The herald., 1895-12-22

Not many years have passed since a
daily spectacle unparalleled elsewhere
in the history of civil jurisdiction was
presented to the astonished gaze of
frequenters of the federal courts in
the city of San Francisco. The condi-
tions then existing have pasaed away,
and probably forever. There was 30
much of glitter, of gimcrack, of the
odd, of the unusual and grotesque; 30
much of genuine pathos and first-class
drollery to titillate the imagination
and pique expectation that the OBJ
servant onlooker must forever retain
some Of the impression Of very en-
crossing time. Here in the dimly-
lighted and red-curtained chamber of
justice, in which, fitfully striding back
and forth, partly with his hands in his
pockets, partly gesturing in comical
attitudes, smooth shaven as a priest,
keen.eyed as a hawk, as polished as
Thackeray, as alert as one of the de-
tectives Of the Gaborieau romances,
was Judge Ogden Hoffman. There is
nothing in sailor lore embraced in the
scope between the weird legends of the
forecastle and the carefully arranged
logerithms to be found in the publica-
tions of Bowditch and other eminent
navigators that had not been sorted,
digested and duly arranged in that
systematic old head. Here, fronting
the justice exemplified by the courts
of the United States, and almost sim
ultaneously, came thousands of Chi
nese. men, women and children, decked
out in toggery as flamboyant as rain
bow, adorned with jade stone rings.
rustling in silks, vile smelling with all
the doors of steerage passage, with
the superadded stinks Of Chinatown,
asking for what?
Within period of comparatively
few months, between 1000 and 10000
persons set up on writs of habeas cor
pus, asking the Intervention of the fed
eral courts to come to their relief, that
they were unlawfvlly restrained of
their liberty; that many Of them were
natives of San Francisco, in fact, by
birthright, citizens of the United
States; that many others we're of the
class exempt under the terms of the
restriction law enacted by congress,
towit: That they we're merchants, trav-
elers, students. Day after day Judge
Hoffman stalked back and forth; day
efter day into the con flnsa Of his court
room came the motiieet array OF hu-
manity that can be seen anywhere this
side OF the Orient. Two governments
we're looking on at these happenings.
There were grave considerations of
treaty obligations; there were keen and
acute suspicious, which were proved in
many cases to be we'll grounded, of
wholesale fraud calculated to hood
wink the astute judge of the United
States district court in behalf of cool
les whose entrance had been legally in.
terdicted. On the one side WAS the
government at Washington daily i'm
portuned by letters from the United
States district attorney, who ia now
Congressman Hilborn; by a puzzled
but eager collector of the port, who
has gone on the other side to join the
large msjorities, by communications
by wire. Then there we're formal cir
culars of instruction from the treasury
department of the United States; di-
plomatic letters, worded with much
skill and cunning, by the late
Frederick A. Bee, who for a
long period was connected with
the Chinese consular Office in this
city-these sped back and forward in
the daily mails across the country. At
every point the restriction laws en-
acted by congress to keep Chinese
laborers out of the United States we're
assailed with all the skill and ingenui-
ty of counsel who made speciality of
this particular line of practice. Gases
went by the dozen, by the score, on ap-
peal from Judge Hoifman's jurisdiction
to be heard by the late Judge Lorenzo
Sawyer. Justice Stephen j. Field, of
the supreme bench of the United
States, presiding over the Ninth judi
cial circuit, in his infrequent visits to
California, always found some new
question of law awaiting him. There
were sensational discoveries concern
ing straw bonds on large scale. There
was daily clamor on the part of the
newspapers and the federal courts were
not treated by the papers of the Pa
citic coast with much leniency. In
deed, a prominent afternoon newspaper
in San Francisco descended to the
level of leading editorial in which
the dignifled position Of Judge Hoff-
man the federal bench and the con-
venient but more homely seat of the
crossroads justice delivering opinions
from the head of mackerel keg, were
duly contrasted. Fraud was shrieked
at every turn and every revelation,
and the word "Dogberry" was daily
utterance in cold type. During this
period the good faith of the Chinese
governors, and not less the faith of
white officials employed by the United
States was called into question. Cen
orally there was hubbub throughout
the length and breadth of the United
States concerning what was known
rs the Chinese question. The Pacific
coast, as represented by it's newspapers
and public men, resented what was
commonly called another Chinese inva-
sion. On the other hand, humanitari-
ans throughout the east talked in a
very unkind way about the citizens of
California, and generally exerted their
influence on the side of the ChinamRn.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government, SO
far as could be judged by any outward
indication, maintained that impertur-
liability which is supposed to be an es-
sential characteristic of the Oriental
mind ard of the pride which comes
from centuries of isolation and fatal
ism. The Chinese minister at WASH
ington was Intercepted. His silken
garments rustled; his face indicated
Il 81