Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1879-03-17
A LECTURING
Chan Poy Kwal and His Lecture on the
Chinese Question.

San Francisco %ChrOnicle.l
Chan Poy Kwai, the most advanced
of the Rev. Otis Gibson's Chinese
graduates into Christianity, and who
leaves for the East this morning to de-
liver a series of ready-made lectures
on the Chinese problem, rehearsed
one Of them last Saturday night at the
rooms Of the Chinese mission on
Washington street to about a dozen
invited guests, that they might per
%sonally know of his efficiency. Mr..
Kwai, who is about thirty years of age,
is remarkably intelligent looking for a
Chinaman, He was dressed in Chi
nese court costume, which consists of
a blue sack reaching from the neck to
midway between the thighs aud knees,
and underneath it a still bluer sack,
the visible part of which reaching to
the ankles, is very deliberately quilted.
The customary queue and a silk skull
cap completed the costume. Chan
speaks English almost perfectly, so that
if one heard him without seeing him he
would suppose he was listening to the
speech of an educated American, if
it were not for an occasional slight
difficulty with a final "a" and adds
tinctness of pronunciation that in any
but q foreigner would be considered
an a~ffectation. Chan is Of quite a sa-
tirical turn of mind. Said he: 1T
has been gravely charged that China
men come to this coast calculating
only TO go to work and make money
out Of the people. l admit the truth
of the charge that they como here to
work and earn money. There may be
some witless ones who come here to do
otherwise, but there are very few Of
them. 1t follows from the very
necessity Of the reasoning that the
white people on the other hand aban-
doAed pleasant homes and all the
comforts of an established civilization
and at the daily peril of their lives
forded turbulent rivers, fought
treacherous savages, climbed over
great ranges of mountains and crossed
arid plains solely and alone to GET
religion. 1t is to be regretted that
the Chinaman has succeeded so much
better than the white man. OF one
Of what Mr.. Kwai calls the persecu-
tions of the Chinese, he says: "Pla-
ICONS of white policemen in the
dead of night burst open with
~battering rams the doors and win
dows of Chinese tenements and
arrest heather Cinnamon by the score,
because each one is supposed not to
have 500 cubic feet of air, and for the
violation Of this Christian law they
are thrust into a Christian Jail, where
they have less than 100 feet each; but
then | suppose they proceed upon the
theory that it is more than five times
harder to exhaust the oxygen Of
Christian air than of Chinese SAYS
Kwai: 1.-The Chinese must 60 is the
slogan of the Caesar of the San Fran
cisco hoodlums, and is echoed by all
the bummers, demagogues and poll
ticians who are seeking place; but the
decent and respectable portion of the
community even on this coast are
more temperate in their opposition.
He contradicts the idea that the
Chinaman cannot be Christianized
China was forced into the great family
of nations, and now it is attempted tC
drive it out again. He claimed that
while of all European immigration q
very large per cent is ignorant in the
last degree, there is hardly one in a
thousand Of that from China who dee:
not know at leasth how to read and write
his native language"