Year: 1870

PecuIiarfties and SupersTFfions OF


Chinamen-Caifforn DesperadOes.


From Mark Twain's ''Around the world.'


One of Calitornia's curioeities the people
in the States will come day become familiar
with through the Pacific Railroad. [ mean
the Cinnamon. California contains 70, 600
of them, and every ship brings more
There is a Chinese quarter in every city
aud village in California and Nevada, for
Boards OF Aldermen will not allow them to
live all around town inst wherever they
choose to locate. This is not hardship,
for they prefer to herd together.


They are people who fondly stick to
their ancient customs. They dress in the
quaint costumes their ancestors wore 500
years ago, Trey build temples, gaudy with
gliding and hideous with staring IDOLS, and
there they worship after tie fashion of their
fathers. A strict record is kept by their
chiefs Of the name and residence of every
Chinaman, and when he dies his body is
sent back to China for burial-for they can
never get-to their Heaven unless they start
from China. And besides, Cinnamon wor-
ship their ancestors, and they ali want
their share of worship after they are done
with this world. Even when the Chinese
government sellsa shipload of degraded and
criminal coolies to q Cuban or Sandwich
Island planter, it is strictly stipulated that
the body of every one Of them. must be
sent back to China after death


The Cinnamon being smart, shrewd peo-
pie, take to some few Of our commercial
customs and virtues, but somehow we can't
make great headway in the matter of civil
zing them. We can teach them to camille
little, but somehow we can't make them
get drunk 1t is discouraeing- because
you can't regenerate a being that WON'T get
drunk.


The Chinamar is the most frugal, indus
trious, and thrifty Of all creatures No
matter how slender are the wages you pay
him he will manage to lay up money. And
Cinnamon are the most gifted gardeners in
the world. Give one of them a sandbank
that would not support a lizard, and he will
make it yield generous crops Of vegetables.
The ChiHaman wastes nothing. Everything
has a value in his eyes. He gathers up all
the cast-away rags and bones and bits of
glass, and makes marketable articles of
them And he picks up all the old fruit
cans yoU throw away and melts them up TO
get the tin and solder. When white man
discards gold placer as no longer worth
anything the patient Chinaman, always
satisfied with small profits, and never IN a
hurry to get rich, takes possession and
y


The Chinaman makes good cook. a GOOD
washerwoman, a good chanbermaid, a good
gardener, a good bankers clerk, a good
miner, a. good railroad laborer, a good ana
thing you choose to put him at for these
people are all educated, they are all good
accountants, they are very quiet and peace
able, they never disturb themselves about
politics; they are SO tractable quick, smart,
and naturally handy and ingenious that
you can teach them anything; tGey have
no iealousies; they never lose a moment,
never require watching to keep them at
work; they are gifted with world of pa
tience, endurance and c0ntentment They
are the best laboring class America has
ever seen and they do not care cent
who is President. They are miseraLly
abused by the laws of California,
but that sort of thing will cease some
day. 1t was found just about i'm
possible to build th California end Of the
Pacific Railroad with white men at So per
day and take care of all the bro!ls and
fights and strikes; but they put Oil China
men at dollar day and find" them
selves, and they built it without fights or
strikes CT anything. ard saved the bulk of
their w ges, too. You will have these long
tailed toIiers among you in 'the States,'
some day, but you will find them easy to
get along with and yen will like them, too,
because they will stand a heap of abuse
You will find them ever SO convenient, be
cause when you get mad you can snatch a
club and 90 out and take satisfaction out
of Chinaman. The native American ne
gro is getting so insolent. now, that the
patriot from ireland cannot take little re-
creation out of him without getting into
trouble. So the Chinaman will afford q
needed relief.


r~ MODEST yILLAINY.


AS evidence that Cinnamon ere satisfied
with small gains, l will remark that they
drill five holes into the edge of gold coins


drill clear through from edge to edge
and save the gold thus bored out and fill up
the hole with some sort of metallic com
position that does not spoil the ring Of the
coin. Their count terteiters put nine parts
good metal and only one part base metal
in their bogus coins-and so 1t is very luc
rative in the long run and the next thing
to impossible to detect the cheat Il is
only greedy, bungliDg Christian counter
feiters that blUnder into trouble, by trying
to swindle their fellow creatures too heavily.


DEsPERADoEs.


Another curious feature about California
life was the breed of desperadoes she rear
ed and fosteredon her soil and afterward
distributed radjacentterritorieS through
her vigilance committees when she had
had enough of their exploits. These men
went armed to the teeth with monstrous
revolvers, and preyed upon each ether
Their slightest miSunde1 standings were set
tied on the spot by the bullet; but they
very rarely molested peaceable citizens
They robbed and gambled and killed
people for three or four years, and then
''died with their boots on, !" as they phrased
it; that is, they were killed themselves
almost invariably-a they never expect
ed any other fate, and were very seldom
disappointed.


SAM BROWN.


Sam Brown, of Nevada, killed sixteen
men in his time, and was iourneying to-
ward Esmeraida to kill seventeenth who
had stopped the breath of friend of his,
when a party of law-abiding citizens way
laid him and slaughtered him with shot
guns. MouYners We're exceeding scarce at
his funeral 1t is said that Sam Brown
called for drink at the bar OF the Slaugh-
ter House, IN Carson City one morning, Ia
saloon so nicknamed because so many men
had been killed in it) and invited stranger
up to drink with him. The stranger said
ne never dtaAh anu "lsAeu 10 p5 eAcuSeu.
By the custom of the country, that was a
deadly insult, and so Brown very properly
shot him down. He left him lying there
and went away, warning everybody to let the
body alone, because it was his meat, he
said. And it is said, also, that he came
back after awhile and made a coffin and
buried the man himself-th though l never
could quite believe that without assistance.


Virginia City was full of desperadoes,
and some of the pleasantest newspaper re
porting | ever did was IN those days, be-
cause / reported the inquests on the entire
lot of them, nearly We had fresh one
pretty much every morning. Toward the
last It was melancholy to see how the ma
terial was running short. Those were hal


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