The Scranton chronicle., 1900-12-01
OUR CHINESE POPULATION.
We Have Chinese Dentist Whose
wife Plays sousa Marches ON
an Upright Piano.


1t is impossible TO state and useless
TO try to guess how many Chinamer
are now In this country. Mr.. Scharf
late United States Chinese inspector
ut the port of New York. thinks there
may be 100000, but the estimate
seems too high. The census does moi
and cannot afford any reliable data;
you might as well try to take a cen
sus of the fleas. Custom house stats
tics are worthless except to show that
every exclusion law passed has stim
ulated immigration. They cannot
take account of the thousands SNUG
gled in along the $3.50 miles of Mex.
iean and Canadian border and along
the gulf coast. The Canadian Pacific
railway is said to bring in from 3,00C
to 5,0CO annually in bond, the com.
pany agreeing to pay the dominion
government the $50 capitation tax for
every one that has not left the conn-
try within a stated time. The in
speetOrs cannot tally those. All we
can be sure of in regard to the num-
Der OF Chinese here is that il is very
large, and that it is constantly in
ereasing. Beyond that one guess is
as good as another, writes Frank NJ.
Todd, in Ainslee.
An early complaint against the
Chinaman was that he dld not bring
his family and did not mean TO re-
main here. OF late there are evi.
dences that he is growing contented
here, as he is in the Dutch dependen-
cies, and that occasionally he looks
upon this countury as his home. Our
largest Chinese community, San Fran
ciseo's Chinatown. contains anywhere
from 1900 to 10000 Chinese, accord
ing to the bias of the person guess
ing, and is noticeably taking on an
appearance of greater 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" il was
brought to the attention OF the NOV
ers that a number of mercantile
houses in Chinatown had each mill
lions of dollars invested. and that ii
would be as sensible 10 talk of moving
half the retail and banking business
of San Francisco.
Nor can it longer be said that all
the Chinese women among us are here
for immoral purposes. 4 great many
Cinnamon have brought their wives
aud are raising their families here.
From the rear of the laundry can
sometime be heard the prattle of the
Chinese infant. There are Chinese
schools for Chinese children There
is a 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 a Chinese photographer,
who testifies that the fear of a ca
mera is growing less among his coun-
trymen every day. When a Chinese
woman plays an upright piano and a
Chinese photographer can do good
business among his cousins they
are rapidly getting out of 10 nj with
the old oruer. They nave migrated in
the true sense. II they retain a lik-
ing for burial in Asiatic soil ii is moth
ing to the point. In a western view,
going home dead is as good as not
going home at all
The volume Of the overflow from the
Chinese empire is, of course, beyond
satisfactory calculation. Kong Yeu
Wei puts the number Of Cinnamon
now living abroad at 5.oo0,0co. What
other country on the globe could lose
100000 subjects in the period OF a
single lifetime and not feel that Il
had suffered a tremendous depletion
of its wealth and power?