The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1900-04-27
A Siren. Of Ciudad Juarez
MI HIN Toy Lung Lee arrived in
Wv Ciudad JuareZ, via MaZatlan and
BY Hewett Darrell.


w Ciudad Juarez, via Mazatlan and
Mexico City, it was with the intention
of putting up and running, on the bor-
der, first-class American restaurant.
In hot, smelly Mazatlan, Toy had had
some experience with restaurants; in
Mexico City, quite a lot more. In both
these places he had cleared a consider
able amount of money, with which,
had he been a wise Celestial, he would
have remained content. But, no; Toy
believed that on the Mexican side of
the Rio Grande he could win out with
at least two thousand year. The mel
icans," as he well knew, pay any prices
asked for clean beds at night and hot
cakes in the early morn, with lardy, in
digestible pies in the interim-"all
right"
From the very first poor little Toys
restaurant was bowling success, as
much with the MeNicans as with the
Americans; this in spite of the fact
that with good knowledge of the
Spanish tongue Toy combined thor
ough ignorance of and dislike for the
gringo language. Besides which, in
his secret heart, Toy cherished
strong dislike for the American nation
at large-the same being finally his I'M
doing. This dislike was based prinei-
pally upon the fact that while on the
Mexican side of the bridge over the Rio
Grande he was man of might and
weight, owing to his ten thousand Mex
ican dollars and his fourishing restau-
rant; on the other Tor American) side,
he was only ''slit-eyed Chinaman," al
lowed therefore no rights or perqui-
sites as citizen-yea, hooted at and
ridiculed by even the children playing
in the streets. For all of which reasons
Toy had never deigned to take out nee
essary papers permitting him to cross
the bridge to the American side, nor
had he even put his sabot-shod foot on
American soil. A populous Chinatown
had grown up quickly in Ciudad Juarez,
verging even to the banks of the great
river that divides Mexico from the
United States of America-which river
no ChinaEaan must pass without his
Identification papers and passports.
Cinnamon jostled you in the aduana,
in the hotels and in the very streets on
the Mexican side; shy, narrow-eyed
Chinese women, with plastered hair
and native dress, battered hurrie6ly by
you when you made your way into
Chinatown; roly-poly Chinese babies
played their native games within n
stones throw of the Mexican Eagle
and Snake" over the aduana, or custom
house, and any evening you could see
1odge-dressed Cinnamon hurrying to
the Native Lands" daily conclave; in
short, the "woods were full of China
men. And of all these the head and
front, the very moving spirit, was Toy
Lung Lee, honorable possessor of ten
thousand heavy Mexican dollars, head
OF the secret society, owner of the
longest and most admired pigtail in
Ciudad Juarez, and great man gen
orally.
Owing to all these facts, any unmar-
ried female Celestial in Juarez China
town would gladly have taken Toy
Lung Lee for better or worse, and I'M
til death did them part. Unfortunate
1y, of these enterprising females Toy
would have none. He had been mar
rimony Toy had had sufficiency. At
present, as he confided to his cousin, Jim
Sing, he was OH what the Americans
call 'the mal<ee," with which women
interfere. No; of women, whether Chi
nese or otherwise, Toy Lung Lee
wished none. AS Confucius had said
centuries ago, women were at the bot
tom of all evil, and provokers of mis-
chief generally.
Any man of whatever color or ma
tionality is inevitably paid out for
speeches of the above seditious sort,
and Toy Lung did not escape the usual
fate. One fine day when the Mexican
sun was shining brightly overhead and
the stars and stripes, just visible on the
other side of the bridge, futtered wild
1y in the November breeze, and the
smell of hot breakfast cakes was giving
place in the restaurant to savory whiffs
of pies designed for the gringos'
luncheon-on such day and hour poor
Toy fell wildly, unreasonably and ire
trievably in love. Not with demure,
:smooth-haired and tiny-footed Chinese
maiden; not with an Appreciated, bi-
cycling American tourist girl, but with
the black-eyed, rosy-mouthed, man.
tillaed Mexican senorita, Chona, whose
one laughing glance, as she passed by,
attended by her cousin, Juan Jimenez,
had been the undoing of poor Toy Lung
Lee, and, as a matter of natural Sc
quence, the start on that downward
road which leads to ruin.
He had already heard of Chona, the
daughter of impecunious old Carlos,
runner of the lottery on the other side
of the street; she was the betrothed
of Juan Jiminez, and the prettiest and
wickedest firt in three countries. Had
she not already driven two men to the
verge of distraction, one (more unfor-
tunate!) to the other side Of the river
or gringo-land, and a fourth Juan
Jimenez himself) to drink and the lot
terry? Knowing all these things, Toy
was yet powerless- totally unable to
restrain his love and admiration for the
fair being who had on that fatal morn
ing passed by, and in the passing had
taken away on her careless smile the
whole of his adoring Celestial heart.