SAN FRANCISCO.
San Francisco.--The Golden State.--San Francisco Bay.--Golden
Gate.--Conquest of California by Fremont, 1848.--Discovery of
Gold.--Rush to the Mines, 1849.--"Forty-niners."--Great Rise
in Provisions and Wages.--Miners Homeward Bound.--Dissipation
and Vice in the City.--Vigilance Committee.--Great Influx of
Miners in 1850.--Immense Gold Yield.--Climate.--Earthquakes.--
Productions.--Irrigation.--Streets and Buildings.--Churches.--
Lone Mountain Cemetery.--Cliff House.--Seal Rock.--Theatres.--
Chinese Quarter.--Chinese Theatres.--Joss Houses.--Emigration
Companies.--The Chinese Question.--Cheap Labor.--"The Chinese
Must Go."--Present Population and Commerce of San Francisco.--
Exports.--Manufactures.--Cosmopolitan Spirit of Inhabitants.
San Francisco is situated on the best harbor which our Pacific Coast
affords, a little below the 38th parallel of latitude, and about a
degree further south than St. Louis, Cincinnati and Washington. It is
the western terminus of the Central Pacific Railroad, American gateway
to Asia and the far East.
As the traveler proceeds thitherward from the Valley of the Mississippi,
on descending the western slopes of the Sierras, he finds himself fairly
within the Golden State; and in more senses than one does California
deserve that name. If it be the summer season the very air seems filled
with a golden haze. In leaving the mountains all freshness is left
behind. Trees and fields are yellow with drouth, which lasts from April
to November. Dense clouds of dust fill the air and settle upon
everything. Whole regions, by the means of extensive and destructive
mining operations, have been denuded of all verdure, and lie bare and
unsightly, waiting until the slow processes of time, or the more
expeditious hand of man, shall reclaim them. But mines have now given
place to vast grain and cattle farms or ranches; and great fields of
golden grain and the cattle on a thousand hills are on either side of
the track. If it be later or earlier in the year there is a wealth of
bloom such as is never dreamed of in the East. The ground, sometimes, as
far as the eye can reach, is brilliant with color, a golden yellow the
predominating hue. In the rainy season the Sacramento valley, the
occasional victim of prolonged drouth, is sometimes visited by a
freshet, which carries destruction with it; a mountain torrent, taking
its rise near the base of Mt. Shasta, and fed by the snows of the
Sierras, it is fitful in its demeanor. It finds its outlet through San
Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate to the Pacific.
San Francisco is on a peninsula which extends between the bay of that
name and the ocean. Its site is nothing more than a collection of sand
hills, which, before the building of the city, were continually changing
their positions. The peninsula is thirty miles long and six wide, across
the city, which stands on the eastern or inner slope.
San Francisco Bay is unsurpassed in the world, except by Puget Sound, in
Washington Territory, for size, depth, ease of entrance and security.
The entrance to the bay is through a passage five miles in length and
about two in width, with its shallowest depth about thirty feet at low
tide. Rocks rise almost perpendicularly on the northern side of the
entrance, to a height of three thousand feet. A lighthouse is placed on
one of these, at Point Bonita. Fort Point, a fortress built on solid
rock, commands the entrance from the south, and beyond it, until San
Francisco is reached, are a series of sand dunes, some of them white and
drifting and others showing green with the scant grass growing upon
them. The entrance to the bay is called the Golden Gate, a name applied
with singular appropriateness, since through its portals have passed
continuous streams of gold since the discovery of the latter in 1848.
Strangely enough, the name was given before the gold discovery, though
at how early a date there seems no means of knowing. As far as can be
ascertained, it first appears in Fremont's "Geographical Memoir of
California," published in 1847. Six miles eastward from its entrance the
bay turns southward for a distance of thirty miles, forming a narrow
peninsula between it and the ocean, on the northeastern extremity of
which the city is built. It also extends northward to San Puebla Bay,
which latter extending eastward, connects by means of a narrow strait
with Suisun Bay, into which the Sacramento River discharges its volume
of water. These three bays furnish ample and safe harborage for all the
merchant fleets of the world.
San Francisco Bay is about forty miles in length, its widest point being
twelve miles. At Oakland, directly east of San Francisco, it is eight
miles in width. Alcatraz Island, in the centre of the channel, six miles
from the Golden Gate, is a solid rock rising threateningly above the
water, and bristling with heavy artillery. It is sixteen hundred feet in
length, and four hundred and fifty feet in width. Angel Island is
directly north of Alcatraz, and four miles from San Francisco, contains
eight hundred acres, and is also fortified. Midway between San
Francisco and Oakland is Yerba Buena, or Goat Island, which, too, is
held as a United States military station. Red Rock, Bird Rock, the Two
Sisters, and other small islands dot the bay.
