The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1886-06-27
ORIENTAL NEW YORK.
A Trip Through the Homes OF
the Mott Street AsiaticS.
HOW THEY HERD TOGETHER.
Description OF their Lodging Houses
and the Manner in Which They
Smoke Opium and Gamble.

II may be questioned II any city IN
the world can compare E:th New YORK
in cosmopolitan characteristics. Like
every grestmetropolis. it hasits French.
German, Irish. Jewish, and italian
quarters. Unlike most, il has colonies
of Russians. negroes, Swedes. Bohe-
mians, Hungarians, and even Turks.
And still more unlike the great capitals
of Europe, it has an oriental element,
varying from ten to twenty thousand
in number.
This elementin Kew York is made up
of sailors, cooks, peddlers, clerks. and
occasionally tradesmen and merchants.
They are brought together by the
mighty dollar, and usually remain in
Gotham until they have secured what
seems to them a snug sum, and to their
far-off fellow-countrymen a fortune.
The Chinese preponderate, and already
have settlement OF their own in Mott
Street. After the Chinese come Jap m
ese, Hindus, Marois, Hawaiians and
Lascars. In one large boarding house
on Water Street, no less than twelve
Asiatic languages are spoken; in an
other in Baxter Street the proprietor
has on his business card: English,
Chinese, Manila. Japanese, Danish,
Hindustsni, Cochinese, and French
spoken here"
These eastern races herd rather than
live together. Rent in their own lands
is so cheap that they cannot bear the
high rates Of this country. For this
reason they will crowd ten and even
twenty persons into a room usually oc-
cupied BY two Americans. By cooper
ating similarly in buying and prepar-
ing food, they succeed in reducing the
cost of living to 20 cents day. 1
is easy, therefore, to see how upon -
day wages or profits one OF them can
aInass 81 500 in few years, and with il
buy small farm in the frugal east.
ORIENTAL LODGING HOUSES.
The homes of these people are chiefly
in the Fourth and Sixth Wards-Water,
Cherry. Oliver, Baxter, and Pell Streets
being their favorites-and comprise
both boarding and lodging houses. The
proprietors of some Of these are quite
rich. Chin-Chin, a Cochinese. is worth
$40 600; Akwah, $4,000, and La Cruz.
SIS 200.
These boarding houses are of one
general type. You pass through dark
hallway or plunge down gloomy cell
lar stair and fad yourself in the ante
room or office. 1t has g small desk or
counter, behind which either the pro-
prietor or q clerk perpetually sits, few
chairs and pile Of trunks, boxes and
barrels. Against the walls are shelves
and cupboards, on and in which are the
goods in demand by oriental races. To
one familiar with life in Cathay most of
the articles are familiar. Dried dragon
fish from the Japan seas, bamboo tips
from Cochin-China and Siam, brown
tobacco from Corea, and yellow from
Formosa, opium from India aud Hong
Kong, hasheesh from Calcutta and
ginseng root. preserved gin
ger, and Manila CONNECTIONS, are but
few of the wares which supply the
boarding house keeper with profit OF
seldom less than 100 per cent.
Behind the Office is the main living
room. This Is generally a long apart-
ment of 20x40, whose walls are lined
with hunks three deep. These hunks
are sometimes separated by partitions
as on shipboard, but are generally deep
shelves running all around the room
With separate hunks the room describ-
ed accommodates fifty dodgers or board
ers: with continuous shelves about
eighty. In the middle of the room are
chairs, tables, and generally more or less
luggage of the guests. In some of the
lower grade establishments where hy-
giene and the board Of health are bid
defiance TO, garbage and dirt are piled
up in the centre of the iving<oom IN
til miniature East River dump" is
produced. In these hunks the dodgers
IL day or night aud frequently DAY and
night. according 70 their vocations- To-
bacco, opium and haSheesh consume
all their energies and convert them for
the time being into almost veritable
corpses. Ii is no uncommon sight
TO see at noon az Cruz's Hotel N Baxter
Street or Quong Fats in Park Street as
many as thirty persons lying in dead
stupor.