Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-10-20

possession of the unjust official and bit on
his ears. and at Suchow there is record or
a strike against an employer who took on
more apprentices in rushing an order OF
gold leaf for the emperors palace. in which
the employees killed the offending capitalist.
In this case they bit him to death. each
man being forced to take a chew and show
that his lips and teeth were bloody before
he was permitted to go home from the fac
tory. There were so many men engaged In
the biting that only the ringleaders were
punished.
The Chinese unions regulate the number
OF apprentices. In SOME eases they fix the
hours of work-as, for instance, silk weav-
ers are not allowed to work after CLOCK
In the evening. The ordinary hours. how
ever. are long, and If the work of Panama
is to be paid for by the hour there will be
no trouble in getting the Chinese to put In
at least ten hours per day.
What the Coolies Will Do on the Canal
The general idea is that the coolies will
be required only for the dirty work on the
canal; that they will shovel dirt and be
mere diggers of earth and hewers of wood
or drawers of water. This will be so at
the start; but they will rapidly make their
way into all sorts of skilled labor. They
can handle machinery almost as well as
the American and they are quick to learn.
l have seen Chinese managing steam en-
gines as intelligently as can be done by the
best American engineer: and in the gun
works near Shanghai they are making the
finest of complicated weapons. They are
now doing all sorts of work on the Chinese
railroads, and they can be trained for
brakemen .firemen and engineers lat Pan
ANA. Some of them may become steam
shovel men, and among those imported will
probably be masons, carpenters and othe'
mechanics
The Chinese Abroad.
This Importation will result in consid-
cradle population of Chinese upon our canal
zone The contracts will provide that the
coolies to be carried back home. but
many of them will stay. and they Will prob
ably have the same positions at Panama
that they now hold in the Philippines. They
will be the better classes of mechanics
among ae permanent residents there, and
they will do the retail business and petty
restaurant business of the zone. They Will
probably crowd the Panama women out of
the laundry work and will monopolize every
little trade which pays good money. AS 1t
Is now. the Chinese practically control the
retail business of Panama. and they are TO
a large extent the gardeners and chicken
raisers of our fsthmian possessions. They
are intermarrying with the lower classes OF
the Panamans and hybrid race will be the
result
This is the condition all over the world
where the Chinese have gone. There are
about 100 coo of them in the Philippine Is
lands, and they have largely intermarried
with the Filipinos. They are thrifty and
most of them have accumulated money.
In HAWAII many or the Cainese nave mar
ried natives and one Of the richest Of the
Chinese foreigners lives in Honolulu.
Hongkong is practically made up Of Chi
nese. and the trade of Singapore is con-
trolled by them. There are about a million
and a half Chinese subjects in Siam. and
they have monopolized the retail business of
that country. There are a quarter of a mil
lion of them in the Dutch East Indies, and
the Dutch have found them such live fac
tor that they have made special laws to
prevent them depressing the natives.
We had in 1900 about 100000 Chinese in
the United States, and the number is now
said to be less than 10000. There are $4,000
in Peru and large number In Chile They
are scattered throughout the West Indies
and large numbers of them are doing bust
ness in Borneo and In the other islands of
the Pacific. There are many In Siberia and
also in Korea and Japan. Indeed John Chi
naman Is to be found everywhere, and ev-
erywhere he is doing well.
FRANK G.. CARPENTER.