employment, and such
oay as we'll support him and leave some
hing over to send back to the father or
mother, or to the wife and children left at
lome. So accustomed has he been to give
full and and honest days labor to those
'ho hire him, that he expects to give his
mployer the service of his muscle and skill
uring all the hours of the day, only asking
reasonable time for meals, together with
be stipulated wages when his work is done. h
1t may be interesting to those who are I
ot posted to know how John Chinaman
cts here. 1t is to be understood, first of 81
i, that the Chinese who come to America
'e poor men. An INDECENT Chinnman L
oes to the official of his native village or
le precinct of the city in which he pre- n
des and proposes to mortgage himself and ii
S family for money with which to come "
America, where he expects to make his
rtune, clear up his affairs and live So
enceforward in peace, comfort and pros
rity. Gu
1t often happens, however, that the Chi
man does not return at the expiration of
certain time for which the motgage runs.
d tten the hsrpies and moneylenders, ke
to whose hands the business has fallen
this time, pornee upon the poor China he
ms family, and sell them into slavery ha
thout the least compuction of conscience. mt
,der such circumstances do most of the
linese who land upon our shores come. 'th
is not at all to be wondered at that thew hi,
not settle permantly-that this tide of
igrat;on is like none other,in its wonderful
and flow, that the world ever saw. an