Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1894-09-19


side him, whose pink jacket and green
trousers looked better before, boy fash.
ion, he had tumbled about some in the
alley.
Enter the actor. His face is almost
fiat. His nose hardly protrudes beyond
the dnll monotony of his yellow visage.
His head is clean-shaven for the mos
part and oiled up on his crown in his
tightly twisted queue. He is about
what would be the medium height fer
Caucasian. He is about twenty three
or twenty-four years old A more dull
and emotionless face it would be diff
cult to imagine if it We're not for the
eyes. They are oval, of course. They
are larger than those of the average
coolie. These alone indicate mimic
terror, hate. watchfulness, final tri-
umph and other incidental phases of
imaginary hand to-hand combat. For
be IL understood it is tragedy. deadly
fighting, which is supposed to be repre-
sented alone. He wears no hat. He
has ON blouse of what was white ma
terial but is now soiled. He has
jacket OF blue with wide sleeves, but
less wide than Chinese merchants luxu-
riate mas "sports" during the Chinese
new yem season. His trousers were
once scaret but they are dingy. His
stockings we're white and his shoes turn
up like the front Of "stone drag"
For the rest-he weighs perhaps 1870
pounds; his wrists are not over large,
but look sinewy and are certainly very
supple; he firm on his feet, but ac-
tive; and he is erect, but not notice.
ably so.
The properties" consist of small
brass gong, two knives with blades
from five to six inches wide and
perhaps thirty inches long, un-
adorned pole-to be used laEce fashion
and n tridert, of which the prongs
have an unwelcome proneness for turn
ing and getting out of line. There is
n straw hat in the outfit, but this is
used only to catch nickels, dimes or
cigar butts" according to the good
will or i'll will f the bystanders. Beat
the gong! At mce a crowd of Chinese
golians "lined up" OF the opposing
pavements. Queer, distorted faces look
down in the alley from above. Chinese
children cluster around. Coolies grin
and "josh" the performer, who talks to
them all in bantering way. The
Chinese crowd causes passing Cauca-
slams to enter the alley, impelled by
curiosity. The thrifty actor passes the
hat before he goes on. What he says,
in Chinese, is laughed at by the dense
gathering of Chinese of all ages and
both sexes He does not get much
perhaps only dime-but the show
must go on at any price. The actor is
at once by white people as a
faded semblance of what he was when
the various fakes connected with the
Mid-winter Fair were in full bloom.
He is evidently experiencing what other
people of fairer skins have found out
that big humbug pays better than
small one.
Now the performance begins. 1t is
unarmed hands \ combat is depicted,
with attack, retreat, with knee sud-
denly shot out, after the fashion of the
Chinese wrestler, with thrust, parry,
with sudden whirl to meet two combat
ants at once, with shrill shrieks, theat-
rical stamps, expressive grimaces and
rolling eyes. When it is over no one
applauds. Every Chinaman grins at
the appreciative Caucasian who drops
a nickel in the hat, and the grin seems
also to indicate derision. Next comes
a combat with the trident, which a
mischievous messenger has twisted all
"out of kelter," while the actor was
showing. 1t takes some time to repair
this damage and the act goes on. Next
comes combat with the two knives,
one in either hand At the end of half
an hour the actor has not over two bits
in his hat, but he has 500 spectators,
including two policemen. He looks
injured, picks up his effects and moves
off, and in three minutes the Chinese
idle1s are absorbed in the business of
Chinatown, and the alley has sunk off