By the Golden Gate
by
Joseph Carey
Part 2 out of 3
sign, with the legend: "Your bosom friend." As I drew near it I
discovered that it was over a shirt store. It was certainly most
suggestive. The women, as you see them going hither and thither, are
the picture of health and many of them can boast of real beauty. Here
are few if any pale faces, sallow complexions, cadaverous cheeks.
There are various types of nationality, but it may be said that there
is a California or San Francisco type, which is the product of climate
and environment. One is struck with the animation manifested in the
faces and movements of the men and women. They are quick too in
reaching conclusions and witty in observation. A young man in one of
the railway offices asked this question: "What," said he to me, "is
the difference in dress between a bishop and any other clergyman," I
replied that some of the bishops wore aprons, and that this was the
only real difference in daily attire--except some special mark on the
coat or the shape of the hat. I hastened to add by way of pleasantry,
that my friend Ashton, who was standing beside me, and I had not an
apron as yet. "Well," he replied promptly, "you have gotten beyond
that."
They take pleasure in telling a good story also. As Ashton and I were
travelling one afternoon to San Rafael we were joined on the Saucelito
ferry boat by a benevolent gentleman, named Ingram, who said he was a
cousin of the Bishop of London. As we talked over various matters he
finally said, "I will tell you a story. An Irishman landed in New York
after a stormy voyage; and as he walked up Broadway he thought that
he would go into the first place he saw, which looked like a Roman
Catholic church, and there offer thanks for his safe journey. When he
came to St. Paul's Chapel, with the statute of the Apostle in view, he
went into it, and kneeling down he began to cross himself. The sexton
seeing his demonstrations said to him, 'This is not a Roman church,
this is a Protestant church.' But said he, 'It is a Catholic church.
Don't you see the cross and the candles on the altar.' 'O no,' said
the sexton in reply, 'It is a Protestant church.' 'No, no,' said the
Irishman, 'you can't convince me that St. Paul turned Protestant when
he came to America!'"
One is impressed with the air of prosperity and thrift on every hand.
Many of the houses are artistic in construction and elegant in their
furnishings. Some of them are stately mansions, notably the Stanford,
Huntington, Hopkins and Crocker residences on California avenue, in
its most conspicuous section. The homes of these California kings are
adorned with costly works of art, choice paintings, and beautifully
chiselled marbles. During the sessions of the General Convention the
Crocker mansions on the north side of the avenue were the centre
of attraction in the liberal hospitality dispensed there and the
courtesies shown to many of the Bishops and other Clergy. On the
evening of Wednesday, October the ninth, Bishop Nichols held a
reception for the Bishops, other Clergy, the Lay Deputies, and their
friends, in the Hopkins' mansion, on the south side of California
avenue. This is now used as an Art Institute, and it is admirably
adapted to its purpose. The building was thronged all the evening by
the members of the Convention and the representatives of San Francisco
society. Five thousand people high in the councils of the Church
and the Nation and in social walks were in attendance; and it was
impossible to accommodate all who came. It is said that hundreds
were turned away. The writer and his friends considered themselves
fortunate to be able to thread their way through the crowd without
being crushed or having their garments torn. It was the grandest
function of a social character which ever took place on the Pacific
coast. The costly paintings adorning chambers, galleries and reception
rooms, the splendid specimens of statuary, the numerous pictures,
the brilliant lights, the strains of joyous music, but above all the
moving throng of handsome women beautifully arrayed, and the noble
bearing of Bishop, Priest and layman, with the fine intellectual faces
seen on all sides, made this reception a scene never to be forgotten.
Who, in the days of forty-nine, would have dreamed that, a little over
a half a century later, there would be such a magnificent gathering
of intellect and beauty,--men and women with lofty aims and noted for
their achievements in letters and art, and their prominence in Church
and State, and excelling in virtuous deeds, on a hill which was then a
barren waste of shifting sands?
While I am speaking of the reception in the Hopkins' Art Institute, I
may note that Californians have a great love for art. Their own grand
scenery of mountain and valley and ocean fosters the love for the
beautiful; and to-day they can point with pride to the works of such
men as Julian Rix, Charles Dickman, H.J. Bloomer, J.M. Gamble, and
H. Breuer, whose landscapes are eagerly sought for, and command high
prices. The frequent sales of paintings are the best evidence that the
people of San Francisco equal the citizens of the oldest cities of the
land in refinement and the elevation of the mind and heart above the
mere desire to make money. There is also a goodly array of female
artists who deserve praise and honour. Eastern cities must look well
to their laurels in the matter of art as well as in many other things.
The contrast between 1849 and 1901 in the prices paid for articles
of consumption and service rendered is quite remarkable. When Bayard
Taylor visited San Francisco in 1849 he paid the sum of two dollars
to a Mexican porter to carry his trunk from the ship to the Plaza or
Portsmouth Square. Here in an adobe building, he tells us, he had his
lodging. His bed, in a loft, and his three meals per day, consisting
of beefsteak, bread and coffee, cost him thirty-five dollars a week.
From other sources we learn that, if you kept house, you had to pay
fifty cents per pound for potatoes,--one might weigh a pound. Apples
were sold at fifty cents a piece, dried apples at seventy-five cents a
pound. Fresh beef cost fifty cents a pound, milk was a dollar a quart,
hens brought six dollars a piece, eggs nine dollars a dozen, and
butter brought down from Oregon, was sold at the rate of two dollars
and fifty cents per pound. Flour was in demand at fifty dollars a
barrel, and a basket of greens would readily bring eight dollars. A
cow cost two hundred dollars. A tin coffee pot was worth five dollars,
and a small cooking stove was valued at one hundred dollars. A cook
commanded three hundred dollars a month, a clerk two hundred dollars a
month, and a carpenter received twelve dollars a day. Lumber sold for
four hundred dollars per thousand feet, and for a small dwelling house
you had to pay a rental of five hundred dollars per month. It must be
remembered that people were pouring into San Francisco from all parts
of the world in search of gold, that there were few if any persons to
till the ground, and that many of the articles in demand for life's
necessities were brought either across the Isthmus of Panama or around
by Cape Horn. In consequence the cost of living was necessarily high.
To-day you can live as cheaply in San Francisco or any other city of
California, as Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, or San Diego, as in any
eastern city or town. Rooms with board can be secured at the Palace
Hotel, corner of Market street and New Montgomery, at the rate of
three dollars and a half per day up to five dollars. Without board you
can obtain a room for the sum of one dollar and a half up to three
dollars. The Grand Hotel, the annex to the Palace, and just across
the street, offers the same rates as the Palace. The Lick House, the
corner of Montgomery and Sutler streets, will take you for three
dollars up to five per day. The Occidental, corner of Montgomery and
Bush streets charges also from three dollars up to five per day for
board and room. The California Hotel, an imposing structure, on Bush
street, supplies rooms at the rate of one dollar per day and upwards.
The Baldwin, corner of Market and Powell streets, charges for board
and room at the rate of two dollars and a half up to five per day; and
the Russ House receives guests, giving room and board at the rate of
one dollar and a half up to two dollars and a half per day--this hotel
is situated on the corner of Montgomery and Pine streets. There are
many other hotels where the traveller can be made comfortable at a
moderate cost. It is the same with many private houses which are open
for guests. In the latter a parlor and bedroom with the luxury of a
bath may be had for two dollars per day. A single room can be secured
for a dollar a day. In such a case you can obtain your meals at one of
the numerous restaurants for which San Francisco is noted. There are
the restaurants at the Palace, the California and other prominent
hotels, the Maison Doree in Kearney street, Westerfeldt's in Market
street, and the Cafe in the Call Building on the top floor of the
tower, from which you have a commanding view of the city in all
directions. Good servants can be had at the rate of thirty dollars per
month, especially the much abused Chinese, who cook and do the laundry
work, and wait on the table, and render a willing service. I recall
the faithfulness of the Chinaman "Fred," who tried to please his
employer, and also the fidelity and zeal of "Max," the Dane, or Mads
Christensen. Max was an ideal waiter. He had been only nine months in
the United States, and yet he had learned sufficient of the English
language to understand what was said to him and to express himself
clearly. It is an example of persistence; and Max had the qualities
which, in a young man, are bound to lead to success.
In addition to the other great buildings you cannot fail to notice the
New City Hall, a magnificent pile including the Hall of Records to the
east of the main structure. The location is somewhat central, being
opposite Eighth street, just north of Market street, and bounded by
Park avenue, Larkin and McAllister streets. The plot of ground on
which it is erected has an area of six and three-quarters acres and is
triangular in shape. The front is eight hundred feet in length, the
Larkin street side five hundred and fifty feet, and the McAllister
side six hundred and fifty feet long. While the architecture is
difficult to describe, as being of any particular order, yet it may be
said that it is partly classical, partly of the renaissance style and
that it has a suggestion of the Byzantine period, which is seen in so
many buildings of a public character. Nothing, however, could be more
dignified than this great and imposing structure, which is traversed
by a main corridor crossed by a central one with two others, one in
the east and the other in the west. These corridors which give you a
sense of amplitude, are paved with Vermont marble. It has one chief
dome, three hundred feet above the base, which is surmounted by a
colossal figure with a torch in the uplifted right hand, a goddess of
liberty. On another section of the Hall is a small tower with a flag
staff, then a lower dome with a flag staff, the dome being supported
by pillars with Corinthian capitals. Flowers were in bloom in the
court-yards the day when I visited the building, and they gave an
artistic appearance to the granite-foundations. The upper courses of
the Hall are made of stucco in imitation of granite. The building,
which was begun in 1870, was completed in 1895. What it cost is hard
to tell. I questioned several persons in regard to it, but received
different answers, ranging all the way from five millions of dollars
up to thirteen millions. San Francisco, however, may well be proud of
the white edifice, in which are located most of the offices relating
to the business of the city. But we must not depart from these
precincts until we have examined the monumental group in the New City
Hall Square on the south side or front. The monument is circular in
form and is crowned with a figure of a woman, representing California,
in bronze. She wears a chaplet made of olive leaves, and holds a wand
in her right hand, and in her left a large disk bordered with stars,
while a bear is seen standing on her right side. No doubt Bruin has
reference to the famous bear flag which had been raised on the Plaza
in 1846, when California declared herself independent of Mexico, and
which in the same year gave place to the Stars and Stripes. Around the
monumental figure of California are subjects in bronze. First of all
there is an overland wagon drawn by oxen, with pioneers accompanying
it. Secondly an Indian wigwam with hunters and Indians representing
the year 1850. In the third scene we have a buffalo hunt, the hunter
holding a lasso in his hand, and then there is the dying buffalo.
Succeeding this we have a domestic scene--fruits and wheat--and a
reaper in 1848. We then note bronze-medallions of Sutter, James Lick,
Fremont, Drake, the American Flag, and Serra. Moreover on this central
monument we have the names of Stockton, Castro, Vallejo, Marshall,
Sloat, Larkin, Cabrillo-Portalo. Then the date, "Erected A.D. 1894.
Dedicated to the City of San Francisco by James Lick."
The scenes on the four monuments around the central one are--First,
the finding of gold in "'49"--three miners. Second, a figure with an
oar. Third, Early Days. Indian with bow and arrow. Pioneer with saddle
and lasso. A Franciscan preaching. Fourth, a figure crowned with
wheat, apples in right hand, and the Horn of plenty with various
fruits in the left hand. The monument bears this inscription, near the
base--Whyte and De Rome, Founders. Frank Appersberger, Sculptor.
