Year: 1870

The Chinese problem is forced upon


US even faster than the labor alarmists
predicted the tawny heathens have
been working quietly for months in
Massachusetts shoe-shops; FIVE hundred
Of them are coming to dig railway cut,
tings and lay tracks in New Jersey;


and in the dead of night three score and


ten have just tramped through the
streets Of one of our suburban villages,


with their wicker luggage baskets,
their rice-bags, their tea-chests, and
stores of outlandish yiands, and strange
implements, such as move the more
delicately organized Irishman to lofty
scorn and Christian fury The latest
arrivals menace a class of laborers more
tyrrannous TO employers and less skill
full in their craft than any others in the


United States-a class which needs in


an especial manner the wholesome COR
rective of competition, quite as much
for its own good as for the comfort of


mankind. Itis Bridget and Mary Ann


whose domain is now invaded--for the
new comers are washermen. At Bel,
leville, near Newark, there is a great
laundry, where the scrubbing of linen
and the manipulation of the smoothing
iron employ hundred pairs of hands,,
1t is to this establishment that China,
has sent her largest cargo Of laborersy
and as the work Is one for which the
Chinaman has a notorious fondness and
capacity, we shall not be surprised to-
see Captain Hervey's example speedily,
initiated, and celestial queues futtering
over thousands of washboards through
out the Atlantic States The release Of
so many women from the drudgery Of
the tub may perhaps tend to the solu-
tion of the servant girlquestion' which
now threatens the peace of American
families, or at any rate relieve the pres
sing want Of female domestic labor in
the newly settled portions Of the coun-,
try. '...''. q


Captain Heryey seems to have
brought his cargo to Beleville with fear
ful secrecy, marched them over back
door routes, and and smuggled them in
to the village under cover Of the night,
dreading the violence of enlightened
American citizens who don't believe in b
liberty and human rights except in
Fourth of July speeches, and don't ac~,
cord the privilege of working for an
honest living to anybody except them
selves. This. is very mortifying fact,
and the worst Of is that the violent
language of some mischievous persons
has justified Captain Hervey's aprero
tensions We are glad to remember
however, that so far the violence of
hostility to the Chinese in this part of
the country has never gone beyond
threats and bad language The strange
immigrants work unmoested in North
Adams, and we hope will not be mo-
Tested in New-Jersey, Whether we
want them here ornot, it is clear that we
have no right to forbid their coming
still less a right to molest them after
they arrive. We founded the United
States as a city Of refuge for the poor
and the prosecuted of all nations, Il
and we cannot shut our doors against
an orderly and industrious race just,
because we do not like some of their
ways. Our lands lie idle for want Of
hands to till them. Our Territories P
are a wilderness because we have not
men enough to open them. An over
crowded empire sends US hard working,
frugal sons Of toll, whose labor is just
what we need; and instead of deyising
means to keep them olive ought to be
glad to get them. AT any rate they
are here, aud they are still coming in q
steadily increasing stream, and there IS
nothing for the dissatisfied to do but
make the best Of the situation. II
Tribune. a