In 1775 the first ship passed the portals of the Golden Gate, and made
its way into the Bay of San Francisco. This ship was the _San Carlos_,
commanded by Caspar De Portala, a Franciscan monk and Spanish Governor
of Lower California, who set out on a voyage of discovery and
exploration. The same man had six years previously visited the sand
hills of the present site of San Francisco, being the first white man to
set his foot upon them. Portala named the harbor San Francisco, after
the founder of his monastic order, St. Francis. A mission was founded
there six years later, on the twenty-seventh of June, by Friars
Francisco Paloa and Bonito Cambou, under the direction of Father
Junipero Serra, who had been commissioned by Father Portala as president
of all the missions in Upper California. This was the sixth mission
established in California, and up to the year 1800 the Fathers labored
with great zeal and industry, had established eighteen missions,
converted six hundred and forty-seven savages, and acquired a vast
property in lands, cattle, horses, sheep and grain. Presidios or
military stations were established for the protection of these missions,
and the Indians readily submitted themselves to the Fathers, and
acquired the arts of civilization.
The Franciscan friars continued complete sovereigns of the land during
the first quarter of the present century, and increased in worldly
goods. Mexico became a republic in 1824, and in 1826 considerably
curtailed their privileges. In 1845 their property was finally
confiscated and the missions broken up. The priests returned to Spain;
the Indians to their savagery; and only the crumbling walls of their
adobe houses, and their decaying orchards and vineyards, remained to
tell the tale of the past history of California. From that period until
1847 California was a bone of contention between Mexico and the United
States, her territory overrun by troops of both nations. On the
sixteenth of January, 1847, the Spanish forces capitulated to Fremont,
and peace was established.
With the exception of the Mission Dolores, there was no settlement at
San Francisco until 1835, when a tent was erected. A small frame house
was built the following year, and on the fifteenth of April, 1838, the
first white child was born. The population of San Francisco, then known
as Yerba Buena, in 1842 was one hundred and ninety-six persons. In 1847
it had increased to four hundred and fifty-one persons, including
whites, Indians, negroes and Sandwich Islanders. In March, 1848, the
city contained two hundred houses, and eight hundred and fifty
inhabitants. In November of the same year, the first steamer, a small
boat from Sitka, made a trial trip around the bay. In this year the
first public school and the first Protestant church were established.
This year marked the great era in the history of San Francisco. In the
fall of 1847, Captain John A. Sutter, a Swiss by birth, who had resided
in California since 1839, began erecting a saw mill at a place called
Colorna, on the American River, a confluent of the Sacramento, about
fifty miles east of the city of that name. James W. Marshall, who had
taken the contract for erecting the mill, was at work with his men
cutting and widening the tail-race when, on January eighteenth, 1848, he
observed some particles of a yellow, glittering substance. In February
specimens of these findings were taken to San Francisco, and pronounced
to be gold. The truth being soon confirmed, the rush for the gold fields
commenced. People in all sections of California and Oregon forsook their
occupations, and set out for the mines. The news spread, increasing as
it went; until the reports grew fabulous. Many of the earliest miners
acquired fortunes quickly, and as quickly dissipated them. The journal
of Rev. Walter Colton, at that time Alcalde of Monterey, contains the
following paragraph, under date of August twelfth, 1848:--
"My man Bob, who is of Irish extraction, and who had been in the mines
about two months, returned to Monterey about four weeks since, bringing
with him over two thousand dollars, as the proceeds of his labor. Bob,
while in my employ, required me to pay him every Saturday night in gold,
which he put into a little leather bag and sewed into the lining of his
coat, after taking out just twelve and a half cents, his weekly
allowance for tobacco. But now he took rooms and began to branch out; he
had the best horses, the richest viands, and the choicest wines in the
place. He never drank himself but it filled him with delight to brim the
sparkling goblet for others. I met Bob to-day, and asked him how he got
on. 'Oh, very well,' he replied, 'but I am off again for the mines.'
'How is that, Bob? you brought down with you over two thousand dollars;
I hope you have not spent all that; you used to be very saving; twelve
and a half cents a week for tobacco, and the rest you sewed into the
lining of your coat.' 'Oh, yes,' replied Bob, 'and I have got _that_
money yet. I worked hard for it, and the devil can't get it away. But
the two thousand dollars came aisily, by good luck, and has gone as
aisily as it came!'"
