The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-14
WHITE WIVES OF CHTNAMEN.
MORE or THEN SINCE JBPlN'S
VICTORIES OVER RI SSIA.
Downfall Of the white lace Before the
yellow Seems to Have Caused an In
crease Of Intermarriases Results OF
Inv estI Or Conditions In Chicago.

About 200 white girls in Chicago are
married to Cinnamon, On an average OF
over one a month the Celestials of the Windy
City continue to win white brides.
The downfall OF the white race before the
yellow in the Japanese war seems to have
inspired not only the Japs but the Chinese
with rev claims of equality. One result
is the increase of marriages between white
girls and Cinnamon. which has been noticed
in all our large cities during the last year.
But the Chicago Tribune, which has been
investigating the matter, fnds that this
wiping out OF racial p~rejud,ces is not given
by the bride themselves as their reason for
choosing Cinnamon. Twenty-Five Of the
most recently welded gave the following
as the object of their action; Love, money,
opium, a home, kindness.
But back of these assigned reasons il
another and deeper reason. That is. that a
Chinaman, when he takes a white bride,
wipes out her past entirely and, no matter
what she might have been, she, as his wife,
is honoTed.
The Chinaman never considers marriage
until he is financially able to support a wife,
in which he differs from the white races;
but. like the whites, he believes in the power
Of money to make courtship easy-and he
spends lavishly. II may take him weeks
to attract the attention Of the object OF his
love to himself. but once he has made her
acquaintance and broken down the racial
barrier, his progress is RAPID.
He spends money, he ~banquets her in the
private rooms Of chop suey restaurants, and
it is alleged-if then she does not agree to
marry him, he does not surrender and mourn
the loss, but he inveigles her into smoking
opium-and, having once tasted the charms
OF -the pipe" she is his. For a few weeks
she smokes.
Then perhaps she is arrested In some
Chinese house, dazed and filed with opium
d reams. When she is bailed out by the
Chinaman who does a professional bond
business she returns. She knows the police
will pick her mp II she il found in the Chinese
haunts and then comes a proposal of mar
rage.
The girl knows that once married abe
can smoke hop as long as she pleaAes, in her
own home, secure from molestation by the
police and secure and certain Of opium
as long as she may want IL. SO she becomes
the bride of the Chinaman and lounges in
the gilded den he fits up for her, scarcely
ever caring to go out-even were she per-
mitted, which she seldom L.. except in com
pany with her lord and master, who during
his leisure moments delights in taking
to din with him.
But not half Of the brides are won bv
opium. Some admit that they married
Cinnamon while unde the influence Of the
drug, which killed the prejddices AGAINST
Cinnamon, but the reasons ale ged by the
others are varied.
Naturally the Chinaman's chances of
meeting white women are not numerous or
suspicious. They meet them sometimes
in chop suey restaurants. az the counters
OF stores downtown and ia the missions.
In investigation of the old tradition thai
white women and girls who work in Chinese