Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-05-07
SYRIAN CHATTELS-
Oriental S-rfs who Are Really in Bond
age to PadxNnes in This Country.

Oriental S-rfs who Are Really in Bond
age to Padxones in This Country.
The Syrian men, women and children
who patrol the public thoroughfares of
this city laden with religious emblems
and trinkets of semi barbaroEs design
are, with few exceptions, the victims ola
social condition which can be hardly de-
fined from slavery.
They are the human chattels of class
of importers Of foreign birth who have
their agents and established headauar-
tiers in every city Of prominence on the
Pacific coast as well as in eastern cen
tiers.
These human chattels, who claim to
be Turks to advance the novelty of their
personality in the eyes of the purchasil.g
public, are the scum of Syria, Armenia,
Greece and Italy.
There are several thousand of these
serfs employed by their money making
fellow .countrymen in the United States.
Hundreds are annually added to the
number already employed. Ignorant of
their legal rights and but poorly versed
in the language of the country they
tamely submit to their exacting master,
receiving only their food, lodging and
scanty clothing.
These serfs sell themselves to their
masters. hoping that in a new country
they will better their condition and be
at least relieved of the pangs Of hunger
which beset them in their native lands.
Pledged to work either for life or for
fo,. IL,
transportation to the new land of prom
Use, they are sent on their arrival in the
United States to the cities where their
labors will prove the most remunerative.
They have lately encroached upon
what to them is virgin feld-the Pa
cific coast-and numbers are frequently
being sent hither to thoroughly cover
every profitable point.
There have been as many as forty or
fifty of these human chattels-men,
women and youths engaged in making
street sales in this city, but they have
decreased until only twelve or fifteen
cover the trade of San Francisco. Seattle,
Tacoma and Washington generally in
clude fifteen or twenty in their bounda-
ries. Los Angeles is favored with the
presence of ten or twelve, while Oregon
which, according to their statements,
is proving to be the more renunerative
field-has from thirty to fifty Of these
IS catering to the demands of their
peculiar line of trade. The state of Ne
vada harbors ten or fifteen, while the
progress of Utah is marked by having
twenty or thirty.
Their residence at any place is not
permanent, but, like the nomadic Arab
of the desert, these slaves silently fold
their tents and steal away at the will of
their masters. which varies with the va
riations Of the trade. One of the places
in this city where nomadic serfs receive
their supplies and render their accounts
is in Mlnna street. 1t is a supply depot,
and is conducted under the name of
Joseph Sha-bel & Co. There, in a room
crowded with Syrians of both sexes, of
all sizes and ages. is a large stock of
trinkets and religious articles stored in
pasteboard boxes of various sizes dis
played ON shelves which run about the
room.
This apartment contains two beds and
lounge, and the lack of other furnish
ings is made compulsory by the space
taken up by the immense stock which is
doled out to be sold by the street peddlers
in this city and neighboring towns. Jo-
seph Sharbel himself is bronzed and
brawny Syrian, much past the wears of
middle life. He is the padrone WI '!;rectS
the actions and labors of the t.u=:tr OF
composite nationalities Of both sexes and
various ages who were gathered in the
room. He was rather reticent when
questioned by a reporter, and while
claiming to be unacquainted with others
engaged in the same line of business he
displayed a knowledge regarding the To-
cation of branch agencies and number
of his countrymen and women engaged
in the trade that was remarkable. Some
of the supply depots in this city remit
regularly from $4,000 to $4,000 a week to
the east and Europe as payments for
shipments and invoices of goods. San
Francisco Chronicle.