Mexico weekly ledger., 1876-10-19


a hunk there, until the bones are bare
enough for a F~renchman's soup; I'M
derneath the butchers, q vegetable
dealers, with bulbs and esculents of all
sizes and appearances, but which /
know, from a series of conscientious
experiments, all taste alike. Cross the
street, and you are face to face with g.
money-broker, who has as neighbors a
tinman and, a gambling-den whilst the
general stores, where rice-paper, and
opium, and tea-pots are all offered--for
twice as much as they are worth-are
everywhere. Nearly all the stores have
little galleries running round them, in
which bent, patient Cinnamon inces-
sanity tread away at sewing-machines,
on which are being stitched the inevita-
BILE flannel undershirts, which might
be the city's badge. Every other cellar
is a barber's shop, marked by the green
tripod outside-in which John has his
head shaved, his eyebrows slanted, and
his ears cleaned, religiously, once a
week; while all along the streets are
innumerable fruit, cake, and candy
stands, and in every doorway a little
old man, on a little old stool, forever
trying to patch and mend a hopelessly-
busted boot.
Go a turn down Sacramento Street
and the z ..-s ..-
RICH MERCHANTS STORES
come into view. They are a credit to
the place, being neatly kept, and COM
fortably furnished after the Chinese
stiff-backed ideas of comfort the own
ers having the satisfied, complacent
look of the well-to-do, and store and
cellars filled with fat bags of rice and
sugar, and scented chests of tea.
Back again through Dupont
Street, and up a fight or two
of steps, and there is scarcely
any abatement in the signs of an earn
est, persistent, ~tireless work and labor.
This is a corridor on which open five
rooms: In No. 1, an o~ctogenarian,
who wears a moustache, and looks
askance at the bone-scraper, as he pass
es him in the street, teaching a bird
tricks; No. 2, another old man teach
ing a young class English-every schol-
ar IS earnest and grave as a crow; in
No. 8, two intelligent men who are
mounting photographs; in No. 4, a
doctor mending a broken nose with a
patch of something black and sticky,
and so generously applied that a hole
has to be tunneled in it t. connect with
} the PATIENTS mouth; and in No. 5, two
D tailors and half-a-dozen lamp makers.
A parting stroll to
. NOTE BY THE EARS,
D and we shall have finished for the time
4 with Chinatown.
0 Out from the open windows of this
y restaurant comes wall after wall; then
three re-reiterated notes of a ~heathenish
: and most incomplete gamut; then the
, wall again, high-pitched and awful in
it's intensity of untunefulness then a
quick, hard rattle, a series of staccato
:, crashes on cymbals, a final thump on a
gong, a concerted allegro of horrors
+, and dG cap0, till the crack of doom, on
; a hand-Organ in the last stages OF
wheezy consumption, would be wei,
coined as an agreeable diversion. 1t is
8 very likely that the followers of that
, old prototype of Upper, Confucius,
: have some proverb equivalent to
: "There's no accounting for tastes; -
: and this music is to the Chinese res.
8 %taurateur q sweet attendant on good APP,
: petite. The windows are closed in this
house, and the doors too; but a visitor,
leaving brings with him the echo of the
cries around the tan-table. Through
this door ONE the loud voice OF a ma
tive missionary, leading John from the
2 error of his ways; and from that oppo
: site comes the losder laughter of the
crowds who are intent on this, the
e ninety-first act of a tragico-comedy
n that has just reached an interesting
0 stage. And so, let these musicians
gamblers, preachers, and actors stanC
e as the concluding group in my attempt
e ed classification of Chinese labor il
Y San Francisco.
+ OF THE SOJOURNERS IN ARCADIA
it will be impossible to do more thar
e take a glance; for John, like the dark,
I in the hymn, is much given to "a-roam
9 ing through an unfriend-lie world
u Where there is fruit to be picked, there
: is John; where there is a road or a dan
e to be built. there is John; trees to b.
I felled, shrimps to be pressed, bridge
to be repaired, wheat to be gathered
cooking to be done-in brief, mention
q any form of country labor, and the an
j. swer could safely be %stereotyped
K "That, the Chinese do"
o. P. QUEUE.