The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1888-01-12
THE FRISCO cHINAMAN.
The Open.Air Cobbler, Sugar. Cane
vender, Pork Butcher, and Pipe
MnnAAr.


Mender.
Few sights in San Francisco prove
more attractive to the eastern tourist
sojourning in our city than the phases
of life in Chinatown, says The San
Francisco Chronicle.
The first object of interest is that
most important of Mongolian trades
men, the butcher. The staff of life in
Chinatown is pork. and everywhere the
venders of the indispensable article of
food display their goods. The pork
butcher readily wins the admiration of
the observant tourist The dispenser
of vanished hog and all the estates
and appurtenances of the pig family,
from sausage to trichin@, is generally
sleek. misunderstanding cody Com
ing here with a bogus certificate, pur-
chased at Hong Kong for S75, he man.
ages, by the rnanful perjury of o score
or two of first cousins, to effect land
ing. Six months work as scavenger
supplies him with the money to buy
couple of diseased hogs in Climate wn
and start a domestic sausage factory.
One success usually follows ano ther.
The pink-eye, an epidemic of the CLAN
ders, or hog cholera, puts him ON the
high road to affluence. and if he begins
business early in spring he is in high
feather as boss of thriving pork fac
tory when the winter crop of tourists
comes in. The visitor from the east
has no time to give the prosperous pork
vender more than superficial investi-
CATION, and, though he secs little on the
outside of the counter that increase his
appetite, he goes away without being
positively disgusted. The vanished
hog looks rather indigestible, the
strings of porcine giblets and entraiIs
have anything but q savory appear
ance, whose other parts are hidden in
the dark storeroom behind the shop,
seems scarcely fit for human food.
The tourist remembers, however,
that all these joints and fragments of
the hog are intended to nourish immi-
grants who must live on 10 cents
day. He therefore proceeds on his
round of inspection rather pleased with
his first study. and satisfied that if the
Chinese pork butcher is not exactly
picturesque he is at least highly useful
in the community.
The Mongolian cobbler, mending the
shoes OF a reduced mandarin who
scrapes chins at cents week in IN
adjacent barbar-shop is sure to en-
chain the attention of the eastern tour
ist The cobbler cultivates an intellect
ual appearance by straddling the bridge
of his nose with pair of large specta-
cles. 1t is recorded in Chinese history
that once upon time cross-eyed cob
bier who mended the noble shoes of
Confucius had red pepper thrown in his
eyes by his hot-tempered spouse, and
would have been unable to see straight
for month after but that his learned
patron lent him pair of spectacles.
which not only made him see perfectly
at once,T but also took the squint out of
| his optics. The sequel OF the happy
cure was that the cobbler's wife. de-
ceived by the miracle wrought in his
eyes, refused to believe that he was her
husband. and permitted him to pass the
remainder of his life in delightful sim
gle hlessedness. Since then every Chi
nese cobhler from San Francisco to
Shanghai wears spectacles to protect
him from red-pepper. strabismus, and
bad wives.
The patient labor of the Mongolian
peddler commends itself to the eastern
tourist, who does not know that the sly
wax-end manipulation is really the
watchful guardian of q tan game half
| kl,n Th4 xysr 1<
the:police and the stringent laws against
gambling makes 1t necessary to have
cautious outpost established to give
warning to the gamblers when the OFF,
GERS are in sight. The quiet-looking
cobbler pegging away at his trade is
desirable sentinel, and wherever one of
| his trade is seen hammering pegs into
Mongolian slippers it is safe to bet that
tan game or an opium den is not far
of. The Chinese cobbler is also an en-
cyclopedia and an unbound directory to
Chinatown. Every pig tailed immigrant
who wanders as far rs the cobbler's 8
stand stops to get points as to the loca-
ton of the royal Chinese theater. the
chief joss-house, and most popular
opium den. He is drummer for
several of the aristocratic restaurants
in Murderer's alley, and whenever he
patches up the shoe OF visiting man
ldarin from Halfmoon bay or Tomales
invariably pastes one of the restaurant
cards on the lining of the Celestial bro
gans.
After putting in half day in admira-
ton of the accomplishments of the
Mongolian cobbler the diligent tourist
takes in the vender of sugar-canes,
whom he first mistakes as peddler of
fishing poles. This diligent tradesman
also comes in for goodly share of the
tourists interest. Sugar-cane selling
is not regarded as a legitimate indus
try capable of supporting an ambitious
man in Chinatown. and is generally
fulness has been impaired by inflamma-
tory rheumatism contracted in Jail, or
a bullet through the lungs. Pending
his complete recovery the diligent Mon
golian pirate sells sugar-cane ut rates
that effectually shut out white compe-
tition. A pole as long as the mast of
a coasting schooner can be bought for
cents, or even lower, if the Mongol-
Ian pirates that watch the wharves can
only get q reasonably dark night
after = cargo is unloaded. When
the moon Is full and the watchmen on
the city front have been shaken up by
their superiors the sugar cane market
rises so that none but the wealthiest
class Of rag.pickers and Chicken
thieves can afford to gorge themselves
on the saccharine pulp. The more
aristocratio Glasses of Chinese, such as
pawnbrokera barbers,. aud fish-ped-
dlers, do not patronize the sugar cane
merchant extensively, preferring to top
of q banquet with stewed birds -nests,
fapjacks of lily powder, rats liver
brochette, or the fms Of . juvenile shark
fried to beautiful brown crisp in axle
grease. The delightful tourist, IL the
market is at its condition, invests in
some Of the toothsome poles, and, after
converting his internal economy into