Reports of the new El Dorado reached the States, and during 1849, from
Maine to Louisiana came the gold seekers. From every country in Europe,
from Australia and from China, additions were made to the throng of
pilgrims, who, by the Isthmus, around the Horn, across the seas, and by
the terrible journey overland, all rushed pell mell up the Sacramento,
stopping at San Francisco only long enough to find some means of
conveyance. We have no space to tell the story of that time. Men came
and went. Some made fortunes. Others returned poorer than they came.
Many who attempted the overland route left their bones bleaching on the
plains. Some went back to their homes, and others remained to become
permanent citizens of California. What the F. F. V.s are to Virginia,
and the Pilgrim Fathers to Massachusetts, the "Forty-niners," a large
number of whom still survive, will be, in the future, to California.
During 1848 ten million dollars' worth of gold had been gathered on the
Yuba, American and Feather rivers. The city of San Francisco had, in
January, 1849, two thousand inhabitants, and these were in a hurry to be
off to the mines as soon as the rainy season was over. Ships began to
arrive from all quarters, and July of that year found the flags of every
nation floating in the bay. Five hundred square-rigged vessels lay in
the harbor, and everybody was scrambling for the mines. These multitudes
of people, though they thought only of gold, yet had to be fed, clothed
and housed after a fashion. There were no supplies adequate to the
demand, and provisions went up to fabulous prices. Apples sold for from
$1 to $5 apiece, and eggs at the same rates. Laborers demanded from $20
to $30 for a day's work, and were scarcely to be had at those figures.
The miners probably averaged $25 a day at the mines, though some were
making their hundreds. But at the exorbitant prices to be paid for
everything, few were able to lay up much money.
Late in the year of 1849 the reaction came. The steamers were filled
with downcast miners, thankful that they had enough left to take
themselves home. Others having acquired something, stopped at San
Francisco, and plunged into the worst forms of dissipation. The city
during this and the following year held a carnival of vice and crime.
Women there were few or none, save of the worst character, and gambling
dens, dance houses, and drinking hells flourished on every street. In
1850 a Vigilance Committee was organized by the better class of
citizens, which soon exercised a wholesome restraint upon the criminal
classes. In the same year California was admitted to the Union without
the preliminary of a Territorial Government, and San Francisco was
chartered as a city. Courts were established, and the lawless community
came under the dominion of law and order.
By this time the great haste which seized everybody in his eagerness to
obtain gold and return home to enjoy it, had somewhat subsided. Men
began to realize that there were other means of making money besides
digging for it. Gardens were planted and orchards set out, and it was
discovered that the apparently barren soil of the State would yield with
a fruitfulness unparalleled in the East. San Francisco began to be more
than a canvass city. Mud flats were filled in and sand hills leveled,
houses, hotels and stores erected, and a wild speculation began in city
property. Lots which a few days before had been purchased for two or
three thousand dollars, were held at fifty thousand dollars. A canvas
tent, fifteen by twenty feet, near the plaza, rented for forty thousand
dollars per annum. The Parker House, a two-story frame building on
Kearney street, also near the plaza, brought a yearly rent of one
hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Board in a hotel or a tent was
eight dollars per day, and provisions were proportionately high. To
build a brick house cost a dollar for each brick used. Twenty-seven
thousand people arrived in San Francisco, by sea or land, during 1850.
In 1853 thirty-four thousand gold seekers returned home, the yield of
gold that year having been $65,000,000, the largest annual yield of the
State. The imports of San Francisco in the same year were over
$45,000,000. As early as this period it was the third city in tonnage
entrances in the United States, New York and New Orleans alone exceeding
it. In 1856 the bad state of public affairs again necessitated the
interference of a Vigilance Committee, but since that time the city has
been orderly.