In front of this most interesting monument is a cannon that has a
history. Near the head of this instrument of destruction is the
legend, _Pluribus nec Impar_. On the body of the cannon we read Le
Prince De Conde. _Ultima Ratio Regum_. Louis Charles De Bourbon--Comte
D'Eu., Due D'Aumale. A Douay--Par T. Berenger. Commissionaire. Des
Fontes Le 23 Mars, 1754.
The cannon is made of bronze, has a coat of arms, and is otherwise
ornamented. It has two handles in the shape of dragons. It is twelve
feet long. But it has another inscription in which we are deeply
interested. This is in English, and reads as follows:
"Captured at Santiago De Cuba, July 17, 1898, by the Fifth Army
Corps, U.S. Army, Commanded by Major General William R. Shafter, and
presented by him to the City of San Francisco, California, in trust
for the Native Sons of the Golden West, and accepted as a token of the
valor and patriotism of the Army of the United States."
While I was reading the inscriptions and making measurements an open
two-seated carriage was driven up to the curbstone, about four o'clock
in the afternoon. From this a gentleman in a business suit, about
sixty years of age, alighted and approached me. He was a man of
pleasing address. He said to me, "You seem to be interested in this
cannon." "I am," was the reply. Then he began to pace it and to
examine it, and said, "It is just twelve feet long." He thought that
possibly it came into the hands of the Spaniards during the Napoleonic
wars, and that it at length found its way over to Cuba to help
in enslaving the people of that island. As I was attracted to
my informant, I ventured to ask him whom I had the pleasure of
addressing. Imagine my astonishment and delight when he said
modestly--"I am General Shafter." I said to him, "I am glad to meet
one so brave and who has helped to add new lustre to our Flag." He
replied that "he considered it a privilege to have had a share in the
liberation of Cuba, and that our beloved nation was on the march to
still greater glory." Finding out where I came from, and that I lived
near Ballston Spa, he said, "You must know my son-in-law, William H.
McKittrick." I replied that I did, that I knew him when he was a boy,
and that he and his family were my parishioners, when I was Rector of
Christ Church, Ballston Spa, twenty-eight years ago. Said he, "William
distinguished himself in the Cuban War. He is now a Captain and
Assistant Adjutant-General, and it was he who was the first to hoist
the Flag over Santiago." The General having courteously invited me to
call on him, soon after bade me good-bye. It was a chance meeting, but
full of interest, especially under the circumstances. Here was the
hero who had captured the cannon and who had won laurels for himself
and for his country. McKittrick also comes of a patriotic family, his
father having laid his life on the altar of his country in the Civil
War; and after the elder McKittrick is named the Grand Army Post of
Ballston Spa, N.Y.--Post McKittrick. General Shafter was as modest
on the day when I met him by the cannon as he was brave at Santiago.
While the Republic has such worthy sons she has nothing to fear.
Her mission is one of peace to her own people in all the States and
Territories of the Union, and in all our Colonial possessions; and the
motto of every citizen should be _Non sibi sed Patriae_. For every
churchman it ought to be _Non sibi sed Ecclesiae_.
CHAPTER VII
CHINAMEN OF SAN FRANCISCO--THEIR CALLINGS AND CHARACTERISTICS
A Visit to Chinatown--Its Boundaries--A Terra Incognita--Fond of
Mongrels--My Licensed Guide--The Study of the Signs--Men of All
Callings--Picture of the Chinaman--Devoid of Humour--Confucius--Great
Men from Good Mothers--Confucius to Women--Mormonism and
Mohammedanism--How to Regenerate China--Slaves of the Lamp--Chinamen
Impassive--Aroused to Wrath--How They Dress--The Queue--"Pidgin"
English--Payment of Debts--Bankrupt Law--Suicide.
When in the City of the Golden Gate you will not fail to visit the
Chinese Quarter, or "Chinatown," as it is popularly called. Just as in
an Oriental city like Jerusalem or Constantinople you find different
nationalities or races living apart from each other, so here in
San Francisco you have "Little China" in the heart of Anglo-Saxon
civilisation. It is as if you had unfolded to your wondering eyes in a
dream some town from the banks of the Pearl River, the Yangtse-Kiang,
or the Hwangho or. Yellow River; and it seems strange indeed that,
without the trouble or expense and danger of crossing the waters of
the Pacific, you can by a short walk from the midst of the teeming
life of an American City, be ushered into streets that are foreign in
appearance and where scenes that are unfamiliar to the eye attract
your attention on every hand. With the exception of the houses, which,
as a rule, take on a European or an American style of architecture,
you might imagine that you were in Canton or some other Chinese city.
The life is truly Asiatic and Mongolian in its character and in its
display as well as in its customs. The home of the sons of the Flowery
Kingdom in San Francisco is in the north-eastern section of the city,
and may be said to be in one of the best portions of the metropolis
of the West, sheltered as it is from the winds of the Pacific by the
hills which are back of it, and with a commanding view of the Bay and
its islands and the magnificent landscapes to the east, valleys and
hills running up to the heights of the Sierras. The locality is
bounded by Jackson, Pacific, Dupont, Commercial, and Sacramento
streets, and embraces some eight squares; and within this space,
crowded together, are the twenty-five or thirty thousand Chinese who
form a part of the population of the city. There are Chinamen here and
there in other parts of San Francisco, but nearly all live here in
this quarter which we are now approaching. Here there are the homes of
the people who came from the land of Confucius, here the famous shops,
the theatres, the Joss-houses where heathen worship is maintained. As
soon then as you set foot within the area described you feel that you
are in a strictly foreign country; and if this is your first visit,
the place is to you a sort of terra incognita. You will need a guide
to take you through its labyrinths and point out to you its hidden
recesses and explain the strange sights and interpret for you the
language which sounds so oddly to your ears. If you have not some man
to conduct you, a dragoman or courier, you will be likely to make
mistakes as ludicrous as that related of an English woman. Sir Henry
Howarth, the author of the "History of the Mongols," a learned and
laborious work, was out dining one evening. It fell to his lot at his
host's house to escort a lady to the dinner table; and she, having a
confused idea of the great man's theme, surprised him somewhat by the
abrupt question, "I understand, Sir Henry, that you are fond of dogs.
Are you not? I am too." "Dogs, madam? I really must plead guiltless. I
know nothing at all of them!" "Indeed," his fair questioner replied;
"and they told me you had written a famous history of mongrels!" It
is best then always to take a guide, and you will have no trouble in
finding one, who will charge you from two to three dollars an hour. If
you go with a small party, which is best, all can share the expense.
It will take about three hours to explore the town thoroughly and
study the life. The writer went through Chinatown on two evenings
at an interval of a few days, and saw this Asiatic Quarter of San
Francisco to great advantage. The first time was with a licensed guide
of long experience, and the second time it was under the direction
of a police-detective. Some five friends were in the party; and we
started on our tour of exploration about half past nine o'clock at
night. The night is the best time in which to study the life, for then
you can see the Chinese in their houses and at their amusements, as
well as many others who still are at work; for some of the Chinese
artisans toil for sixteen hours a day, and long into the hours of the
night. Here among them are no strikes for fewer hours, but patient
toil, as it were in a treadmill, without a murmur. My licensed
guide was Henry Gehrt, a man about fifty-five years old, of German
parentage. He had been in the business for twenty-seven years, and he
maintained an office on Sacramento Street. His badge was No. 60.
All guides must wear badges according to law. As we went hither and
thither we met occasionally groups of sight-seers, among them some of
our friends, members of the Convention, Bishops, and clerical and lay
deputies, who felt this was a rare opportunity to study heathendom;
and I am sure all went away from this strange spot thanking God for
our noble Anglo-Saxon civilisation, as well as for the knowledge of
His Revelation.
The houses, I observed, are three, and sometimes four stories high,
with balconies and windows, which give them a decidedly Oriental
appearance. On most of them were signs displayed in the Chinese
language. You also see scrolls by the doors of the private houses and
on the shops. The signs are a study in their bright colours and their
mythological and fantastic adornments. Yellow is the predominant
colour, and the dragon is in evidence everywhere. This emblem of the
Celestial Empire is represented in gorgeous array and with a profusion
of ornament. A splendid dragon is the sign and trade mark of "Sing Fat
and Co.," who keep a Chinese and Japanese Bazaar on Dupont Street. On
their card they give this warning, "Beware of firms infringing on our
name;" and it seems as if the dragon on the sign would avenge any
invasion of their rights. The signs are a study, and if you are
ignorant of the language, you ask your learned guide to interpret them
for you. He will tell you that Hop Wo does business here as a grocer,
that Shun Wo is the butcher, that Shan Tong is the tea-merchant, that
Tin Yuk is the apothecary, and that Wo-Ki sells bric-a-brac. Some of
the signs, your guide will tell you, are not the real names of the men
who do business, that they are only mottoes. Wung Wo Shang indicates
to you that perpetual concord begets wealth, Hip Wo speaks to you of
brotherly love and harmony, Tin Yuk means a jewel from Heaven, Wa
Yun is the fountain of flowers, while Man Li suggests thousands of
profits. Other of the signs relate to the muse. They do not at all
reveal the business carried on within. The butcher, for example, has
over his shop such elegant phrases as Great Concord, Constant Faith,
Abounding Virtue. There are many pawn-brokers who ply their vocation
assiduously. They tell you of their honest purpose after this
fashion: "Let each have his due pawn-brokers," and, "Honest profit
pawn-brokers." In the Chinese restaurant, to which we will go later,
you will be edified by such sentiments as these,--The Almond-Flower
Chamber, Chamber of the Odours of Distant Lands, Garden of the Golden
Valley, Fragrant Tea-Chamber. The apothecary induces you to enter his
store with inviting signs of this character: Benevolence and Longevity
Hall, Hall of Everlasting Spring, Hall of Joyful Relief, Hall for
Multiplying Years. Surely if the American druggist would exhibit such
sentences as these over his shop he would never suffer for want of
customers. All are in pursuit of length of years and health; and I
think the Chinese pharmacist shows his great wisdom in offering to all
who are suffering from the ills to which flesh is heir a panacea for
their ailments. It takes the fancy, it is a pleasing conceit for the
mind, and the mere thought that you are entering Longevity Hall gives
you fresh courage!
You will find here in Chinatown men of all callings, the labourer who
is ready to bear any burden you lay on him, the artisan who is skilled
in his work, the grocer, the clothes' dealer, the merchant, the
apothecary, the doctor, the tinsmith, the furniture-maker, the
engraver, the goldsmith, the maker of paper-shrines for idols, the
barber, the clairvoyant, the fortune-teller, and all others of every
calling which is useful and brings profit to him who pursues it. But
we are deeply interested in the men whom we meet. At first view they
all seem to look alike, you can hardly distinguish one from another.
