Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1889-01-24
SEEN IN CHINATOWN.
NEW YORK YOUNGSTERS, WHO ARE
FOND OF STUNNING,

Find Among the Almond Eyed Denizens of
Cleanliness of the Orientals-Meals at q
Chinese Restaurant
There has grown up fancy among the
young people who are rather suffering for
amusement to explore Chinatown, and
they find much that is amusing beside
the yellow skinned beauties. Sunday
evening is the time chosen for this sort Of
Summing, as then the pigtailers con-
gregate from far and near to buy supplies
Of Chinese food, which last them all the
week in their Jersey City and Hoboken
laundries. At that time Mott street and
its vicinity present pretty fair imita-
tion of Hong Kong, despite the fact that
trains are laundering by through the ele-
waited network at Chatham square. The
streets are almost impossible with the
chattering crowds of Cinnamon, each
with parcel under his arm, containing
salt turnips, dried shrimp, tea and rice,
which they have come to purchase for
their seven days supply. These Chinese
eat comparatively little American food,
and the Chinese groceries, of which there
are thirty or forty, do a thriving trade,
drawn from all the cities within easy dis
tance many of the grocers being worth
anywhere from fifty to a hundred and
fifty thousand dollars.
You will find their stock is nearly all
imported; they keep very few American
products, and you will wander among
these jostling crowds for hours without
hearing one word of English or suspect
ing that such tongue was known were
it not for the patent medicine advertise
ments. which carry the language every
where, and are seen here in profusion,
setting forth their merits in both tongues,
and reaping, it is said, great store of
shekels from the pigtailers, who dote on
stuff of the sort and pay fortunes to their
own nostrum sellers for the style of medi-
cines which were in vogue in Europe in
the middle ages In every grocery hangs
three or four pairs of antlers in the
velvet, and the powder obtained by
pounding fragment of them in mortar
with a silver of Chinese ginseng root
makes dose which would 60 on silver
quarter, costs anywhere from $40 to $75,
and is taken once year by any one who
can afford it with the firm conviction that
1t has power to not only cure but ward
off possible disease during the coming
year.
The method of getting prescriptions is
simple but somewhat haphazard A
Chinaman who feels that something is
seriously wrong inside goes to the joss
house, sets up two incense sticks in the
incense burner, takes a small jar full Of
narrow bamboo slips in his hand, bows
three times and begins to slowly shake
the jar from side to side. In the course
of minute or two one of the slips works
it's way out from the others and falls on
the floor. 1t has number on it, and that
number corresponds to a prescription to
be found in a tattered and dingy "oracle
book" hanging on the wall. The patient
secures that prescription from his chemist,
and takes it with full faith in the Joss
diagnosis and remedy. Nearly every man
Jack of these Cinnamon that the society
people go down to gaze at curiously as
they clatter through the narrow streets
among the stands where salted peanuts
and Chinese cabbage and cucumbers are
sold, is a washerman.
There are 1000 laundries in New York
alone, 900 in your city and 200 in Jersey
City, which is called in the Confucius
''musquito land" Each laundry has from
two to five men working in it, and most
OF them make money, for the Chinese
exclusion bill keeps away competition
and gives them sort of laundry trust Of
1t. One young woman, who has lately
been on an expedition of this sort, when
she acquired this piece of information
saw in it the explanation of fact that
had greatly puzzled her-which was that
every Chinaman she saw was clean. She
had gone into little rooms crowded to the
doors with Orientals, where the windows
were shut and the gas burning, and yet
there was not the smallest hint of un-
pleasant odor. She had explored opium
dens and found every smoker with the
snowiest stockings on his unslippered
feet, and she came home much amazed
having had some previous experience
among the lower classes of other nations.
Possibly the laundry profession being so
widely diffused explains their cleanliness.
They not only wash themselves, however,
but the Mclean man can 90 into their bar
Der shops any evening and see the barber
brush out and braid up their long queues,
shave away all the hair around the face
and neck, remove all traces of beard and
manicure their nails, his customers COM
ing out from his hands as fresh and clean
Of all the places in Chinatown the most
are the restaurants, of which
there are eight. The Delmonico's is Hong
Ping Los, where one can order spread"
Of forty courses, which it takes two days
to eat and which can be had for the sum
Of $50. and provides enough for party
of six. Here's meal for three at the
Chinese Delmonico's and the prices: We
had tea. samsu (rice brandy, two kinds
Of wine, dish of how-chop-sucy. which
Is pungent and palatable conception Of
chicken livers and gizzards, fungi. bamboo
buds, bean sprouts, water chestnuts and
Ill manner Of savory spices stewed to-
gether; dish of cuttlefsh, one of ducks
breasts, chickens wings, pigeons wings,
, bowl of rice and mooncake BY way Of
sweets, and for this, with all the attend
ant dishes of sauces and condiments, one
pays $1.25. A full, square meal, deli
ciously cooked, dainty and delicate, for
about forty cents apiece or less because
there was enough on the dishes to have
fed three or four more people. This fact
Is becoming known, and over five hun
dred Americans are regular customers at
The Celestial eating house. They do not
want them there, either, because they are
too cheap. They study matters closely,
md manage to get their meals for about
ten cents, while the Chinese, who are all
high livers, spend their money freely
New York Cor Brooklyn Eagle.
Egyptian Tsz Eoossr,s.