The site of San Francisco was fixed by chance. More desirable places
might have been selected, but the influx of miners dropped upon the
first spot convenient for them to land, from which to start post-haste
to the mines, and that spot is indicated by the present city. Owing to
its location its climate is not in all respects desirable. The general
climate of the coast is tempered, both in summer and winter, by a warm
ocean current, which, flowing northward along the coast of China and
Siberia, takes a turn to the south when it reaches Alaska, and washes
the western coast of the continent of America. It is so warm that it
produces a marked effect upon this coast, just as the Gulf Stream
tempers the climate of the British Islands. But it has been sensibly
cooled by its proximity to Arctic seas, and so sends cool breezes to fan
the land during the heat of summer. These summer sea breezes rushing
through the narrow opening of the Golden Gate become almost gales, and
bring both cold and fog with them. The air of winter is mild and
spring-like. This is the rainy season, but it does not rain
continuously. It is the season of verdure and growth, and frosts are
both slight and infrequent in the latitude of San Francisco. Not a drop
of rain falls during the summer. The mornings are warm and sometimes
almost sultry; but about ten o'clock the sea breeze springs up, growing
more violent as the day advances, and frequently bringing a chilly fog
with it, so that by evening men are glad to wrap themselves in
overcoats, and women put on their cloaks and furs. The sand, which is
still heaped in dunes to the westward of the city, and lies upon its
vacant lots, is lifted and whirled through the air, falling almost like
sleet, and stinging the faces of pedestrians.
Thunder storms are of rare occurrence at San Francisco, but earthquakes
are exceedingly frequent. Probably not a year elapses in which slight
shocks are not felt in the State. Sometimes these shocks extend over
vast areas, and at other times are merely local. On October
twenty-first, 1868, a severe earthquake occurred at San Francisco,
swaying buildings and throwing down numbers in process of erection. The
houses of the city are mostly built with a view to these disturbances of
nature. The dwelling houses are seldom more than two and one-half
stories in height, while the blocks of the business streets do not
display the altitude of structures in the eastern cities.
The climate is so mild and so favorable that the productions of
California embrace those of both temperate and semi-tropical latitudes.
The sand hills of San Francisco were found, with the help of irrigation
to produce plentifully of both fruits and flowers, and the suburbs of
the city display many greenhouse plants growing in the open air. Roses
bloom every month in the year, and strawberries ripen from February to
December. In San Francisco the mean temperature in January is 49 deg. and in
June 56 deg.. The average temperature of the year is 54 deg..
The California market, between Kearney and Montgomery streets, extending
through from Pine to California streets, displays all the fruits,
vegetables and grains of the northern States, raised in the immediate
neighborhood of the city, while oranges, lemons and pomegranates are
sent from further south. The tenderer varieties of grapes flourish in
the open air, and the State produces raisins which command a price but
little below those of Europe. The thrift of the fruit trees of
California is most remarkable. Most trees begin bearing on the second
year from the slip or graft, and produce abundantly at three or four
years of age. Their growth and the size of their productions are
unequaled on the continent. The above mentioned market is one of the
sights of the city, and should not be missed by the visitor.
Irrigation has been found necessary to render the sand hills about San
Francisco productive, and windmills have become familiar objects in the
landscape, their long arms revolving in the ocean breeze, while little
streams of water trickling here and there vivify the earth. As a result,
though trees are scarce, what few there are being mostly stunted live
oaks, whose long roots extend down deep into the soil, there are flowers
everywhere. On one side of a fence will be a sand-bank, white with
shifting sand, on the other, flourishing in the same kind of soil, will
be an _al fresco_ conservatory, brilliant with color and luxuriant in
foliage.
Montgomery street is the leading thoroughfare, broad and lined with
handsome buildings. Toward the north it climbs a hill so steep that
carriages cannot ascend it, and pedestrians make their way up by means
of a flight of steps. From this elevation a fine view is obtained of the
city and bay. Kearney and Market streets are also fashionable
promenades, containing many of the retail stores. The principal banks
and business offices are found on California street, and the handsomest
private residences are on Van Ness avenue, Taylor, Bush, Sutter,
Leavenworth and Folsom streets, Clay street Hill and Pine street Hill.
The city extends far beyond its original limits, having encroached upon
the bay. Solid blocks now stand where, in 1849, big ships rode at
anchor. It is laid out with regularity, most of its streets being at
right angles with one another. The business streets are generally paved
with Belgian blocks or cobble stones, and most of the residence streets
are planked. The city does not present the handsome and showy
architecture of many cities of the east, though here and there are fine
edifices. It is yet too new, and too hurriedly built, to have acquired
the substantiality and grandeur of older cities. Between fine brick or
stone structures several stories high are sandwiched insignificant
wooden houses of only two stories, the relics of a past which is yet
exceedingly near the present. The public buildings, especially those
belonging to the United States, are fine.
