Griggs courier., 1897-10-01
cELEs1lAL lhEERNos

CELESTIAL lNFERNoS
Chinese Hospitals where Patients
Are Made way With.
II ever surroundings were conducive;
to ill health, or prolongation of dis
ease, those of Chinese hospital are GER
tainly meant to be productive Of con-
tinued. revenue to the owner. For, be it
remembered, the Chinese hospital is
private institution run by the under.
taker. He is always on the safe side. If
tie patient keeps alive he gets money
for caring for him. If his friends tire
of paying for his keep he is placed in
the chamber of Tranquility" and
starved to death. After he dies the
undertaken, that Pooh Bah who has
three offices only, buries him and makes
money out of him to the last.
Imagine room about ten feet wide
and IL feet long, filled with the odds and
ends of junk shop. Let this room be
SD dark that it takes two candles to
make a light, and so filled with the malo.
dorous smells that are usually met with
in Chinatown dens that strong man
hesitates before he enters and gasps for
breath after he gets inside. Place half
a dozen hunks around the walls and a
cauldron in which some witches broth
is boiling in the corner. Have two
Cinnamon to each bunk in all stages of
disease and in all stages of filthiness.
Let the walls be SO full of rat holes that
the three cats which make themselves at
home on the hunks with the sick China.
men are insufficient to watch them all.
Imagine all this and you may have
some slight conception of what the in.
terror of Chinese hospital looks like.
If your imagination is very vivid, and
il you have seen Chinese opium dens,
you will get pretty close to the real
thing-otherwise you will miss it. III
almost beyond imagination.
But the front room is Elysium I'M com.
parison to that other, just back, through
dark hall. There are grades of dark.
ness. the scientists tell us, and these
grades may be found in these Chinese
hospitals. Some darkness can be seen;
some can be felt. That in the back room
OF this inferno can be felt palpably. In
fact, it is present to all the human
senses at once.
1t can be tasted. 1t can be heard.
1t can be seen. It can be felt. That it
can be smelled goes without saying.
You stand just within the opening,
which by courtesy is called door, and
you hear breathing, as if some one were
exhausted after long run. You are
not mistaken. 1t is a man breathing
heavily in his race with death. He IS
still alive, and you wonder why. Crop
ing your way you reach some stationary
object and light a match. It gives jus.
enough light to enable you to see a
candle on bench and you light that.
Then you feel that an electric arc light
would scarcely be sufficient to enable
you to pierce that Stygian darkness.
1t is we'll, perhaps, that you have an
obscured vision. 1t is possible that II
you could see all that is in the room al
once you too, would be sick man. II
Ia noisome den where vermin Inbound;
where rats make their home; where the
living and the dead humanity lie side by
side-the one waiting for its coffin and
the other for the cessation of the stru0
gle for breath.
This is part of the Chinese hospital
1t is also. q part of the undertaking es
tablishment. This is the chamber OF
Tranquility" and If one couldn't be
tranquil here he would be restless in his
grave. It's the graves next door.-Sau
Francisco Chronicle.