Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1890-04-21
A CHINESE HOSPITAL.
How Grim Death Comes to the Resi-
deat of Mott street.

From the New York Star.l
However hard the life Of Chinaman may
be, the most hopeless. poverty stricken and
humble representative of the Flowery King
dom receives, after his death, homage and
attentions which are denied to many white
millionaire now slumbering in Green wood or
Cypress Hill. Whatever his faults may be,
John Chinaman cherishes through life the
most tender, vigilant memory of the shades
of the departed. The worst type of Mon
golian ruffian, to whom cutting throat or
scuttling a ship would be welcome pastime,
entertains the utmost respect, aye, reverence,
for the dead. The poor white man who dies
in a charity hospital and is turned over to
the dissecting knife prior to his being thrown
into Potter's field like dog into ditch, un-
knelled and unknown, presents striking
contrast to the heather Chinee, whose life
was one panorama of cheerless filth, disre.
spect and unreuuited toll, but whose body
has been inferred with all the pomp and Ger
emony BETTING some illustrious parsonage.
The most repulsive and revolving spectacle
connected with the life of the Chinese in this
country may be found in the 'last chance"
as the Chinese hospitals In New York are
popularity termed.
A Chinese hospital is a wicked libel on the
name, an Intentional satire, inasmuch as it
combines all the filth, dampness, cheerless-
ness, wickedness-in word, all the horrors
for which Chinatown is noted. There are
two such hospitals in Chinatown, but where
they are located is as difficult of solution as
"the ways that are dark and the tricks that
are vain" of Tammany hall. Even Captain
NcCullagh's detectives are sometimes at a
loss to know where these sub cellars of mise.
ry are located, and the board of health ia of.
ton puzzled to locate the chamber of horrors
into which sick and frisndless Mongolians
creep to die. It often happens that these
pestilential dives, wherein the seeds of ty.
der the notice of the health department and
a thorough "cleaning out" is effected, but
the nuisance is only transferred to another
and more solitary quarter, where the pig-
tailed patients are left to die like a buffalo
on the prairies.
A sIoK MAN HAS NO FRIENDS.
No manifestation of pity, no kind inqui-
ries, no polite attendants, no nourishment,
no words of hope, cheer or consolation are
ever vouchsafed to dying Chinaman, who
in his turn suffers without a pang of COM
plant or regret. II he is of revengeful
disposition he comforts himself with the su-
perstitious assurance that if he has been
neglected or has suffered during life at the
hands of his oountrymen or enemies, his
"spook" is going to ''get square" with them
after the spirit has left the body. His feel-
ing in this respect is best epitomized in the
words Of the Poet Shelley:
Forget tho deadi the past!
AhI yet there are ghosts,
May take revenge for it.
Memories that make the heart tomb;
Regrets that glide through the spirits gloom.
Difficult as 1t is to obtain admission to a
well regulated Chinese opium den, it is far
more difficult to obtain an entire into Chi
nese hospital, for no amount of persuasion,
no bribe and no penalty can wiring q confess
sion from a dying Ohinaman.
When Press reporter recently penetrated
into one of these dens on Mott street, near
Pell, he found it impossible to obtain an adj
mission from the man in charge that the
place was used as q hospital, or that there
were any sick persons at all in the house. A
detective who accompanied the reporter lit q
candle, and Immediately both began an ex-
ploration of the dark passageway. On de-
seending into the cellar pigtail laundry man
presented himself, and, on learning that the
two bold and intrepid visitors were detec-
tives, the hospital guard constituted himself
guide to the establishment where the sick
coolies lay.
The visitors were led into an apartment
about ten feet square and four feet high.
There was not ray of light or ventilation in
the place, and a cook stove and half a dozen
or more sleeping hunks constituted the en-.
tire furniture OF this ''last chance" There
were three Cinnamon lying in q state of stu.
por, reminding the reporter Of scene in q