The City Hall will, when finished, be surpassed by few structures in the
country. The Palace Hotel, at the corner of Market and New Montgomery
streets, is a vast building, erected and furnished at a cost of
$3,250,000. It is entered by a grand court-yard surrounded by
colonnades, and from its roof a birds-eye view of the whole city can be
obtained. Baldwin's Hotel, at the corner of Marshall and Powell streets,
is another palatial structure, costing a quarter of a million more, for
building, decorating and furnishing, than the Palace Hotel. The Grand
Hotel, Occidental, Lick House, Russ House and Cosmopolitan are all
established and popular hotels.
The largest and finest church edifice on the Pacific Coast is that of
St. Ignatius, Roman Catholic, in McAlister street. The finest interior
is that of St. Patrick's, also Roman Catholic, in Mission street between
Third and Fourth. The First Unitarian church, in Geary street, is one of
the finest churches in the city, remarkable for the purity of its
architectural design and the elegance of its finish. The Chinese Mission
House, at the corner of Stockton and Sacramento streets, will prove
interesting to strangers. The Roman Catholics, who number among their
adherents all the Spanish citizens, make no concealment of their
intention to gain a majority of the population. But though they are a
power in the community, and have many churches, the different Protestant
sects are largely represented. Indeed, San Francisco is thoroughly
tolerant in matters of religion. Not only do Catholics and Protestants
find their own appropriate places of worship, but the Jews have two
Synagogues, and the Chinese Buddhists three Temples or Joss Houses.
There is but one road leading out of the city, but within the city
limits there are many modes of conveyance. Cars propelled by endless
wire cables, which move along the streets without the assistance of
either horse or steam power, intersect the city in every direction.
Omnibuses run out on the Point Lobos road to the Cliff House; and he who
has not ridden or driven thither and watched the seals on Seal Rock, has
not seen all of San Francisco. This is the one excursion of the city;
its one pet dissipation. Everybody goes to the Cliff. A drive of five or
six miles, on a good road, over and through intervening sand hills,
brings the visitor to the Cliff House. This road leads by Laurel Hill,
or as it was formerly called, Lone Mountain Cemetery, two and one-half
miles west of the city, within whose inclosure a conical hill rises to a
considerable height above the surrounding level country. On its summit
is a large wooden cross, a prominent landmark, and within the cemetery
are several fine monuments, conspicuously that of Senator Broderick, and
a miniature Pantheon, marking the resting place of the Ralston family.
The Lone Mountain possesses an unrivaled outlook over city, bay, ocean
and coast range.
The Cliff House is a large, low building, set on the edge of a cliff
rising abruptly from the ocean, and facing west; and from it you have a
grand view of the Golden Gate, while oceanward you strain your eyes to
catch some glimpse of China or Japan, which lie so far away in front of
you. But you see instead, if the day be clear, the faint but bold
outlines of the Farallon Islands, and the white sails of vessels
passing in and out of the Golden Gate.
Late in the year of 1876 I completed my horseback journey across the
continent, dashing with my horse into the surf to the westward of the
Cliff House. A long and wearisome, but at the same time interesting and
reasonably exciting ride, was at an end, and after viewing San
Francisco, I was free to enjoy those luxuries of modern civilization,
the railway cars, on my homeward route.
[Illustration: SEAL ROCKS, FROM THE CLIFF HOUSE, NEAR SAN FRANCISCO.]
The Farallones de los Frayles are six islets lifting up their jagged
peaks in picturesque masses out in the ocean, twenty-three and one-half
miles westward of the Golden Gate. The largest Farallon extends for
nearly a mile east and west, and is three hundred and forty feet high.
On its highest summit the government has placed a lighthouse, and there
the light-keepers live, sometimes cut off for weeks from the shore,
surrounded by barrenness and desolation, but within sight of the busy
life which ebbs and flows through the narrow strait which leads to San
Francisco. These islands are composed of broken and water-worn rocks,
forming numerous sharp peaks, and containing many caves. One of these
caves has been utilized as a fog-trumpet, or whistle, blown by the force
of the waves. The mouth-piece of a trumpet has been fixed against the
aperture of the rock, and the waves dashing against it with force enough
to crush a ship to pieces, blows the whistle. This fog whistle ceases
entirely at low water, and its loudness at all times depends upon the
force of the waves. The Farallones are the homes of innumerable sea
birds, gulls, mures, shags and sea-parrots, the eggs of the first two
being regularly collected by eggers, who make a profitable business
of gathering them at certain seasons of the year. In 1853 one thousand
dozen of these eggs, the result of a three days' trip, were sold at a
dollar a dozen. Gathering the eggs is difficult and not unattended by
danger, as precipices must be scaled, and the birds sometimes show
themselves formidable enemies. The larger island is also populated by
immense numbers of rabbits, all descended from a few pairs brought there
many years ago. Occasionally these creatures, becoming too numerous for
the resources of the island, die by hundreds, of starvation. Though
their progenitors were white, they have reverted to the original color
of the wild race. The cliffs of these islands are alive with seals, or
sea-lions, as they are called, which congregate upon their sunny slopes,
play, bark, fight and roar. Some of them are as large as an ox and
seemingly as clumsy; but they disport themselves in the surf, which is
strong enough to dash them in pieces, with the utmost ease, allowing the
waves to send them almost against the rocks, and then by a sudden,
dextrous movement, gliding out of danger.