They are a study. Look on their solemn faces, sphinx-like in their
repose and imperturbability. They are a riddle to you. You rarely ever
hear them laugh. They are like a landscape beneath skies which are
wanting in the sparkling sunbeams. They seem to you as if they had
continual sorrow of heart, as if some wrong of past ages had set its
seal on their features. The Chinaman has very little sense of
the ludicrous, and he is lacking in the elements of intellectual
sprightliness and vivacity which lead a Frenchman or an American to
appreciate and enjoy a sally of wit, a bon mot, or a joke. Life indeed
is better, and a man can bear his burdens with more ease if he has a
sense of humour. Some of the great characters in history have often
come out of the depths with triumph by reason of the spirit within
them which could perceive the flash of wit and apply its medicine to
the wounds of the heart. I think it may be said, as a rule, that the
Asiatic has not the power to appreciate wit and humour like the old
Greek or the Teuton or the Celt. He is not wanting in his love of
the beautiful, in his appreciation of poetry, in the vision which
perceives the flowers blooming by the waters in the desert, and in the
hearing which catches the sound of the harmonies of his palm-trees
and lotus flowers, but in the sense or faculty to seize on mirth
and appropriate her to his service in burden-bearing he is sadly
deficient. He is but a child in this respect. While the Chinaman has
inventive faculties and keen intellect and wonderful imitative powers,
yet in other respects he is behind the progressive races of the world.
He has made little advance for thousands of years. His isolation, his
narrow sphere, his simple life, and his religion even, which, while
some of its maxims and tenets are admirable, still is lacking in the
knowledge of the true God and in lofty ideals, have had a marked
effect upon his thoughts and habits and pursuits. His great teacher,
Confucius, who flourished five centuries before the Christian era
and who spoke some sublime truths, was nevertheless ignorant of a
Revelation from heaven and inferior in his grasp of religious truth to
such sages of Greece as Socrates and Plato. In his system also woman
is practically a slave. She is simply the minister of man, and
therefore unable to rear up children, sons who would reflect the
greatness of soul of a noble motherhood. It has often been remarked
that great men have had great mothers. I think experience and
observation will bear out this statement. Glance over the pages of
history, and eminent examples will rise up before the view. Whence
spring the Samuels and the Davids, whence a Leonidas and a Markos
Bozzaris, whence the Scipios and the Gracchi, whence the Augustines
and the Chrysostoms, whence the Alfreds and the Gladstones, whence the
Washingtons and the Lincolns, whence the Seaburys and the Doanes,
and many another? Are they not all hewn from the quarries of a noble
motherhood? Are they not sprung from the fountain of a womanhood whose
living streams are clear as crystal and sweet and refreshing? The
first Chavah, Eve, is rightly styled the mother of all living; and a
generation or race of men to be living, active, noble in achievement,
distinguished in virtues, must issue from a well-spring which
vitalises and beautifies and magnifies the spirit and the intellect,
as Engannim waters her gardens, and Engedi nourishes her acacias
and lotus-plants, and Enshemesh reflects the sun's golden beams the
livelong day. But what, you ask, are the exact teachings of the sage
Confucius, who influences Chinese society even to this day, with
regard to woman? Hear him: "Moreover, that you have not in this life
been born a male is owing to your amount of wickedness, heaped up in
a previous state of existence, having been both deep and weighty; you
would not then desire to adorn virtue, to heap up good actions, and
learn to do well! So that you now have been hopelessly born a female!
And if you do not this second time specially amend your faults,
this amount of wickedness of yours will be getting both deeper and
weightier, so that it is to be feared in the next state of existence,
even if you should wish for a male's body, yet it will be very
difficult to get it." Again another saying of Confucius is: "You must
know that for a woman to be without talent is a virtue on her part."
With such teaching then ever before them, do you wonder that Chinese
women do not excel in virtue, and that they are the mothers of a race
of men who are practically like standing water instead of a flowing
fountain to refresh the waste places of human life? The teachings of
Mormonism and Mohammedanism with regard to woman also degrade her and
rob her of the beautiful crown which her Maker has put upon her head;
and hence it is that such peoples are not virile and progressive like
the nations where woman is looked upon as man's helpmeet, where she
stands upon his right hand as a queen. The Mormons are better in many
respects than their faith; and if the first generation was hardy
and aggressive and brave in subduing the desert and changing Rocky
Mountain wastes into a blooming garden, it was because they had been
trained in the school of Christianity and had imbibed lessons of
wisdom at the fountain of a pure faith and inherited from Christian
fathers and mothers those qualities which are stamped on the soul
through upright living and a creed that is formulated in true
doctrine. But Mormonism is dying out, and woman in Utah is receiving
the rightful place assigned her by her Creator in the work of building
up the race and perpetuating the virtues and forces of a true manhood.
The followers of Mohammed are still numerous and powerful, and the
Religion of the Koran has shown great vitality for centuries. The
nobility of character, however, which has manifested itself in such
lives as that of Saladin the Great is the product of other causes than
the specific teachings and views of Islam respecting domestic life
and the position and office of woman. The destinies of men have been
determined often by their environments. We must also bear in mind that
from time to time, under the sway of the Crescent, different sections
of the civilised world have been brought under the rule of the
Sultans, and all that was good and noble in the lives of peoples newly
incorporated into the faith of the Arabian Prophet has contributed in
no small degree to the strength of a system which has in its own bosom
the seeds of decay and which will ultimately become effete and pass
away. Mohammed Ali, the founder of the present Khedivial house of
Egypt, had in his veins old Macedonian blood, and his views respecting
marriage and domestic life, as well as the traditions of his family
in his old home at Kavala, had much to do with the development of his
character and his brilliant career; and hence neither he nor others
like him in the Turkish Empire can be singled out to prove that
a religion which looks upon woman as an inferior being to man is
excellent in its tendencies and produces a noble fruitage. What
Napoleon once said with respect to France, that she needed good
mothers, is true as regards China. Where woman is held in honour and
where the domestic virtues are woven into a beautiful chaplet of
spring-time blossoms to bedeck her brow, there you will find good and
great men. Our own nation is an example of this. To regenerate
China then, to improve the morals of Chinatown in San Francisco, or
Chinatown in New York where there are between seven and eight thousand
sons and daughters of the Flowery Kingdom, you must create pure homes,
and to do this you must first of all sweeten them with the precepts of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Confucius will fail you. The Son of God
will reform you and save you! Such thoughts and reflections as these
naturally sprang up in my mind in my walks through Chinatown. I saw
its people on every hand. Sometimes they were in twos, again in groups
of a half a dozen or more. They scarcely noticed us as we walked by
them; they showed no curiosity to observe us, but went on their way as
though intent on one object. They moved about like automatons, as if
they were a piece of machinery; and such as were at work in shops
heeded us not even when we stood over them and watched them as they
handled their tools. It was work, work. They were doing their masters'
bidding like the genii of the lamp; and in the glare of the light in
which they wrought on their bench or at their stand the workers in
gold and silver, the makers of ornaments and jewelry, were like
some strange beings from another world. They work to the point of
endurance. They have their amusements, their holidays, as the Chinese
New Year which comes in February, their processions from time to time,
but their great indulgence is in the use of opium. Once or twice
a month the ordinary labourer or workman gives himself up to its
seductive charms, to its power more fatal to his manhood than
intoxicating drinks taken to excess. The Chinaman is so stolid and
impassive that it is hard to arouse his wrath. He will bear insults
without a murmur for a long time, but in the end he will be stung into
madness and he will give force to all his pent up fires of hate
that have slumbered like a volcano. He may wait long without having
punished his oppressor, but he will bide his time. So it was with the
Boxers in China whose story is so painfully fresh in the memories of
the great legations of the world in Pekin.
The men and women of Chinatown dress very nearly like each other;
though you do not meet many women. The Chinaman wears a blouse of blue
cotton material or other cheap, manufactured goods. This is without a
collar, and is usually hooked over the breast. There are no buttons.
Wealthy Chinamen, and there are many such, indulge in richer garments.
As a rule they have adopted the American felt hat of a brownish
colour. The shoe has the invariable wooden sole with uppers of cotton
or some kind of ordinary cloth. The hair is the object of their chief
attention, however, in the making up of their toilet. It is worn in a
queue or pigtail fashion as it is commonly styled. It is their
glory, however, this long, black, glossy braid. It is the Chinaman's
distinguishing badge. It gives him dignity in the presence of his
countrymen. If cut off he feels dishonoured. He can never go back to
the home of his ancestors, but must remain in exile. He wears this
mark of his nationality either hanging down his back or else coiled
about the head. When at work the latter style is preferred, as it is
then out of the way of his movements. Some of the men whom you meet
have fine intellectual heads. The merchants and scholars whom I saw
answer to this description. As a rule they can all read and write.
They have a love of knowledge to a certain point, and a book is prized
by them. The great desire of the Chinamen who reach our shores is to
learn the English language. They know it gives them an advantage. It
is the avenue to success. Sometimes they will become members of an
American Mission or Bible-class in order to learn the language. They
still, however, have their mental reservations with regard to their
native Joss-houses and worship. But they are not singular in this
respect. Mohammedans and Jews in the East allow their children to
attend schools where English is taught, because with the knowledge of
this they can the more readily find employment among tourists and in
places of exchange. This is particularly true in Egypt and in Syria.
But the Chinaman in his attempt to learn the Anglo-Saxon tongue finds
great difficulties. Very many speak only what is called "Pidgin" or
"Pigeon" English, that is Business English. Business on the lips of
the new learner becomes "Pidgin." They like to end a word with ee as
"muchee," and they find it next to impossible to frame the letter R.
For example the word _rice_ becomes _lice_ in a Chinaman's mouth,
and a Christian is a Chlistian, while an American is turned into an
Amelican. Of course this does not apply to the educated Chinaman who
is polished and gifted in speech as is the case with any well-trained
Chinese clergyman or such as minister Wu Ting-Fang in Washington.
All debts among the Chinese are paid once a year, that is when their
New Year comes around in our month of February. There are three ways
in which they may cancel their debts. First, they pay them in money,
if they are able, when accounts are cast up between creditor and
debtor. If in the second place they are unable to pay what they owe
they assign all their goods and effects to their creditors, and then
the debtor gets a clean bill and so starts out anew with a clear
conscience for another year. This in few words is the Chinese
"Bankrupt Law." But, in the third place, if a man has no assets, if he
be entirely impoverished, and cannot pay his debts, he considers it
a matter of honour to kill himself. Death pays all debts for him,
settles all scores, and he is not looked upon with aversion or
execrated. Even Chinese women have resorted to this extreme method of
settling their accounts. But what of their settlement with their Maker
who gave them life, who holds all men responsible for that gift, who
expects us to use the boon aright? A Chinaman does not value life with
the same feeling and estimate as an Anglo-Saxon. Should he fail in any
great purpose, should he meet with defeat in some cherished plan, he
will seek refuge in the bosom of the grave; he will voluntarily return
to his ancestors whom he has worshipped as gods. In the late war
between China and Japan, in which China was vanquished, some of her
generals committed suicide. It presents, alas, a degenerate side of
human nature. It is most pathetic. Better far to live under the smart
of defeat and bear its shame, carry the cross, endure the stings of
conscience, and meet the frowns of the world, than flee from the
path of duty, than dishonour our manhood. The greatest victory is
to conquer one's proud heart, and to suffer, and do God's will. The
teachings of Christ show us the value of life, tell us how to live,
how to die, how to win the divine approbation. To Him we bow and not
to Confucius.
CHAPTER VIII
A CHINESE NEWSPAPER, LITTLE FEET, AND AN OPIUM JOINT
In Chinatown--A Chinese Editor--His Views of Chinese Life--A Daily
Paper and the Way in Which it is Printed--A Night School--The Mission
of the English Language--A Widow and Her Children--Pair of Small
Shoes--Binding of the Feet and Custom--Mrs. Wu Ting-Fang on Small
Feet--Maimed and Veiled Women--The Shulamite's Feet--An Opium-joint--A
Wretched Chinaman--Fascination of Opium--History and Cultivation
of the Poppy--The East India Company and the Opium War--An Opium
Farmer--How the Old Man Smoked--De Quincey and His Experiences--"I
Will Sleep No More."
