The National tribune., 1900-10-04
OUR CHINESE POPULATION.
We Have Chinese Dentist Whose Wife
Flays Sousa Marches on an unrieht piann

1t is impossible to state and useless ia
try to guess how many Cinnamon are
now in this country. Mr.. Scharf, late
| United States Chinese Inspector ut the
Port of New York, thinks there may be
| iOo,OGO, but the estimate seems too high.
The census does not and cannot afford any
! reliable data; you might as well try to
| take census of the fieas. Custom-house
| statistics are worthless except to show
| that every exclusion law passed has slim
| ulated immigration. They cannot take ac-
count Of the thousands smuggled in along
the $3.50 miles of Mexican and Canadian
border and along the Gulf Coast. The
Canadian Pacific Railway is said to bring
| in from three 10 five thousand annually
IN bond, the company agreeing to pay the
Dominion Government the $50 capitation
tax for every one that has not left the
country within a stated time. The in
spectors cannot tally those. All we can
be sure of in regard to the number of
Chinese here is that it is very large, and
that it is constantly increasing Beyond
that one guess is as good as another.
An early complaint against the China
man was that he did not bring his family
and did not mean to remain here. OF late
there are evidences that he is growing con-
tented here, as he is in the Dutch depend-
eEcics. and that occasionally he looks
upon this country as his home. Our larg-
/ =
Chinatown, contains anywhere from 15,-
600 to 10000 Chinese, according to the
bias of the person guessing, and is no
tIceably taking on an appearance of great
er permanence. When the local papers
began recently to talk of moving it, which
they do whenever the editors fertile
brains run out of other Sensations" it
was brought to the attention of the NOV
ers that number % mercantile houses
in Chinatown had each millions of dollars
invested, and that it would be as sensible
to talk of moving half the rental and
banking business of San Francisco.
Nor can it longer be said that all the
Chinese women among us are here for i'm
moral purposes. great many China
raising their families here. From the rear
of the laundry can sometimes be heard
the prattle of the Chinese infant. There
are Chinese schools for Chinese children.
There is Chinese dentist on Sacramento
street who has an upright piano in his
parlOr, on which his wife plays Sousa
marches. And more significant STILL there
is Chinese photographer, who testiiies
that the fear of camera is growing less
among his countrymen every day. When
a Chinese woman plays an upright piano
and Chinese photographer can do n good
business among his cousins" they are
rapidly getting out of joint with the old
order. They have migrated in the true
sense. If they retain liking for burial
in Asiatic soil, it is nothing to the point.
In Western view, going home dead is
as good as not going home Mt all.
The volume of the overflow from the
Chinese Empire is, of course, beyond sat
isfactory calculation. Kong Yeu Wei
puts the number of Cinnamon now living
abroad at 100000. What other country
on the globe could lose 100000 subjects
in the period of single lifetime and not
feel that it has suffered a tremendous
depletion Of its wealth and power?