The Cliff House has also its sea-lions, on Seal Rock, not far from the
hotel, and the visitors are never tired of watching them as they wriggle
over the rocks, barking so noisily as to be heard above the breakers.
Formerly numbers of them were shot by wanton sportsmen, but they are now
protected by law. "Ben. Butler" and "General Grant" are two seals of
unusual size, which appear to hold the remainder of the seal colony in
subjection. If two begin to fight and squabble about a position which
each wants, either "Ben" or the "General" quickly settles the dispute by
flopping the malcontents overboard. The higher these creatures can
wriggle up the rocks the happier they appear to be; and when a huge
beast has attained a solitary peak, by dint of much squirming, he
manifests his satisfaction by raising his small pointed head and
complacently looking about him. As soon as another spies him, and can
reach the spot, a squabble ensues, howls are heard, teeth enter into the
contest, the stronger secures the eminence, and the weaker is
ignominiously sent to the humbler and lower regions.
An early drive to and a breakfast at the Cliff House, with a return to
the city before the sea-breeze begins, is the favorite excursion of the
San Franciscan. The road passes beyond this hotel to a broad, beautiful
beach, on which, at low tide, one can drive to the Ocean House, at its
extreme end, and then return to the city by the old Mission grounds,
which still lie in its southwestern limits. The Mission building is of
adobe, of the old Spanish style, built in 1778. Adjoining it is the
cemetery, with its fantastic monuments, and paths worn by the feet of
the Mission fathers and their dusky penitents.
The largest and finest theatre of the city, and one of the finest in the
United States, is the Grand Opera House, at the corner of Mission and
Third streets. Four other theatres and an Academy of Music, furnish
amusements to the residents of the city. Woodward's Gardens, on Mission
street between Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets, contains a museum, an
art galley, and a menagerie. There are also two Chinese theatres, one at
618 Jackson street, and the other at 625-1/2 Jackson street.
The Chinese Quarter of San Francisco, which has become famous the world
over, occupies portions of Sacramento, Commercial, Dupont, Pacific and
Jackson streets. It is a locality which no stranger should fail to see.
Here he steps at once into the Celestial Empire. Chinamen throng the
streets, dressed in their semi-American, semi-Asiatic costumes, the
pig-tail usually depending behind, though sometimes it is rolled up, out
of sight, under the hat. The harsh gutturals of the Chinese language,
nearly every word ending in ng, are heard on every hand, mingled with
the grotesque pigeon English. The signs exhibit Chinese characters, and
the stores and bazaars are filled with Chinese merchandise.
Women are scarce in this quarter, and only of the courtezan class; but
here and there one meets you, dressed usually in Chinese gown and
trowsers, with hair arranged in the indescribable Chinese chignon, and
carrying a fan--for all the world as though she had stepped off a fan or
a saucer--and not more immodest in demeanor than the same class in our
eastern cities. There are few or no Chinese wives in San Francisco.
Chinese immigration takes the form of an immense bow, beginning at
China, stretching to the Pacific coast of America, and retiring again to
its starting point; for every Chinaman expects to return to his native
land, either alive or dead. He does not take root in American soil. He
comes here to make a little money, leaving his family behind him, and,
satisfied with a very modest competence, returns as he came. If he dies
here, his bones are carried back, that they may find a resting-place
with those of his ancestors. Therefore the women imported are for the
basest purposes.