As my guide and I went forth to visit the places of interest in
Chinatown, we directed our steps first of all to the Chinese newspaper
office. This is located at No. 804 Sacramento street, corner of Dupont
street. On being ushered in I met with a cordial welcome from the
managing editor, Mr. Ng Poon Chew, who, before I bade him good-bye,
exchanged cards with me. He, I learned, is a Christian minister and
is the pastor of a Chinese church in Los Angeles. His literary
attainments and business capacity peculiarly fit him for his work
on the Chinese paper, and he is held in high esteem by Chinamen
generally. He is a man about four feet five inches in stature, and
possibly forty years old. It is hard, however, to tell a Chinaman's
age, and so he may be five or ten years older. He is what you would
call a handsome man, with a fine head and a beaming countenance. He
showed great warmth in his greeting--and this was the more remarkable
as the Chinaman is generally cool and impassive. He was dressed in the
Chinese fashion with the traditional queue hanging down behind. He
presented altogether a striking appearance, and you would single
him out from a crowd as a man of more than ordinary cultivation and
ability. He talked English fluently, and it was a pleasure to listen
to him. He has well defined views regarding China and other countries.
When questioned about the Flowery Kingdom, he said that the people
were very conservative, that they do not wish for change, and that
Chinese women dress as they did thousands of years ago. He remarked,
however, that there is a younger generation of Chinamen who long for
a change and for reform in methods, I suppose after the manner of the
so-called "Young Turks" in the Sultan's dominions. They would like the
improvements of European and American life, and would shake off the
trammels of the past to a large extent, just as Japan has shaken off
the sleep of centuries and is marching towards greatness among the
strong nations of the world. With the modern appliances and advances
in civilisation and armies well drilled like those of England or the
United States of America, and with great war-ships well manned, they
would be able to meet the world and to defend themselves and repel
every invader from their country. He says the Chinese have good
memories, that they will never forget the manner in which opium came
to them, and the opium war of 1839. When he was a child he was taught
to pray to a wooden god, and he had to rise as early as 3:30 A.M. to
go to school to study the teachings of Confucius. As the custom is to
go so early in the morning to school, the children sometimes drop to
sleep by the way as they are hastening on. Chinamen will tell you that
they have the religion which is best for them. This is the doctrine of
Confucius; but Confucius, while a great scholar, was not a saint. He
taught men "to improve their pocket," but did not teach them much
about their soul. In order to see the real effect of the teachings of
Confucius, you must go to China. Confucius may make men whom you may
admire, but he cannot make men whom you can respect. The religion of
Confucius is dreary and is lacking in the warmth and blessing which
come from a belief in the Bible.
It is most certainly refreshing to hear this learned Chinaman talking
and giving his impressions and opinions about matters of such vital
importance. Ng Poon Chew, at my request, gave me the business card of
the newspaper. This states that the paper, which is published daily
in Chinese, is called "Chung Sai Yat Po," and that it has the largest
circulation of any Chinese paper published outside of the Chinese
Empire. The card further tells us that "this paper is the organ of
the commercial element in America and is the best medium for Chinese
trade." In addition to the daily issue of the newspaper, "English and
Chinese Job Printing" is done in the office. The work of interpreting
the English and Chinese languages is carried on here. Mr. Ng Poon Chew
spoke with evident pride about his paper, and informed me that he gave
a daily account of the proceeding's of the General Convention, then in
session in Trinity Church, San Francisco, in the "Chung Sai Yat Po."
The editing of a Chinese newspaper is no easy matter. The printing of
the paper is difficult and requires great skill and patience. There
are, for example, forty thousand word-signs, all different, in the
Chinese language, and to represent these signs there must be separate,
movable type-pieces. It is said that it takes a long period of time to
distribute the type and lay out "the case." The typesetter must know
the word by sight to tell its meaning, otherwise he will make serious
blunders. Then it is a hard matter to find intelligent typesetters.
The editor, too, must be a man of business. The paper is watched by
spies of the Chinese Government, and if the editor expresses himself
in any manner antagonistic to the Emperor or the Dowager Empress or
any of the viceroys of the provinces, his head would be cut off if he
ever ventured to set foot in China. There is another obstacle in the
way of a Chinese newspaper of liberal views, like the "Chung Sai Yat
Po." It cannot get its type from China, as the Government is opposed
to every reform paper. The type for such a journal is cast in a
Japanese foundry in Yokohama. It is said that about ten thousand
word-signs are used in the printing of the newspaper. The type-case is
usually long, for the purpose of allowing all the type-pieces to be
spread out. The type runs up and down in a column, and you read from
right to left as in Hebrew or other Shemitic languages. The characters
are as old in form as the days of Confucius. The "Chung Sai Yat Po"
has a very large circulation and finds its way to the islands of the
Pacific Ocean and into China.
From the newspaper office we wended our way to a little Baptist
mission chapel for the Chinese. There were about forty persons
congregated here, among them some ten or twelve Americans who were
teaching the Chinese the English language. This night school is
popular with young, ambitious Chinamen, for when they learn our
language it is much easier for them to obtain work in stores and
offices, and even as house servants. The books used had the Chinese
words on one page and the English sentences opposite. Sometimes
converts to Christianity are made through the medium of the night
school, but it takes time and patience to win a Chinaman from
the religion of Confucius. It is worth the labour, however. The
difficulties in the mastery of English are a great barrier to
conversions. Nevertheless they do occur. A Chinaman is readily reached
through his own language. Hence the importance of raising up native
teachers of the Gospel who can speak to the hearts as well as to the
understanding of their countrymen. As we observed in the foregoing
chapter, in the Orient, as in Syria and Egypt, Jews and Mohammedans
sometimes allow their children to attend the English schools, and to a
large extent from a worldly motive. The Syrian or Arab who can speak
English is in demand as a dragoman, an accountant, an office clerk in
the bazaar, or a camp-servant or boatman. Indeed a great revolution is
now taking place all through the East. Nearly all the young Egyptians
can talk English, and this is the first step towards their conversion
to the faith of the Gospel. When they are able to read the books of
the Christians in the English, they are led to look favourably on
the Church. They catch the spirit of belief in Jesus Christ from the
Christian tourist. They lose the narrowness and bigotry which the
mosque or the synagogue fosters, and in time they examine the claims
of a religion which has built up the great nations of Europe and
America. The future has in store great developments for the Church in
Palestine and the old land of the Pharaohs through the agency of the
English schools, and I believe the readiest way in which to convert
the Chinese people, whether in Chinatown in San Francisco, or in China
itself, is to teach them our language and give them access to the Holy
Scriptures in our noble tongue. Our Church schools in China are doing
a great work in this respect. So is St. John's College in Shanghai.
They should all be liberally supported with offerings from America,
and what we sow in this generation will be reaped in the next, a
splendid harvest for Christ and His Church!
After leaving the night school our guide conducted us up narrow stairs
to the rooms occupied by a Chinese woman. She was a widow with four
children, daughters, and rather petite in form, and lacking the
physical development and beauty of the Caucasian race. They seemed shy
and timid, for Chinese women are not accustomed to the society of men.
In fact there is among them no such home-life as we are familiar with.
They were dressed in a measure after the fashion of our girls, and had
long, black hair. The mother said a few sentences in broken English,
and welcomed us with an air of sincerity, though not a little
embarrassed. She was a woman of about forty years, and from the
expression of her face had evidently met with trials. Brought over to
San Francisco from Canton when a young girl, she had married Shan Tong
with all the ceremony and merry-making which characterise a Chinese
wedding, with its processions and feasting and the noise of its
firecrackers; but some four or five years ago death claimed her
husband, and she was left to do battle alone, while he was laid to
rest in the Chinese burying-ground at the west end of Laurel Hill
Cemetery. But she did not suffer from want, for Chinamen are kind
to the needy of their own race. Among the objects which excited our
curiosity were the tiny shoes of the small-footed woman. These were
not quite three inches in length, and looked as if they were more
suited for a doll's feet than for a full grown woman's. Yes, here was
the evidence of a barbarous custom which deprives a human being of one
of nature's good gifts, so necessary to our comfort and happiness.
Think what you would be, if, through infirmity, you were not at
liberty to go hither and thither at will like the young hart or
gazelle! We grieve naturally if our children's feet are deformed or
misshapen at birth, but what a crime it is to destroy the form and
strength of the foot as God has made it! It is true that the Manchu
women in China rejoice in the feet which the beneficent Creator has
given them. The Dowager Empress--of whom we have read so much of late,
and who rules China with an iron rod, has feet like any other woman;
but millions of her countrywomen have been robbed of nature's
endowment through a foolish and wicked custom which has prevailed in
China from time immemorial. The feet are bound when the child is born,
and they are never allowed to grow as God designed, as the flower
expands into beauty from the bud. Chinese women realise that it is
foolish, that it is a deformity, but it is the "custom," and custom
prevails. It is like the laws of the Medes and Persians which alter
not. Women are powerless under it. It is in vain to a large extent
that they oppose it. There is in China an Anti-foot-binding League,
which receives the support of men of prominence. Even centuries ago
imperial edicts were issued against it, but custom still rules. It
was Montaigne who declared that "custom" ought to be followed simply
because it is custom. A poor reason indeed. There should be a better
argument for the doing of what is contrary to reason and nature.
Nature is a wise mother, and she bestows on us no member of the body
that is unnecessary. The thought of her fostering care was well
expressed by the old Greeks who lived an out-door life, in their
personification of Mother Earth under the creation of their Demeter,
perfect in form and beautiful in expression and noble in action. This
is far above the conceptions of nature or of a presiding genius over
our lives, taking into account social order and marriage vows, which
we find in Chinese literature or mythology. It is not difficult to
perceive the reason why the Greeks, who rule the realms of philosophy
and art and literature to-day, after the lapse of many centuries,
are the superior people. Well does that master-mind, Shakespeare,
characterise evil custom:
"That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil."
But a better day is coming for Chinese women. Wherever Christianity
has touched them in the past they have been uplifted and benefited.
The sun seems now to rise in greater effulgence on the Kingdom of the
Yellow Dragon. The wretched custom of dwarfing and destroying the feet
of a child whose misfortune, according to Confucius, it is to be
born a female, is giving way under pressure from contact with the
enlightened nations of the world. The teachings of the Christian
Church are having their salutary effect and Chinamen are beginning to
learn the value of a woman's life from the Biblical standpoint, and
the daughters of the Flowery Kingdom will, as time goes on, become
more and more like the polished corners of the Temple, or the
Caryatides supporting the entablature of the Erechtheum at Athens. It
is Madame Wu Ting-Fang, wife of the Chinese Minister at Washington,
who has recently returned from a visit to her old home, who says: "The
first penetrating influence of exterior civilisation on the customs of
my country has touched the conditions of women. The emancipation of
woman in China means, first of all, the liberation of her feet, and
this is coming. Indeed, it has already come in a measure, for the
style in feet has changed. Wee bits of feet, those no longer than an
infant's, are no longer the fashion. When I went back home I found
that the rigid binding and forcing back of the feet was largely a
thing of the past. China, with other nations, has come to regard that
practice as barbarous, but the small feet, those that enable a woman
to walk a little and do not inconvenience her in getting about the
house, are still favoured by the Chinese ladies."
