Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-04-21
INsUFFERABLE IMPUDENCE.

The hardihood of the new Chinese Min
lister, in brazening out lie, is only par
alleled by the eagerness with which the
EASTERN press snap at any grain of oppor-
tunity to misrepresent and insult the
people Of California The matter of the
reception of the Chinese Minister at San
Francisco has been distorted by the pro-
Chinese people out of all semblance Of
truth, and is made to do duty to an I'M
manly and ungenerous spirit
To-days dispatches detail from the lips
of the spokesman Of the embassy state
ments that demand plain re-recital of the
actual facts. Fortunately these facts are
so clear as to be incoDtrovertible, and Col
lector Hager has, over his official sigma
ture, put them on record with such sub
stantiatory testimony as to place them
beyond and above dispute. In the light
OF these facts it is submitted to any can
did and fair intelligence, no matter what
ideas 1t may entertain concerning Chinese
immigration or restriction, or the rights
or wrongs of Chinese in the United States,
that great injustice is done the customs
officials.
The Act of Congress known as the Re
strictlon Act was passed In conformity
with the treaty with China, and is known
to the Chinese Government and consented
to by IT, in 50 far that it has not protested
against nor expressed dissatisfaction with
1t. The Act provides that Ministers and
ambassadors from China shall be admitted
10 ports of the United States on presenta-
ton of their credentials, which shall be
accepted in lieu of the certificate of a.right
to iand, required by the Act
The Secretary of the Treasury sent to
the Collector of the Port at San Francisco
orders that, on the arrival of the new Min
lister, expected at some early date, the
baggage and personal effects of the Min
lister and party should be passed
without the usual customs inspection.
That order contained no word of reference
to the admission of the Minister and his
suite. 1t left all that to the formulae of
the law A steamship arrived having on
board number of Chinese. Some of these
claimed to be officials of the Empire in
the suite of another, who claimed to be a
certified Minister of China to the United
States Government. The Surveyor of the
Port, having no evidence whatever other
than the viva voce statement of persons
laying the claim, did as he was by law
bound to do and asked for the credentials
OF identification. These were refused to
him on the ground that they were ad-
dressed to the President of the United
States, and must not lie exposed until
Washington was reached The subordi-
nate officer communicated with his SUI
perior, the Collector, and after necessary
delay OF from half to three-quarters of an
hour, the party was landed in violation of
the law, and upon no other evidence of
right to land than the word of the inter-
prefer of the party and the passenger list
OF the ship. This fact of the call for Gre
dentials, refusal to produce them, and the
landing without any evidence of official
character being shown, is admitted in just
50 MANY words by the interpreter in the
dispatches from Chicago this morning.
This Is the whole story in a nut shell.
Yet this Chinese official states to the East
ern press that the San Francisco Collector
purposely delayed the party in order to
please "a certain class of people in Cali
fornia." This understrapper thus assumes
to impugn the motives of man hundred
fold his superior in intelligence and all
that goes to make a man; an accomplished
jurist; citizen of unblemished reputation,
4 gentleman by instinct and education.
an ex-United States Senator, and an
official who has discharged the many
trusts imposed upon him by the State and
nation during third of century with
honor to the people and himself 1t is
unblushing impudence and Mongolian
cheek such as Nj. Hue describes in his
admirable work on China, as surprising all
other effrontery and meanness. Upon
the test of this Chinese interpreters
fable, we may expect the Eastern pro-
Chinese press to fatten and yomit its bile
upon this people. There are hot-beads
indictments and extremists here, as there
are the lawless, the riotous and the dam
gerous classes at the East, but that Col
lector Hager delayed the Embassy to
please the prejudice of any one, no sane
man In this State for an instant believes.
A San Francisco weekly journal has
gone so Ear as to say that the Customs Of
ficers shoaid have known and admitted
the Minister by reason of the peacock
feather of his rank which he wore. and
his associates by the Mandarin buttons of
their skull-caps. The absurdity of such
an excuse for the impudent refusal of the
Minister to identify himself according to
the laws Of the land to which he is ac-
credited, must be apparent even to billiards.
That paper FORCES, if it ever knew, that
no Minister or Embassador from this coun-
try to China, to France, to Italy, to Rus
STA or to Germany, has ever passed through