But to return to this Chinese Quarter. Here is the old St. Giles of
London, the old Five Points of New York magnified and intensified. Here
congregate the roughest and rudest elements, and here stand, shamelessly
revealed, crime and bestiality too vile to name. In one cellar is a
gambling-hell, for John Chinaman's besetting weakness is his love of
gambling. The mode of gambling is very simple, involving no skill, and
the stakes are small; but many a Celestial loses there, at night, his
earnings of the day. Near by is an opium cellar, fitted up with benches
or shelves, on each of which will be found a couple of Chinamen lying,
with a wooden box for a pillow. While one is preparing his opium and
smoking, the other is enjoying its full effects, in a half stupor. The
Chinese tenement houses are crowded and filthy beyond description, and
the breeding places of disease and crime. They are scattered thickly
throughout the quarter. Their theatres, of which there are two, already
referred to, have only male performers, who personate both sexes, and
give what seems to be passable acting, accompanied by the clash and
clang of cymbals, the beating of gongs, the sounding of trumpets, and
other disagreeable noises regarded by the Chinese as music. The entire
audience are smoking, either tobacco or opium.
The Joss houses, or temples of the Chinese, are more in the nature of
club houses and employment bureaus, than of religious houses. The first
floor contains the business room, smoking or lounging room, dining room,
kitchen, and other offices, which are used by the Emigration Company to
which the building belongs. The second floor contains a moderate-sized
hall, devoted to religious rites. Its walls are decorated with moral
maxims from Confucius and other writers, in which the devotees are
exhorted to fidelity, integrity, and the other virtues. The Joss or Josh
is an image of a Chinaman, before whom the Chinese residents of San
Francisco are expected to come once a year and burn slips of paper.
Praying is also done, but as this is by means of putting printed
prayers into a machine run by clockwork, there is no great exhaustion
among the worshipers.
The Chinese have no Sunday, and are ready to work every day of the week,
if they can get paid for it. Their only holiday is at New Year, which
occurs with them usually in February, but is a movable feast, when they
require an entire week to settle their affairs, square up their
religious and secular accounts, and make a new start in life. The
Chinese have one saving virtue. They pay their debts on every New Year's
day. If they have not enough to settle all claims against them they hand
over their assets to their creditors, old scores are wiped out, and they
commence anew.
The six Chinese Emigration Companies, each representing a Chinese
province, manage the affairs of the immigrants with a precision,
minuteness and care which is unparalleled by any organization of western
civilization. Before the passage of the anti-Chinese law, when a ship
came into port laden with Chinamen, the agents of the different
companies boarded it, and each took the names of those belonging to his
province. They provided lodgings and food for the new comers, and as
quickly as possible secured them employment; lent them money to go to
any distant point; cared for them if they were sick and friendless, and,
finally, sent home the bones of those who died on American shores. These
companies settle all disputes between the Chinese, and when a Chinamen
wishes to return home, they examine his accounts, and oblige him to pay
his just debts before leaving. The means for doing all this are obtained
in the shape of voluntary contributions from the immigrants. These
companies do not act as employment bureaus, for these are separate and
thoroughly organized institutions. These latter farm out the work of
any number of hands, at the price agreed upon, furnishing a foreman,
with whom all negotiations are transacted, who, perhaps, is the only one
speaking English, and who is responsible for all the work.
The English spoken by the Chinese is known as "pigeon English," "pigeon"
being the nearest approach which a Chinamen can make to saying
"business."
Most English words are more or less distorted. L is always used by them
for r, mi for I, and the words abound in terminal ee's.
The Chinese problem is one which is agitating the country and giving a
coloring to its politics. The Pacific States seem, by a large majority
of their population, to regard the presence of the Mongolian among them
as an unmitigated evil, to be no longer tolerated. Eastern capitalists
have hailed their coming as inaugurating the era of cheap labor and
increased fortunes for themselves. Hence the discussion and the
disturbances. A lady who had made her home in San Francisco for several
years past, says, in a letter to the writer of this article, "A person
not living in California can form no conception of the curse which the
Chinese are to this section of the world."
Yet without them some of the great enterprises of the Pacific coast,
notably the Central Pacific Railroad, would have remained long
unfinished; and they came also to furnish manual labor at a time when it
was scarce and difficult to obtain at any price. The Chinaman is a
strange compound of virtue and vice, cleanliness and filth, frugality
and recklessness, simplicity and cunning. He is scrupulously clean as to
his person, indulging in frequent baths; yet he will live contentedly
with the most wretched surroundings, and inhale an air vitiated by an
aggregation of breaths and stenches of all kinds. He is a faithful
worker and a wonderful imitator. He cannot do the full work of a white
man, but he labors steadily and unceasingly. He takes no time for
drunken sprees, but he is an inveterate opium smoker, and sometimes
deliberately sacrifices his life in the enjoyment of the drug. He is
frugal to the last degree, but will waste his daily earnings in the
gambling hell and policy shop. Scrupulously honest, he is yet the victim
of the vilest vices which are engrafting themselves upon our western
coast. Living upon one-third of what will keep a white man, and working
for one-half the wages the latter demands, he is destroying the labor
market of that quarter of our country, reducing its working classes to
his own level, in which in the future the latter, too, will be forced to
be contented on a diet of "rice and rats," and to forego all educational
advantages for their children, becoming, like the Chinese themselves,
mere working machines; or else enter into a conflict of labor against
labor, race against race.