The custom of binding and destroying the feet, no doubt, arose from
the low views entained by Chinese sages concerning woman, and from
a lack of confidence in her sense of honour and virtue. She must be
maimed so that she cannot go about at will, so she shall be completely
under the eye of her husband, held as it were in fetters. It is a sad
comment on Chinese domestic morality, it fosters the very evil it
seeks to cure, it destroys all home life in the best sense. The veiled
women of the East are very much in the same position. If a stranger,
out of curiosity or by accident, look on the face of a Mohammedan
wife, it might lead to her repudiation by her jealous husband, or the
offender might be punished for his innocent glance. The writer recalls
how at Hebron, in Palestine, he was cautioned by the dragoman, when
going up a narrow street to the Mosque of Machpelah, where he had to
pass veiled women, not to look at them or to seem to notice them,
as the men were very fanatical and might do violence to an unwary
tourist. The Chinese women of small feet, or rather no feet at all,
walk, or attempt to walk, in a peculiar way. It is as if one were on
stilts. The feet are nothing but stumps, while the ankles are large,
almost unnatural in their development. It is indeed a great deformity.
The feet are shrunken to less size than an infant's; but they have not
the beauty of a baby's feet, which have in them great possibilities
and a world of suggestion and romance and poetry. If the Chinese
custom had prevailed among the ancient Hebrew people, think you that
King Solomon in singing of the graces of the Shulamite, who represents
the Church mystically, would ever have exclaimed,--"How beautiful
are thy feet with shoes, O prince's daughter!" We should have lost,
moreover, much that is noble in art, and the poetic creations of Greek
sculptors would never have delighted the eye nor enchained the fancy.
In our perambulations about Chinatown, we must next visit an
opium-joint. This mysterious place was situated in a long, rambling
building through which we had to move cautiously so as not to stumble
into some pit or dangerous hole or trap-door. Here were no electric
lights to drive away the gloom, here no gas-jets to show us where we
were treading, nothing but an occasional lamp dimly burning. Yet we
went on as if drawn by a magic spell. At last we were ushered into a
room poorly furnished. It was not more than twelve feet square, and in
the corner was an apology for a bed. On this was stretched an old man
whose face was sunken, whose eyes were lusterless, whose hand was long
and thin and bony, and whose voice was attenuated and pitched in a
falsetto key. The guide said that this old Chinaman was sixty-eight
years of age, and that he had had a life of varied experience. He was
a miner by profession, but had spent all his earnings long ago, and
was now an object of charity as well as of pity. Indeed he was the
very embodiment of misery, a wretched, woebegone, human being! He had
lost one arm in an accident during his mining days. Chinamen in the
thirst for gold had mining claims as well as Anglo-Saxons. This desire
for the precious metal seems to be universal. All men more or less
love gold; and for its acquisition they will undergo great hardship,
face peril, risk their lives. This aged Chinaman for whom there was no
future except to join his ancestors in another life, was now a pauper
notwithstanding all his quest for the treasures of the mines; and his
chief solace, if it be comfort indeed to have the senses benumbed
periodically, or daily, and then wake up to the consciousness of loss
and with a feeling of despair betimes, was in his opium pipe, which he
smoked fifty times a day at the cost of half a dollar, the offering
of charity, the dole received from his pitying countrymen or the
interested traveller who might come to his forlorn abode. But what
a fascination the opium drug has for the Chinaman, and not for him
alone, but for children of other races--for men and women who, when
under its spell, will sell honour and sacrifice all that is dear in
life, and even forego the prospect and the blessed hope of entering at
last into the bliss of the heavenly world! But what is opium, what its
parentage and history? The Greeks will tell you it is their opion or
opos, the juice of the poppy, and the botanist will point out the
magic flower for you as the Papaver Somniferum, whose home was
originally in the north of Europe and in Western Asia; but now, just
as the tribes of the earth have spread out into many lands, so has the
poppy which has brought much misery as well as blessing to men,
found its way into various quarters of the globe, particularly those
countries which are favoured with sunny skies. It is cultivated in
Turkey, India, Persia, Egypt, Algeria and Australia, as well as in
China. I now recall vividly the beautiful poppy fields at Assiut,
Esneh and Kenneh, by the banks of the Nile, in which such subtle
powers were sleeping potent for ill or good as employed by man for
deadening his faculties or soothing pain in reasonable measure. These
flowers were of the reddish kind. In China they have the white, red
and purple varieties, which, as you gaze on them, seem to set the
fields aglow with fire and attract your gaze as if you were enchained
to the spot by an unseen power. The seeds are sown in November and
December, in rows which are eighteen inches apart, and four-fifths
of the opium used in China is the home-product, though it was not
so formerly. In March or April the poppy flowers according to the
climate, the soil, and the location. The opium is garnered in April or
May, and prepared for the market. The Chinese merchant values most of
all the Shense drug, while the Ynnan and the Szechuen drugs take next
rank. The opium is generally made into flat cakes and wrapped up in
folds of white paper. It is said that it was introduced into China in
the reign of Taitsu, between the years A.D. 1280 and 1295; but it is
worthy of note that up to the year 1736 it was imported only in small
quantities and employed simply for its medicinal properties, as a cure
for diarrhoea, dysentery, and fevers, hemorrhage and other ills. It
was in the year 1757 that the monopoly of the cultivation of the poppy
in India passed into the hands of the East India Company through the
victory of Lord Clive over the Great Mogul of Bengal at Plassey; and
from this time the importation of the drug into China became a matter
of great profit financially. In 1773 the whole quantity imported was
only two hundred chests. In 1776 it had increased to one thousand
chests, while in 1790 it leaped up to four thousand and fifty-four
chests. The Chinese Emperor, Keaking, becoming alarmed at its growing
use and its pernicious effect when eaten or smoked, forbade its
importation, and passed laws punishing persons who made use of it
otherwise than medicinally, and the extreme penalty was sometimes
transportation, and sometimes death. Yet the trade increased, and
in the decade between 1820 and 1830 the importation was as high as
sixteen thousand, eight hundred and seventy-seven chests. The evil
became so great that in 1839 a royal proclamation was put forth
threatening English opium ships with confiscation if they did not keep
out of Chinese waters. This was not heeded, and then Lin, the Chinese
Commissioner, gave orders to destroy twenty thousand, two hundred
and ninety-one chests of opium, each containing 149-1/3 pounds, the
valuation of which was $10,000,000. Still the work of smuggling went
on and the result was what is known as the Opium War, which was ended
in 1842 by the treaty of Nanking. China was forced by Great Britain to
pay $21,000,000 indemnity, to cede in perpetuity to England the city
of Hong Kong, and to give free access to British ships entering
the ports of Canton, Amoy, Foochoofoo, Ningpo and Shanghai. The
importation of opium from India is still carried on--but the quantity
is not so great as formerly, owing to the cultivation of the plant in
China. The Hong Kong government has an opium farm, for which to-day it
receives a rental of $15,500 per month. The farmer sells on an average
from eight to ten _tins_ of opium daily, the tins being worth about
$150 each. His entire receipts from his sales of the drug are about
$45,000 per month. This opium farmer is well known to be the largest
smuggler of opium into China; and not without reason does Lord Charles
Beresford, in his book "The Break-up of China," say: "Thus,
indirectly the Hong Kong government derives a revenue by fostering
an illegitimate trade with a neighbouring and friendly Power, which
cannot be said to redound to the credit of the British Government. It
is in direct opposition to the sentiments and tradition of the laws of
the British Empire." It was here in Chinatown, in San Francisco, that
I was brought face to face with the havoc that is made through the
opium trade and the use of the pernicious drug in eating and smoking.
I was told that Europeans and Americans sometimes sought the
opium-joints for the purpose of indulgence in the vice of smoking.
Even women were known to make use of it in this way. The old man whom
I visited was lying on his left side, with his head slightly raised
on a hard pillow covered with faded leather. He took the pipe in his
right hand, the other, as I have already said, having been cut off in
the mines. Then he laid down the pipe by his side with the stem near
his mouth. The next movement was to take a kind of long rod, called a
dipper, with a sharp end and a little flattened. This he dipped in
the opium which had the consistency of thick molasses. He twisted the
dipper round and then held the drop which adhered to it over the lamp,
which was near him. He wound the dipper round and round until the
opium was roasted and had a brown colour. He then thrust the end of
the dipper with the prepared drug into the opening of the pipe, which
was somewhat after the Turkish style with its long stem. He next held
the bowl of the pipe over the lamp until the opium frizzled. Then
putting the stem of the pipe in his mouth he inhaled the smoke, and
almost immediately exhaled it through the mouth and nostrils. While
smoking he removed the opium, going through the same process as
before, and it all took about fifteen minutes. What the old man's
feelings were he did not tell us, but he seemed very contented, as if
then he cared for nothing, as if he had no concern for the world and
its trials. But one must read the graphic pages of Thomas De Quincey
in his "Confessions of an English Opium Eater," in order to know what
are the joys and what the torments of him who is addicted to the use
of the pernicious drug. It was while De Quincey was in Oxford that he
came under its tyranny. At first taken to allay neuralgic pain, and
then resorted to as a remedy on all occasions of even the slightest
suffering, it wove its chain around him like a merciless master who
puts his servant in bonds. But though given to its use all his life
afterwards, in later years he took it moderately. Still he was its
slave. A man of marvellous genius, a master of the English tongue,
he had not full mastery of his own appetite; and one of such talent,
bound Andromeda-like to the rock of his vice, ready to be devoured
in the sea of his perplexity by what is worse than the dragon of the
story, he deserves our pity, nay, even our tears. He tells us how
he was troubled with tumultuous dreams and visions, how he was a
participant in battles, strifes; and how agonies seized his soul, and
sudden alarms came upon him, and tempests, and light and darkness;
how he saw forms of loved ones who vanished in a moment; how he heard
"everlasting farewells;" and sighs as if wrung from the caves of hell
reverberated again and again with "everlasting farewells." "And I
awoke in struggles, and cried aloud, 'I will sleep no more!'"
CHAPTER IX
MUSIC, GAMBLING, EATING, THEATRE-GOING
In Chinatown--A Musician's Shop--A Secret Society--Gambling Houses--"The
Heathen Chinee"--Fortune-telling--The Knife in the Fan-Case--A Boarding
House--A Lesson for Landlords--A Kitchen--A Goldsmith's Shop--The
Restaurant--Origin of the Tea-Plant--What a Chinaman Eats--The Tobacco
or Opium Pipe--A Safe with Eight Locks--The Theatre--Women by
Themselves--The Play--The Stage--The Actors--The Orchestra and the
Music--The Audience--A Death on the Stage--The Theatre a Gathering
Place--No Women Actors--A Wise Provision--Temptations--Real Acting--Men
the Same Everywhere.
