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Maturin M. Ballou
Published by Good Press, 2019
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The territorial importance of California will be most readily presented by a statement of the facts that, if it lay on the Atlantic shore, it would extend from Massachusetts to South Carolina; that it is about five times as large as the combined New England States; and that it absolutely teems with gardens, vineyards, orange, apple, pear, and peach orchards, and vast grain fields. The climate presents most of the advantages of the tropics, with few of the drawbacks. Hot-houses for delicate plants are hardly needed in winter, and the fan-palm flourishes as it does at Singapore.
A visit to that part of San Francisco known as China Town revealed the fact that twenty thousand Chinese were here living in tenements which would be insufficient for three or four thousand Americans. They are clearly actuated by the same purpose as that indicated by the motto of the home Spaniard who leaves Madrid for Cuba: "Seven years of starvation and a fortune." The Chinaman hoards nearly all he receives, and in four or five years can return to his native land with a sum of money which, to him, is an assured independence. They are extremely unpopular with the citizens of all classes, and not without some good reasons, being naturally a filthy race, and in many ways specially offensive. It must not be understood that there are only Chinese washermen, laborers, and artisans in the city; there are also responsible merchants, brokers, and manufacturers belonging to that nationality, wielding considerable influence, both among their own people and the citizens at large. Every street in China Town has its joss-house or temple, and however low these Mongols are as a race, they never fail to give heed to their professed religion and its various forms. It is also a fact that crime is less frequent in China Town than it is in other parts of the city; and drunkenness, except insensibility from opium, is scarcely known among the Chinese in California.
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