The Portland daily press., 1892-08-15


There is about beginning in this city,
and in fact all over the State OF Maine
and the United States, one of the most
remarkable jobs ever attempted by the
United States government. The collect
or of Internal Revenue for the district OF
Maine and New Hampshire, whose Office
is in Portsmouth, has this duty in charge
in this region. This task is the great
and unprecedented job of officially pho
tographing every Chinaman in the United
States, under the authority of the Fed
eral Government, as provided for by the
act of Congress adopted in the month of
May last.
When this unprecedented job is done,
our Government will be in possession of
the photographs of the whole of the $780,
900 or 100000 Chinese residents of the
United States. In fact it will have three
photographs of each of them, for each
and every one of them all is required by
law to have three copies of his photo
graph taken, one copy to be deposited in
the Federal archives, one copy to be held
by the Internal Revenue Collector, and
one copy to be retained by the photo
graphed person. 1t is provided by the
law, as expuonded by Secretary Foster of
the Treasury Department, that no tin
type shall be accepted, and that genuine
photographs, properly SO called, shall be
required in all cases.
But we are not only, under the new
law, to have the photographs of all our
10000 or 14O, 900 Cinnamon; we are also
to have the weight and the height of
every one of them; we are to have the
age of each of them; we are to have the
proper names of all of them, written
either in the English alphabet or in Chi
nese characters. Still further, it is pre-
scribed in Secretary Foster regulations,
issued under the authority Of the act of
Congress passed in May last, that the
'scolor of the eyes" of every Chinaman
in the United States shall be given, SO
that he can be identified at any time by
an Internal Revenue Collector.
When all these things, and several 9th
er things not here mentioned, have been
done, each Chinaman shall be registered
in the collection district in which he re-
sides; the collector shall give him a
numbered and signed certificate; the
number of the certificate and the name
of it's holder shall be written across the
photograph, and red ink only shall be
used by the official writer. Thus it is
prescribed in the official regulations
issued by the Treasury department and
signed by Secretary Foster.
When Chinaman has been photo
graphed, weighed and measured; when
his optical and other peculiarities have
been marked and recorded; when he has
been registered and has got his certificate
numbered in red ink; when he has paid
the sum of 81 into the Treasury of the
United States through the internal reve-
nue. collector, then he shall s'be lawfully
entitled to remain in the United States. y
The work of labelling the Cinnamon
has already begun in the collection dis
tricts of California and New York, and
may be expected to begin in Maine soon.
What a pile of photographs there will
be! The New York Sun, commenting
upon this, says:
Our Government will soon possess the most
wonderful collection, the most gigantic pile of
photographs ever taken by the order OF the
Government of any country in the world: It
will be worthy of the inspection of ethnolOgists,
mind readers, phrenologists physiognomists,
psychologists, contortionists, and all Observant
persons. 1t may be hard to discriminate be-
tween one Chinaman and any other; but we
suppose that the difficulty can be overcome by
close careful and PERSISTENT study of the faces,
through the aid of scientific appliances. We
hold that the photographs ought to be CLASH
fed. Those of the Cinnamon who wear queues
ought to be separated from those who do not;
those who have been converted to Christianity
should be separated from those who worship
Joss. Such of them as play fan-tan or hit the
pipe should be separated from such as do not.
THUS we would be assisted in making scien-
tiic study of them all, and in drawing de-
auctions that might be useful or humorous. A
great national museum ought to be established
in which all the Chinese photographs might be
seen in line on the walls
The Pavilion.