The reader will now accompany us to a musician's shop in our
wanderings through Chinatown. This is located in a basement and is a
room about fifteen feet wide and some twenty feet deep. This son of
Jubal from the Flowery Kingdom was about fifty-five years old and a
very good-natured man. He received us with a smile, and when he was
requested by the guide to play for us he sat down before an instrument
somewhat like the American piano, called _Yong Chum_. The music was of
a plaintive character, and was lacking in the melody of a Broadwood
or a Steinway. Then he played on another instrument which resembled
a bandore or banjo and was named _Sem Yim_. Afterwards he took up a
Chinese flute and played a tune, which was out of the ordinary and
was withal of a cheerful nature. He then showed us something that was
striking and peculiar--a Chinese fiddle with two strings. The bow
strings were moved beneath the fiddle strings. The music was by no
means such as to charm one, and you could not for a moment imagine
that you were listening to a maestro playing on a Cremona. The
Chinese, while they have a reputation for philosophy after the example
of their great men, like Confucius and Mencius, and while there are
poets of merit among them like Su and Lin, yet can not be said to
excel in musical composition and rendering. The tune with which our
Chinese friend sought to entertain us on his fiddle was, "A Hot Time
in the Old Town To-night." He thought this would be agreeable to our
American ears. Meanwhile I glanced around this music-room and among
other things I saw, and which interested me, were several effigies of
men, characters in Chinese history. Some were no doubt true to life
while others were caricatures of the persons whom they represented. It
might be styled an Eden Musee.
Leaving the musician's, after giving him a suitable fee for
entertaining us, we turned our footsteps towards the _Chee Kung Tong_.
This is a Chinese secret society. The Chinese are wont to associate
themselves together, even if they do not mingle much with men of
other nations. They have their gatherings for social purposes and
for improvement and pastime, and, like the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin
races, they have their mystic signs and passwords. Of course we were
not permitted to enter the _Chee Kung Tong_ Hall, however much we
desired to cross its mysterious threshold. The door was well guarded,
and Chinamen passing in had to give assurance that they were entitled
to the privilege. On the night when the detective from Police
Headquarters accompanied us we made an attempt to enter a Chinese
gambling house. The entrance even to this was well guarded; although
the sentinel unwittingly left the door open for a moment as a Chinaman
was passing in. The detective seeing his opportunity went in boldly
and bade us to follow him. In a few moments all was confusion. We
heard hurrying feet in the adjoining room, and then excited men
appeared at the head of the passage way and waved their arms to and
fro while they talked rapidly in high tones. Outside already some
fifty men had collected together, and these were also talking and
gesticulating wildly. The detective then said to us that it would be
wise to retreat and leave the place lest we might meet with violence.
We did so, but the uproar among the Chinese did not subside for some
time. We pitied the poor sentinel who had allowed us to slip in, for
we knew that he would be severely punished after our departure. The
Chinese are noted for their gambling propensities, and there are
many gambling houses in Chinatown. This vice is one of their great
pastimes, and whenever they are not engaged in business they devote
themselves either to gambling, the amusements of the theatre, the
pleasures of the restaurant, or the seductive charms of the opium
pipe.
Later in my saunterings I went into a kind of restaurant, where I saw
a number of Chinese men and boys playing cards and dominoes and dice.
They went on with the games as if they were oblivious to us. I noticed
there were Chinese coins of small value on the tables, and some of the
players were apparently winning while others were losing. The latter,
however, gave no indication that they were in the least degree
disappointed. Of course, as a rule they play after their own fashion,
having their own games and methods. Minister Wu, of Washington, when
asked recently if he liked our American games, replied that he did
not understand any of them. No doubt this is true of the majority of
Chinamen in the United States. In thinking of the Chinese and gambling
one always recalls Bret Harte's "Plain Language From Truthful James of
Table Mountain," popularly known as "The Heathen Chinee," one of the
best humorous poems in the English language. You can fairly see the
merry eyes of the author of the "Argonauts of '49" dancing with
pleasure as he describes the game of cards between "Truthful James,"
"Bill Nye" and "Ah Sin."
"Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a hand;
It was euchre: the same
He did not understand;
But he smiled as he sat by the table
With a smile that was childlike and bland.
"Yet the cards they were stacked
In a way that I grieve,
And my feelings were shocked
At the state of Nye's sleeve,
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers,
And the same with intent to deceive.
"But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,
And the points that he made.
Were quite frightful to see--
Till at last he put down the right bower,
Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.
"Then I looked up at Nye,
And he gazed upon me:
And he rose with a sigh,
And said, 'Can this be?
We are ruined by Chinee cheap labour'--
And he went for that heathen Chinee."
There are all kinds of jugglers in Chinatown and among them are
numerous fortune-tellers. This kind of pastime is as old as the human
race, and you find the man who undertakes to reveal to you the secrets
of the future among all peoples. The Orientals are always ready to
listen to the "neby" or the necromancer or the fakir or the wandering
minstrel, who improvises for you and sings for you the good things
which are in store for you. We see this tendency among our own people
who would have their destiny pointed out by means of a pack of cards,
by the reading of the palm of the hand, in the grounds in the tea-cup,
and by other signs. It was with some interest then that we glanced
at the mystic words and signs which adorned the entrance to Sam Wong
Yung's fortune-teller's place.
Passing on, we next visited a hardware shop, where you could purchase
various kinds of Chinese cutlery. Among other things that attracted my
attention was a simple-looking Chinese fan, apparently folded up. On
examining it I found that inside of the fan-case was a sharp knife or
blade like a wide dagger. This could be carried in an unsuspecting
manner into the midst of a company of men, and in a moment, if you
had in your breast the wicked spirit of revenge, your enemy could be
weltering in his life blood at your feet. It suggested all kinds of
tragedies, and no doubt its invention had behind it some treacherous
impulse. The writer ventured to purchase it, but he hastens to
announce to his friends that his purposes are good and innocent.
Though in the same category as the sword or dagger hidden in a
walking-stick or a concealed weapon, this bloodthirsty knife will
repose harmlessly in its fan-case like a sleeping babe in his cradle.
A Chinese boarding house next claimed our inspection. It was rather a
forbidding place, but no doubt the Chinaman was well content with its
accommodations. It was a long, rambling structure, and it seemed to me
as if I were going through an underground passage in walking from room
to room. The various halls were narrow, indeed so narrow that two
persons meeting in them could not without difficulty pass each other.
The beds, which brought a dollar a month, were one above another in
tiers or recesses in the walls. Generally a curtain of a reddish hue
depended in front of them. They reminded one of the berths in a ship
or of the repositories of the dead in the Roman Catacombs. Two
hundred and twenty-five persons were lodged in this dark, mysterious
labyrinth. In another house there were five hundred and fifty people
lodged in seventy-five rooms. Possibly the owners of tenement houses
in our large cities, who crowd men and women into a narrow space
and through unpitying agents reap a rich harvest regardless of the
sufferings of their fellow-beings, have been taking lessons from the
landlords of Chinatown. I said to myself, as I went to and fro through
these narrow passages, dimly lighted with a lamp, and the lights were
few and far between, if a fire should break out, at midnight, when all
are wrapt in slumber, what a holocaust would be here! And whose would
the sin and the shame be? There are good and ample fire-appliances for
the protection of the city, but the poor Chinamen hemmed in, as in a
dark prison-house, would surely be suffocated by smoke or be consumed
in the flames. When the old theatre was burned down, twenty-five men,
and probably more, perished, although there were means of escape from
this building. I was told that the wood from which the largest hotel
in Chinatown, its Palace hotel so to speak, was constructed in the
early days, was brought around Cape Horn, and cost $350 per thousand
feet. This was before saw-mills were erected in the forests among the
foothills and on the slopes of the Sierras. The kitchen of the big
boarding house was a novelty. It was nothing in any respect like the
well-appointed kitchens of our hotels with their great ranges and open
fire-places where meats may be roasted slowly on the turnspit. On one
side of the kitchen there was a kind of stone-parapet about two feet
and a half high, and on the top of this there were eight fire-places.
As the Chinamen cook their own food there might be as many as eight
men here at one time. I asked the guide if they ever quarreled. His
answer was significant. "No! and it would be difficult to bring eight
men of any other nationality together in such close proximity without
differences arising and contentions taking place; but the Chinamen
never trouble each other." There was only one man cooking at such a
late hour as that in which we visited the kitchen, about half-past ten
o'clock at night. He used charcoal, and as the coals were fanned the
fire looked like that of a forge in a blacksmith's shop.
On our way to the Chinese Restaurant we stepped into a goldsmith's
shop. There were a few customers present, and the proprietor waited
on them with great diligence. At benches like writing desks, on which
were tools of various descriptions, were seated some half a dozen
workmen who were busily engaged. They never looked up while we
stood by and examined their work, which was of a high order. The
filagree-work was beautiful and artistic. There were numerous personal
ornaments, some of solid gold, others plaited. The bracelets which
they were making might fittingly adorn the neck of a queen. I learned
that these skilled men worked sixteen hours a day on moderate wages.
Their work went into first-class Chinese bric-a-brac stores and into
the jewelry stores of the merchants who supply the rich and cultured
with their ornaments.
But it is time that we visit the restaurant. This is located in a
stately building and is one of the first class. It overlooks the old
Plaza, though you enter from the street one block west of the Plaza.
You ascend broad stairs, and then you find yourself in a wide room or
dining hall in two sections. Here are tables round and square, and
here you are waited on by the sons of the Fiery Flying Dragon clad in
well-made tunics, sometimes of silk material. As your eye studies the
figure before you, the dress and the physiognomy, you do not fail to
notice the long pigtail, the Chinaman's glory, as a woman's delight
is her long hair. The tea, which is fragrant, is served to you out
of dainty cups, China cups, an evidence that the tea-drinking of
Americans and Europeans is derived from the Celestial Empire. The
tea-plant is said, by a pretty legend, to have been formed from the
eyelids of Buddha Dharma, which, in his generosity, he cut off for the
benefit of men. If you wish for sweetmeats they will be served in a
most tempting way. You can also have chicken, rice, and vegetables,
and fruits, after the Chinese fashion. You can eat with your fingers
if you like, or use knives and forks, or, if you desire to play the
Chinaman, with the chop-sticks. In Chinatown the men and the women do
not eat together. This is also the custom of China, and hence there is
not what we look upon as an essential element of home-life--father
and mother and children and guests, if there be such, gathered in a
pleasant dining-room with the flow of edifying conversation and the
exchange of courtesies. Confucius never talked when he ate, and his
disciples affect his taciturnity at their meals. Though in scholastic
times, in European institutions and in religious communities, men kept
silence at their meals, yet the hours were enlivened by one who read
for the edification of all. The interchange of thought, however,--the
spoken word one with another, at the family table, is the better way.
Silence may be golden, but speech is more golden if seasoned with
wisdom; and even the pleasant jest and the _bon mot_ have their office
and exercise a salutary influence on character and conduct.
The food of Chinamen generally is very simple. Rice is the staple
article of consumption. They like fruits and use them moderately. They
eat things too, which would be most repulsive to the epicurean taste
of an Anglo-Saxon. Even lizards and rats and young dogs they will
not refuse. But these things are prepared in a manner to tempt the
appetite. After you have partaken of your repast in the Chinese
Restaurant, if you request it, tobacco pipes will be brought in, and
your waiter will fill and light them for you and your friends. You can
even, with a certain degree of caution, indulge in the opium pipe, the
joy of the Chinaman. As you draw on this pipe and take long draughts
you lapse into a strange state, all your ills seem to vanish, and you
become indifferent to the world. The beggar in imagination becomes
a millionaire, and for the time he feels that he is in the midst
of courtly splendours. But, ah! When one awakes from his dream the
pleasures are turned into ashes, and the glory fades as the fires
of the pipe die. _Sic transit gloria mundi_! On the walls of the
restaurant were various Chinese decorations. The inevitable lantern
was in evidence. Here also were tablets with sentences in the language
of the Celestials. But there was one thing that struck me forcibly as
I examined the various objects in the rooms. In the rear half of the
restaurant, on the north side of the room, stood a Chinese safe,
somewhat in fashion like our ordinary American safe. It was not,
however, secured with the combination lock with which we are all
familiar. It shut like a cupboard, and had eight locks on a chain as
it were. Every lock represented a man whose money or whose valuables
were in the safe. Each of the eight men had a key for his own lock,
different from all the other seven. When the safe is to be opened all
the eight men must be present. Is this a comment on the honesty of
the Chinaman? Is this indicative of their lack of confidence in each
other? And yet as a house-servant the Chinaman is trusty and faithful
and honest. He is also silent as to what transpires in his master's
house and at his employer's table. The writer has conversed with
people who have had Chinamen in their service, he has also visited
the homes of gentlemen where only Chinese servants are employed
in domestic work, and all bear testimony to their excellence and
faithfulness and honesty.
