Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1906-04-27
AN UNDERGROUND CITY.
Few White Men Ever Visited the subter-
ranean Section Of chInatown--some
Horrible Sights There.

ranean Section Of chInatown-some
Horrible Sights There.
Strange is the scene where San Fran
ciscos Chinatown STOOD" says w. w.
Overton, who reached Los Angeles Friday
from San Francisco. mo heap Of smok-
ing ruins marks the site of the wooden
warrens where the orientals dwelt in thou
sands. Only a cavern remains, pitted with
deep holes and lined with dark passage
ways, from whose depths come smoke
wreaths. White men never knew the
depth Of Chinatowns underground city
Many mad gone beneath the street level
two and three stories, but now that China
town has been unmasked men may see
where its inner secrets lay. In places
one can see passages 100 feet deep.
1.-THE fire swept this Monaghan quarter
Clean 1t left no part of the painted
wooden fabric. 1t ate down to the bare
ground and this lies stark, for the breezes
have taken away the light ashes. Joss
houses and mission schools, groceries and
opium dens, gambling resorts and thea
tres, all of them went. These buildings
bazed up like tissue paper. From this
place l saw hundreds OF crazed yellow
men flee. In their arms they bore opium
pipes money bags, silks and children.
Beside them ran the trousered women,
and some hobbled painfully.
These were the men and women of the
surface. Far beneath the street levels,
In those cellars and passageways were
other lives-women who never saw the
day from their darlSened prisons, and their
blinking jailers, were caught and de-
voured by the flames"
Chinatown was a section six blocks
long by two blocks wide and in this small
space over 10000 people were nuddled
together at the time OF the FIRE A dozen
people would sleep in a room that a white
man would consider too small for one.
Very few white men ever visited the
underground passages The police never
went there. 1t is alleged that on one oc-
casion two residents of the city were
taken from a secret entrance in a Chinese
theatre past subterranean dungeons where
many people were imprisoned behind bars.
Under this Chinese city were hum
dreds Of women and children. Their
voices mingled in glad refrain or echoed
the gloomy murmurs of some who were
suffering. Huddled in groups about
small fire, made from balls of coal dust
which Chinese prepare were merchants
who had returned from their shops on
the street level to these holes in the wall
10 plot ana Invent. The odor of opium
was nauseating. The revulsion OF feeling
was overpowering. When the street was
reached, after climbing a fight OF stairs
to the kitchen OF a chop suey 'joint,"
the breath Of foul air, even in this hole,
was refreshing.
Hundreds Of men went TO their deaths
each year in Chinatown without an ink
ling Of the tragedies being known to the
police 1t was easy to bury the dead
under the tunnels. one hundred feet deep,
in Chinatown. Members OF tongs marked
for death left friends behind, men who
refused to complain TO me local authorities
but, who. instead. sought revenge them
selves In the same fendish manner that
death had been melted out to their fellow
members.
For years battles waged Scores and
scores were killed. even in the streets,
until the citizens OF San Francisco threat
ened to organize a vigilance committee
and wipe Chinatown from the face OF
Frisco. This had its effect. The war
was carried below the streets. where
| dying men could scream in agony and not
be heard. The slave traffic has enriched
many Chinese, sauve merchants who led
| simple lives above the street, but who
retired to the subterranean passages and
their slave marts to put upon the block
the newest arrivals from the slave market
| In Canton.
| Gambling has always existed here The
gamblers composed the bad element. They
| fought for one another's gold, committed
murder to obtain means with which "a
enter games Of fantan and other Chinese
| devices of chance, and slept away their
/
below the street, stepped in the fumes OF
| opium. n sordd mass of humanity, until
nature awoke the brain to life.
There never viii be such n Chinatown
in San Francisco again. These people
will be sent to a district far from the
heart OF the new city. where they will
be under such close surveillance that
practices of the past will be stopped wheT
they begin Provision win be made &c
suppress the tongs for all time, II thi:
| can be accomplished.
No one will ever know how many lives
were lost in Chinatown. II is a mora
certainty that men overcome with opium
the slave women in their dungeons and
many a hapless wretch unconscious from
morphine was killed when the tremor Of
the earth toppled the buildings down t.
be consumed in a short time by the fire.
Citizens who nave visited the remains
of this plague spot were astonished al
the catacombs which lay exposed. 1t 4.
improbable that any attempt win be mad,
to reach the bodies OF Chinese victims
Earth will be thrown into the gaping
abyss. burying Tor all time the victims o.
the disaster and blotting forever the
sites OF these dens OF vice and horribl,
chambers OF sin.