The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1870-02-11
MARK TWAIN.
He Writes About Chinamen and Des-
PeradOes.

He Writes Abous Chinamen and Des-
! PeradOes.
| From the Buffalo Express.l
One of CALIFORNIA; 8 c,iriosities the peo-
pIe In the States will some day become
familiar with through the Pacific rail-
road. I mean the Cinnamon. Calif0r-
mia contains 10000 of them, and every
ship brings more. There Is Chinese
quarter in every city and village in
| California and Nevada, for Boards Oi
Aldermen will not allow them to live
all sroucd town, just wherever they
| choose to locate. This is not hardship
for they prefer to herd together.
PECULIARrTIEs AND sUPERsTITroNs.
They are a people who fondly stick to
their ancient customs. They dress in
the quaint costumes their ancestors
worS five hundred years ago. They
build temp,es, gaudy with gliding and
hideous with staring idols, and there
they worship after the fashion of their
fathers. A strict record is kept by their
chiefs of the name and residence Of
every Chinaman, and when he dies his
body is sent back to China for burial,
for they can never get to their heaven
unless they start from China. And
besides, Chinamen worship their ances-
tors, and they will want their share OF
Worship after they are done with this
world. Even when the Chinese Gov
ernment sells ship load of degraded
and criminal coolies to a Cuban or Sand
wich Island planter, it is strictly stipu-
lated that the body of every one of
them must be sent back to China after
death.
The Cinnamon being smart, shrewd
people, to take some few OF our COM
mercial customs and virtues, but some
how we can't make great headway In
the matter of civilizing them. We can
teach them to gamble a little, but
somehow we can't make them get
drunk. 1t is discOuraging-bec because
you can't regulate being that won't
get drunk.
The Chinaman is the most frugal, in
dustrious and thrifty of all creatures.
No matter how slender are the wages
YOU pay him he will manage to lay up
money. And Cinnamon are the most
gifted gardeners i'm the world. Give
one of them a sand-bank that would
not support lizard, and he will make
it Weld generous crops of vegetables.
The Chinaman wastes nothing. Ev-
erything has value in his eyes.
He gathers up all the castaway rags
and bones and bits of glass, and makes
marketable articles of them. And he
picks up all the old fruit-cans you
throw away and melts then to get the
tin and solder. When a white man
discards a gold placer as no longer
worth anything, the patient Chinaman,
always satisfied with smallprofits, and
never i'm hurry to get rich, takes pos
session and works it contentedly for
years.
The Chinaman makes good cook, a
good washerwOman, a good chamber
maid, a good gardner, good bankers
clerk, a good miner, good railroad Ia
borer, a good anything you choose TO
put him at; for these people are all edul-
Gated; they are all good accountants;
they are very quiet and peaceable; they
never disturb themselves about politics;
they are SO tractable, quick, smart and
naturally handy and ingenious, that
YOU can teach them anything; they
have no jealousies; they never lose a
moment; never require watching to
keep them at work; they are gifted with
world of patience, endurance and
contentment. They are the best labor
ing class America has ever seen-and
they do not care cent who is Presi-
dent. They are miserably abused by
the laws of California, but that sort of
thing will cease some day. 1t was
found lust about impossible to build the
California end of the Pacific Railroad
with white men at s. per day and take
care of all the brOils and fights and
strikes; but they put on Cinnamon at
81 day and find themselves, and they
built it without fights or strikes or any
thing, and saved the bulk of their wa
ges, too. You will have these long
tail tOilers among you in "the States"
some day, but you will find them right
easy to get along with-and you will
like them, too, because they will stand
heap of abuse. You will find them
ever SO convenient, because when you
get mad YOU can snatch a club and go
out and take satisfaction out of a China
man. The native American negro Is
getting so insolent, n)w, that the pat
riot from Ireland cannot take little
recreation out of him without getting
into trouble. So the Chinaman will
afford needed relief.
MODEST vILLAINY.
As evidence that Cinnamon are sat
lsfied with small gains, will remark
that they drill FIVE holes into the edge
of gold coins-drill clear through from
edge to edge-and save the gold thus
bored out and fill up the hole with some
sort of metallic composition that does
not spoil the ring of the coin. Their
counterfeiters put nine parts good met
al and only one part base metal in their
bogus cOins-and so it Is very lucrative
i'm the long run and the next thing to
impossible to detect the cheat. 1t Is
only greedy, bungling, Christian coun-
terfeiters that blunder into trouble, by
trying to swindle their riellOw-creatures
too heavily.
DEsPERADOEs.
Another curious feature about Cali.
fOrnia life was the breed of desperadoes
she reared and fostered on her soil and
afterward distributed over adjacent
Territories through her Vigilance COm-
mittees when she had had enough of
their exploits. These men went armed
to the teeth with mOnstrous revOlvers,
and preyed upon each other. Their
slightest misunderstanding were set
tied Oh the spot by the bullet; but they
very rarely mOlested peacable citizens
They robbed and gambled and killed
people for three or four years, and then
''died with their boots on" as they
phrased it; that is, they were killed
themselves- almost invariably = and
they never exepctedany other fate, and
were very seldom disappointed.
SAM BROWN.
Sam Brown, of Nevada, killed six
teen men i'm his time, and was journey
ing toward Esmeralda to kill seven
teenth, who had stopped the breath of
a friend of his, when u party of law
abiding citizens waylaid him and
slaughtered him with shot guns.
Mourners were exceedingly scarce at
his funeral. 1t is said that Sam Brown
called for a drink at the bar of the
Slaughter House in Carson City one
morning ia saloon so nicknamed be-
cause so many men had been killed in
it, and invited a stranger up TO drink
with him. The stranger said he never
drank, and wished to be excused. BY
the custom of the country that was a
deadly insult, and so Brown very prop
erly shot him down. He left him ly-
ing there and went away, warning
everybody to let the body alone, be-
cause it was his meat. he said. And il
is said also that he came back after
awhile and made coffin and hurled
the man himself though / never could
quite believe that-witlsout assistance.