No visit to Chinatown would be complete without an inspection of its
theatre and a study of the audience. Here you see the Celestials _en
masse_, you behold them in their amusements. Let us repair then to the
Jackson Street Theatre. The building was once a hotel, now it is
a place of pastime; and singularly under the same roof is a small
Joss-House,--for the Chinaman couples his amusements with his
religion. It rather reminds one of those buildings in Christian lands,
which, while used for religious services, yet have kitchens and places
for theatrical shows and amusements under the same roof. But the play
has already begun. Indeed it began at six o'clock--and it is now
nearly eleven P.M. It will, however, continue till midnight. This is
the rule; for the Chinaman does nothing by halves, and he takes his
amusement in a large quantity at a time. The theatre had galleries on
three sides and these were packed with men and women as well as the
main floor. There were altogether a thousand persons present, and it
was indeed a strange sight to look into their faces, dressed alike as
they were, and all seemingly looking alike. The women were seated in
the west gallery on the right hand of the stage by themselves. This
is an Eastern custom which Asiatic nations generally observe. Even
in their religious assemblies the women sit apart. The custom arose
primarily from the idea that woman is inferior to man. In the Jewish
temple as well as in the synagogue, the sexes were separated. It is so
to-day in most synagogues. Among the Mohammedans, too, woman is ruled
out and is kept apart; and so strong is custom it even affected the
Christian church in Oriental lands in the early days. You see a trace
of it still in the East in church-arrangements.
A Chinese play takes a number of weeks or even months in which to
complete it. It may be founded on domestic life or on some historic
scene. Sometimes the history of a province of the Chinese Empire is
the theme. The plays are mostly comedy. There are no grand tragedies
like those of the old Greek poets. The Chinese have had no such
writers as Sophocles or Euripides, no such creators of plays as
Shakespeare, and they have no such actors as a Garrick or an Irving.
We were invited to seats on the stage--which had no curtains,
everything being done openly. In order to reach the stage the guide
conducted us down the passageway or aisle through the midst of the
audience. Then we ascended a platform at the end of the stage and went
behind it into a long room where the actors were putting on costumes
of a fantastic shape and painting their faces with bright coloured
pigments. Some of them also put on masks that would frighten a person
should he meet the wearers suddenly. The majority of the masks were
caricatures of the human face and were comical in expression. We felt
quite at home on the stage at once; for here, seated on either side
with the actors in the midst of the company, were many of our friends
lay and clerical, men and women, looking on in wonder at the strange
performance. An orchestra of six or seven members was here on the
back part of the stage--and the music! It consisted of the beating of
drums, the sounding of gongs and other outlandish noises. Now and then
above the din you could catch the sound of a clarionet and the feeble
strains of a banjo. It was indeed pandemonium! Yet above all the noise
and confusion you could hear the high pitched voices of the actors
as they shouted and gesticulated. The audience, I noticed, was most
attentive and decorous. They were evidently well pleased with the
play; and what was quite remarkable they seemed to have neither ears
nor eyes for their visitors. Of course they must have seen us, but
with an indifference that almost bordered on contempt they paid no
attention to us.
In the play one of the actors died on the stage, but the death had
nothing of the tragic or heroic in it. After a brief interval he rose
up and walked off amid the merriment of the audience.
Many Chinamen come here to spend their evening. The admission is fifty
cents, which entitles one to a seat. As the play runs through six
hours at a time, they feel that they get the worth of their money.
They meet their friends there also; and although they are not very
demonstrative towards each other, like the warm blooded races of Italy
and Greece and Northern Europe and the United States, yet they are
very happy in the presence of men of their own race and nation. The
theatre is about the only place where they can meet on common ground,
at least in large bodies, and then, as we have already intimated, the
theatre is something more than a place of amusement in their eyes.
Their forefathers liked such plays, and they believe that the spirits
of the dead are in a certain sense present to share in the enjoyments
of men in the body.
Only men and boys act on the Chinese stage. There are no women, though
the female sex is personated. This has its advantages. Woman is kept
out of harm; she is not subject to the indignities and temptations
which beset her among other peoples who employ her services. Of course
there are good and virtuous women on the stage--very many, I trust!
But it will be admitted that the life of an actress is one of trial.
She must of necessity be brought into intercourse with an element
whose moral ideals are not the loftiest, and she must have unusual
strength of character to preserve her integrity. She can do it! I
believe that men and women can resist temptation in all spheres, in
all vocations of life; I have great faith in humanity, especially when
sustained by divine helps; but we must not subject the bow to too much
tension lest it break. The personating of characters which have in
them a spice of wickedness, the taking of the part in a play which
represents the downfall of a virtuous person, the setting forth of the
passions of love and hatred, must in time produce a powerful effect on
the mind of a young woman, and there is danger that the neophyte on
the stage will be contaminated with the base things of life before
strength of character is developed. The Chinese are to be commended in
this respect, whatever their motive in excluding their women from the
stage. The reproduction of Greek plays, in some of our universities,
where only men take the parts, shows what could be done among us on
the stage, and successfully.
The Chinese actors whom I saw, exhibited a great deal of human nature
in their acting. There was the full display of the human passions; and
they entered into their work with zest as if it were real life. Some
of the men in the audience were smoking cigars, others cigarettes. The
Asiatic has a fondness for cigarettes. You see the men of the East
smoking everywhere, whether in Syria, or Egypt, or Nubia, or Arabia.
And is it not true that men are much the same the world over, in their
pastimes and pursuits, their loves and their pleasures?
CHAPTER X
THE JOSS-HOUSE, CHINESE IMMIGRATION AND CHINESE THEOLOGY
In Chinatown--Conception of God--The Joss House--Chinese Mottoes--The
Joss a Chinaman--Greek and Egyptian Ideas of God--Different Types of
Madonnas--Chinese Worship and Machine Prayers--The Joss-House and
the Christian Church--Chinese Immigration--Chinamen in the United
States--A Plague Spot--Fire Crackers and Incense Sticks--The Lion and
the Hen--The Man with Tears of Blood--Filial Piety--The Joss--Origin
of the World--Creation of Man--Spirits of the Dead--Ancestral
Rites--The Chinese Emperor--What Might Have Been--The Hand of God.
Our study of Chinatown and the civilisation of the country of the
Yellow Dragon, as seen in the City of the Golden Gate, has thus far
brought us in contact with the social and business life of the Chinese
and their amusements; but we are now to visit one of their temples of
worship, the Joss-House. And here the real man will be revealed; for
it is in religious services and ceremonies and beliefs that we get a
true knowledge of a race or a nation. The conception of God which you
have is the key to your character. If your views of Deity are low and
ignoble you will not achieve any greatness in the world; but if on the
other hand you invest the Being Whom you worship with noble attributes
and look upon Him as just and holy, a God of mercy and judgment, your
breast will be animated with grand thoughts and lofty ideals will
impel you to the performance of heroic deeds. The word Joss, which we
use for a Chinese idol or god, seems to be derived from the Portugese,
Dios, or rather it is the Pidgin English of Dios. A Joss-House then is
a Chinese idol or god-house. We are now standing before such a place
of worship. This is on the corner of Kearney and Pine Streets, and
is built of brick, and as we look up we see that it is three stories
high. There is a marble slab over the entrance with an inscription
which tells us that this building is the Sze-Yap Asylum. Let us enter.
The lower story, we find, is given up to business of one kind or
another connected with the Sze-Yap Immigration Society. This, we note,
is richly adorned with valuable tapestries and silken hangings, and
the rich colours attract the eye at once. If you wish to sit down you
can, and enjoy the novelty of the scene. For here are easy chairs
which invite you to rest. In your inspection of the place you venture
to peer into the room back of this, and you perceive at once that
there is the lounging place of the establishment. You see men on
couches perfectly at ease and undisturbed by your presence, smoking
cigarettes or opium, the Chinaman's delight. If you desire to
penetrate further into the building you will come to the kitchen where
the dainty dishes of the Chinese are cooked; but you retreat and
ascend a staircase in the southeast corner of the first room, and
soon you are in the Joss-House proper. This second story is devoted
exclusively to religious purposes. The room to which you are now
introduced is about thirty feet square, and as you look around you
perceive the hangings on the walls and the rich decorations of the
ceiling. Here are placards on the walls, which, your guide will tell
you, if you are not conversant with the Chinese tongue, bear on them
sentences from the writings of Confucius, Mencius, and others, with
exhortations to do nothing against integrity or virtue, to venerate
ancestors and to be careful not to injure one's reputation in the eyes
of Americans;--all of which is most excellent advice, and worthy of
the attention of men everywhere. You then cast your eyes on the gilded
spears, and standards and battle-axes standing in the corners of the
Temple, and as you look up you almost covet the great Chinese lanterns
suspended from the ceiling. Your eyes are finally directed to the
altar, near which, and on it, are flowers artificial and natural. At
the rear in a kind of a niche in the Joss or god. The figure of this
deity was like a noble Chinaman, well-dressed, with a moustache, and
having in his eyes a far-away expression. He wore a tufted crown,
which made him look somewhat war-like. It is but natural that this
Joss should be a blind man. The Greek gods and goddesses have Greek
countenances. The idolatrous nations fashion their deities after their
own likeness. And what are these but deified human beings? It is so in
Greek and Roman mythology. The Egyptian Osiris is an Egyptian. It is
true that some of the ancients outside of Hebrew Revelation had a
better conception of God than others. Even in Egypt where birds and
beasts and creeping things received divine honors there were scholars
and poets who had an exalted idea of the Deity, as witness the Poems
of Pentaur. This is true also of some of the Greek Poets who had a
deep insight into divine things. It is not a little interesting to
note also that artists of different nations paint the Madonna after
the style of their own women. Very few of the pictures in the great
art galleries are after the style of face which you see in the Orient.
