Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1870-02-01
Mark Twain-He Writes About Chi
namen and DesperadOeE.

Mark Twain-He Writes About Chi.
namen and DesperadOes.
From the Buffalo Express.l
One of Calfornia's curiosities the peo-
pie in the States will some day become
familiar with through the Pacific rail-
road. mean the Cinnamon. Califor-
MIA contains 10000 of them, and every
ship brings more. There is Chinese
quarter in every city and village in Cali
fernia and Nevada, for Boards of Alder
! men will not allow them to live oil
around town, just wherever they choose
TO locate. This is not ha.dship; for
they prefer to herd together.
PEoULIARITIEs AND sUPERsTITIoEs.
They are people who fondly stick to
their ancient customs. They dress in
the quaint costumes their ancestors wore
five hundred years ago. They build tenn
pies, 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 aud residence Of every Chinamsn,
and when he dies his body is sent back
to China for burial, for they can never
g6t 10 tneiT heaNou uuicso AuCy otohV
from China. Aud besides, Cinnamon
worship their ancestors, and they all
want their share of worship after they
are done with this world. Ev en- when
the Chinese Government sells hipload
of degraded and criminal coolis to a
Cuban or Sandwich Island planter, it is
strictly stipulated that the body of every
one of them must be sent back to China
after death.
The Cinnamon being smart, shi 'ewd
people, take to some few of our CONT uer-
cial customs and virtues, but somehow we
can't make great headway in the mai ter
of civiizing them. We can teach thu I'm
to gamble little, but somehow we cal It
make them get drunk. II is discourage e
because you can't regenerate bein
that won't get drunk.
The Chinaman is the most frugal, in :
dustrious and thrifty of all creatures. mo
r.atter how slender are the wages you p ay
him, be will manage to lay up mont y.
And Cinnamon are the most gifted g ar
deners in the world. Give one of them a
saud-bank that would not support a
lizard, and be will make it yield genero us
crops of vegetables. The Gilman an
wastes nothing. Everything has val 1e
in his eyes. He gathers up sll the cas- T.
away rags and bones and bits of glas s,
and makes marketable articles of them.
And he picks up all the old fruit CANS
you throw away and melts them up to get
the tin aud solder. When white man
discards a gold placer as no longer worth
anything, the patient Chinamen, always
satisfied with small profits, and never in
hurry TO get rich, takes possession and
works it contentedly for years.
The Chinsman makes good cook, 9
good washerwomsn, a good chamber
maid, good gardener, good bankers
clerk, good miner, good railroad
laborer good anything you choose to
put him at; for these people are all edu-
Gated; they are all good accou ntants;
they never disturb themselves about poll
tics; they are 80 tractable, quick, smart,
and naturally handy and Ingenious, that
you can teach them anything; they have
no iealousies; 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 lsboring class America
has ever sean-aud they do not care a
cent who is President. They are miser
ably abused by the laws of California,
but that sort of thing will cease some
day. 1t was found just about impossible
to build the California end of the Pacific
railroad with white men at three dollars
per day, and take care of all the broils |
and fights and strikes; but they put on
Cinnamon at one dollar a day and find
themselves, and they built it without
fights or strikes or anything, end saved |
the bulk Of their wages, too. You will |
have these long tail toilers smoDg 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 club and
20 out aud take satisfaction out OF a |
Chinaman. The native American negro
is getting SO insoent, now, that the pa
triot from Ireland cannot take little
recreation out of him without getting into
trouble. So the Chinsman will afford a
needed relief.
As evidence that Cinnamon are salts.
fed with small gains, viii remark thst
they drill FIVE holes into the edge of gold |
coins-drill clear through from edge to
edge-and save the gold thus bored out,
aud G III up the hole with some sort Of me
tallic composition that does not spoil the
ring of the coin. Their eounterfeiters
put nine parts good metal and only one
part base metal in their bogus coins
and so tits very lucrative in the long run,
and the next thing to impossible to de-
tect the cheat. Il is only greedy, bung-
ling, Christian counierieiiers that blunder
into trouble by trying TO swindle their
too heavily.
Another curious feature about Celifor-
MIA was the breed Of desrersdoes she
reared and fosiesed on her soil. aud after
ward distributed over adjacent Territories
through her Vigilance Committees when
she had hsd enough of their exP'Ssss-
These men went armed 10 the teeth With
msnstrous rsvoivers, aud -preyed upon
each other Their slightest misuuder-
standings we're settled on the spof bT the
they rarely molesied pescea.
bic citizens. They robbed and gsubled