The latter alternative seems inevitable, and it has already begun.
China, with her crowded population, could easily spare a hundred million
people and be the better for it. Those one hundred million Chinamen, if
welcomed to our shores, would speedily swamp our western civilization.
They might not become the controlling power--the Anglo-Saxon is always
sure to remain that--but as hewers of wood and drawers of water, as
builders of our railroads, hands upon our farms, workers in our
factories, and cooks and chambermaids in our houses, a like number of
American men and women would be displaced, and wages quickly reduced to
an Asiatic level; and such a time of distress as this country never saw
would dawn upon us.
There seems to be no assimilation between the Caucasian and the
Mongolian on the Pacific slope. In the East an Irish girl recently
married a Chinaman; but in San Francisco, though every other race under
the sun has united in marriage, the Chinaman is avoided as a pariah.
White and yellow races may meet and fraternize in business, in pleasure,
and even in crime; but in marriage never. Chinamen rank among the most
respected merchants of San Francisco, and these receive exceptional
respect as individuals; but between the two races as races a great gulf
is fixed. The Chinese immigrant takes no interest in American affairs.
His world is on the other side of the Pacific. And the American people
return the compliment by taking no interest in him. It is undeniable
that, by a certain class of San Francisco citizens, popularly known as
Hoodlums, the treatment of the Chinese population has been shameful in
the extreme. A Chinaman has no rights which a white man is bound to
respect. Insult, contumely, abuse, cruelty and injustice he has been
forced to bear at the hands of the rougher classes, without hope of
redress. He has been kicked, and cheated, and plundered, and not a voice
has been raised in his behalf; but if he has been guilty of the
slightest peccadillo, how quickly has he been made to feel the heavy
hand of justice!
It seems a pity that before the cry was raised with such overwhelming
force, "The Chinese must go!" some little effort had not been made to
adapt them to Western civilization. They are quick to take ideas
concerning their labor; why not in other things? We have received and
adopted the ignorant, vicious hordes from foreign lands to the east of
us, and are fast metamorphosing them into intelligent, useful citizens.
We are even trying our hand upon the negro, as a late atonement for all
the wrong we have done him. But the Indian and the Chinaman seem to be
without the pale of our mercy and our Christianity. It might not have
been possible, but still the experiment was worth the trying, of
attempting to lift them up industrially, educationally and morally, to a
level with our own better classes, instead of permitting them to drag us
down. Returning to their own country, and carrying back with them our
Western civilization, as a little leaven, they might have leavened the
whole lump. It is too late for that now, and the mandate has gone forth:
"The Chinese must go!" Considering all things as they are, rather than
as they might have been, it is undoubtedly better so, and the only
salvation of our Pacific States.
San Francisco had, in 1880, a population of 232,956. The commerce is
very large, and must every year increase as the West is built up. The
chief articles of export are the precious metals, breadstuffs, wines and
wool. She has important manufactures, embracing watches, carriages,
boots and shoes, furniture, iron and brass works, silver ware, silk and
woolen. California seems peculiarly adapted to the silk industry, and
her silk manufactures will probably assume marked importance in the
future. The wonderful climate and unequaled productiveness are
constantly attracting immigration, and the Pacific Central, which spans
the continent, has vastly improved on the old methods of travel by
caravan across the plains and over the mountains.
The population of San Francisco is cosmopolitan to the last degree, and
embraces natives of every clime and nearly every nation on the globe.
Yet in spite of this strange agglomeration she is intensely Yankee in
her go-ahead-ativeness, with Anglo-Saxon alertness intensified. In fact,
as San Francisco is on the utmost limits of the West, beyond which there
is nothing but a vast expanse of water until we begin again at the East,
so she represents the superlative of Anglo-Saxon enterprise and American
civilization, and looks to a future which shall far outstrip her past.