Hence there are Dutch Madonnas, and Italian and French and English
types. There were no worshippers in the Joss-House at the hour when I
visited it. Worship is not a prominent feature of Chinese religious
life. The good Chinaman comes once a year at least, perhaps oftener,
and burns a bit of perforated paper before his Joss, in order to show
that he is not forgetful of his deity. This bit of paper is about
six inches long and two inches wide. He also puts printed or written
papers in a machine which is run like a clock. Well, this is an easy
way to say prayers. And are there not many prayers offered, not
merely by Chinamen, that are machine prayers, soulless, heartless,
meaningless, and faithless, and which bring no answer? But how simple,
how beautiful, how sublime, the golden Prayer which the Divine Master
taught His disciples! Lord, teach us how to pray. If the noble Liturgy
of the Church is properly rendered,--for it is the expansion of the
Lord's Prayer,--there will be no machine-praying, and the answer to
prayer will be rich and abundant. The contrast between the worship
of the Joss and the worship of the true God in a Christian Church is
striking and affords reflection. The former is of the earth earthy,
the latter transports the devout worshipper to the throne of the Most
High. There is no fear that the religion of the Joss-House will ever
usurp the religion of the Christian altar. Men have expressed the fear
that if the Chinese came in overwhelming numbers to America they would
endanger the Christian faith by their idolatry. But would this be
true? Has Christianity anything to dread? What impression has the
Joss-House made all these years on the life of San Francisco outside
of Chinatown? None whatever, except to make the reflecting man value
the Christian faith with its elevating influences and its blessed
hopes all the more. It is a mistake then to exclude Chinamen from our
shores on the ground that they will do harm to Christianity. On the
contrary the Church will do them good. The Gospel is the leaven which
will be the salvation of heathen men. Did it not go forth into the
Gentile world on its glorious mission, and did it not convert many
nations in the first ages? Has it lost its potency to-day? No! It is
as powerful as ever to win men from their idols and their evil lives.
The question of Chinese immigration is a large one. It has its social
and its political aspects. It is found all along the Pacific coast
that Chinamen make good and faithful servants. The outcry against them
as competing with white laborers and artisans is more the result of
political agitation for political purposes than good judgment. Where
they have been displaced on farms, in mills, in warehouses, in
domestic life, white men and women have not been found to take their
places and do the work which they can do so well. Under the Geary Act
immigration has been restricted and the numbers of the Chinese in the
United States have been gradually decreasing. In the year 1854 there
were only 3,000 Chinese in the City of San Francisco; but even then
there was agitation against them. It was Governor Bigler who called
them "coolies," and this term they repudiated with the same abhorrence
which the negro or black man has for the term "nigger." They kept on
increasing, however, until in 1875 there were in the whole State of
California 130,000. Of this number 30,000 were in San Francisco.
To-day there are only about 46,000 in California and there are not
more than thirty thousand of these in the City of San Francisco. There
are only 110,000 Chinese altogether in the United States proper. Even
the most ardent exclusionist can see from this that there is nothing
to dread as to an overwhelming influx that will threaten the integrity
and existence of our civilisation. The labour-question and the
race-question and the international question, aroused by the presence
of the Chinese within our borders, will from time to time cause
agitation and provoke discussion and heated debate and evoke oratory
of one kind or another; but the question which should be uppermost in
the minds of wise statesmen is how shall they be assimilated to our
life? How shall we make them Christians? The answer will be the
best solution of the whole matter, if it has in mind the spiritual
interests of the Chinaman and of all other heathen on our shores.
There is indeed a plague spot in Chinatown, the social fester,
which can and ought to be removed. But this is true of American San
Francisco as well as of Chinatown. What, we may ask, are the men and
women of as beautiful a city as ever sat on Bay or Lake or Sea-Shore
or River, doing for its purgation, for its release from moral
defilement and "garments spotted with the flesh?" This indeed is one
of the searching questions to be asked of any other City, such as New
York, Chicago, St. Louis, London, Paris, Cairo, Constantinople, as
well as San Francisco. Among the other noticeable things in the
Joss-House were two immense lanterns, as much for ornament as for
utility. Then I saw a big drum and a bell, used in some of the
processions of the Temple; for the Chinese take special delight in
noises, indeed the more noise the better satisfied they are. During
my visit some of the Joss-House attendants were shooting off fire
crackers; and I was told that this was an acceptable offering to the
Chinese god. One who was selling small, slender incense sticks, said
that you could burn them to drive away the devil, an excellent purpose
certainly. He also said they were good to keep moths away. Doubtless
in the Chinese mind there is a connection between moths and evil
spirits; but you smile at all such puerilities. They belong to the
childhood of the world and not to the beginning of the twentieth
century. Among other creatures which they venerate are chickens and
lions. They invest the lion with divine attributes on account of his
majesty and power. But the chicken? Well, it is a gentle creature. It
is the embodiment of motherhood and it speaks of care, not only to
the Chinaman's understanding, but to ours also. The Divine Teacher,
greater than Confucius, said: "How often would I have gathered thy
children together as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings!"
Will China, now waking out of the sleep of centuries, allow Him to
gather her children together under the wings of His Cross? "And ye
would not." Oh, what pathos in these few words! But doubtless they
will. Many during the war of the Boxers were "gathered" unto Him,
emulating the zeal and courage and faith of the martyrs of the early
days of the Church. As the hen is sacred in the eyes of the Chinaman,
sacred as the peacock to Juno or the ibis to the Egyptians, they swear
by her head, and an oath thus taken may not be broken.
One of the images which I saw in the Joss-House was pointed out as
the God of the Door; and how suggestive this title and this office!
Another figure, on the right side of the altar, which attracted my
attention particularly was that of Toi Sin. He was dressed somewhat
like a mandarin, and his head was bared, while tears as of blood were
on his cheeks. He lived some three hundred years after the Advent of
Christ; and owing to his disobedience to his parents, for which he was
punished in his conscience, and otherwise, he grieved himself to death
and wept tears of blood. His image, I was told, is placed in all
Temples as a warning to children. It is a forceful lesson, and it is a
timely warning. The one thing that is characteristic of a Chinaman is
his filial piety. This filial piety was admired in all ages. It
was inculcated in the old Hebrew Law and enforced with weighty
considerations. It was a virtue among the Greeks as well as other
peoples of the Gentile world; and I wonder not that when the heroes
who captured Troy saw Aeneas carrying his aged father Anchises on his
shoulders and leading his son, the puer Ascanius, by the hand, out of
the burning city, they cheered him and allowed him to escape with
his precious burden. A Chinaman is taught by precept and example to
venerate his parents and to give them divine honors after death.
Should a Chinese child be disobedient he would be punished severely
by the bamboo or other instrument, and he would bring on himself the
wrath of all his family. This strong sense of filial piety has done
more for the stability and perpetuity of the Chinese Empire than ought
else. It is a great element of strength and it leads to respect for
customs and to the observance of maxims. Especially are burial places
held in sacred esteem, and as they contain the ashes of the fathers
they must not be disturbed or desecrated. In this respect we might
emulate the Chinese, for they are a perfect illustration of the
old precept, "Honour thy father and thy mother," which, in a busy,
independent age, there is danger of forgetting. But we look with no
little interest on the Joss above the altar, the Chinese god. His name
is Kwan Rung, and I am informed that he was born about two hundred
years after the beginning of the Christian era. Such is the person who
is worshipped here. That he may not be hungry food is placed before
him at times, and also water to drink. It is a poor, weak human god
after all, a dying, dead man. How different the Creator of the ends
of the earth, Who fainteth not neither is weary! The Chinese have no
conception of the true God. They cannot conceive of the beauty and
power and compassion of Jesus Christ until they are brought into the
light of the Gospel. But what is Chinese theology? What do they teach
about the origin of the world and man and his destiny. The scholars
tell us that the world was formed by the duel powers Yang and Yin, who
were in turn influenced by their own creations. First the heavens were
brought into being, then the earth. From the co-operation of Yang and
Yin the four seasons were produced, and the seasons gave birth to the
fruits and flowers of the earth. The dual principles also brought
forth fire and water, and the sun and moon and stars were originated.
The idea of a Creator in the Biblical sense is far removed from the
Chinese mind. Their first man, named Pwanku, after his appearance, was
set to work to mould the Chaos out of which he was born. He had also
to chisel out the earth which was to be his abode. Behind him through
the clefts made by his chisel and mallet are sun and moon and stars,
and at his right hand, as companions, may be seen the Dragon, the
Tortoise and the Phoenix as well as the Unicorn. His labours extend
over a period of eighteen thousand years. He grew in stature at the
rate of six feet every day, and when his work was finished he died.
The mountains were formed from his head, his breath produced the wind,
and the moisture of his lips the clouds. His voice is the thunder,
his limbs are the four poles, his veins the rivers, his sinews the
wave-like motions of the earth, his flesh the fields, his beard the
stars, his skin and hair herbs and trees, his teeth bones, his marrow
metals, rocks and precious stones, his sweat rain, and the insects
clinging to his body become men and women. Ah, how applicable the
memorable line of Horace!
Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.
In regard to the spirits of the dead the Chinese believe that they
linger still in the places which were their homes while alive on
earth, and that they can be moved to pleasure or pain by what they see
or hear. These spirits of the departed are delighted with offerings
rendered to them and take umbrage at neglect. Believing also that the
spirits can help or injure men they pray to them and make offerings to
them. From this we can understand the meaning and object of ancestral
rites. In these rites they honour and assist the dead as if they were
alive still. Food, clothing and money are offered, as they believe
they eat and drink and have need of the things of this life. Even
theatrical exhibitions and musical entertainments are provided on the
presumption that they are gratified with what pleased them while in
the body. Now as all past generations are to be provided for, the
Chinese Pantheon contains myriads of beings to be worshipped.
But think, what a burden it becomes to the poor man who tries
conscientiously to do his duty to the departed!
Now this ancestral worship leads to the deduction that it is an
unfilial thing not to marry and beget sons by whom the line of
descendants may be continued. Otherwise the line would cease, and the
spirits would have none to care for them or worship them.
The Chinese view of rulers or Kings is also striking. According to the
belief prevalent regarding government, Heaven and Earth were without
speech. These created man who should represent them. This man is none
other than the Emperor their vicegerent. He is constituted ruler over
all people. This accounts for three things; first, the superiority
which the Chinese emperors assume over the kings and rulers of other
countries; secondly, for the long-lived empire of China, it being
rebellion against Heaven to lift up one's self against the Emperor;
and in the third place it explains to us why divine honours are paid
to him. He is a sacred person. He is in a certain sense a god. The
view is similar to that entertained by the Roman Emperors, who, in
inscriptions and on coins employed the term Deus, and at times exacted
divine honours. As we turn from the Joss-House and walk away from this
bit of heathendom in the heart of an active, stirring, prosperous,
great American city with its Christian civilisation and its Christian
Churches and its Christian homes, we cannot but ask ourselves what
would have been the history of the Pacific States, of California with
its nearly eight hundred miles of coast, if the Chinese had settled
here centuries ago? If they had been navigators and colonizers like
the Phoenicians of old, like the Greeks and Romans, if they had had
a Columbus, a Balboa, a Cabrillo, a Drake, the whole history of the
country west of the Rocky Mountains might have been totally different.
Millions of Chinamen instead of thousands might now be in possession
of that great region of our land, and great cities like Canton and
Fuchau, Pekin and Tientsin, might rise up on the view instead of
San Diego and Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco, with their
idolatry and peculiar life and customs. Another question may be asked
here by way of speculation. What would have been the effect of Chinese
occupation of the Pacific coast on the Indians of all the region
west of the Rocky Mountains? Would the followers of Confucius have
incorporated them into their nationality, supplanted them, or caused
them to vanish out of sight? What problems these for the ethnologist!
Doubtless there would have been intermarriages of the races with new
generations of commingled blood. And what would have been the result
of this? There is a story which I have read somewhere, that long
years ago a Chinese junk was driven by the winds to the shores of
California, and that a Chinese merchant on board took an Indian maiden
to wife and bore her home to the Flowery Kingdom, and that from
this marriage was descended the famous statesman Li Hung Chang.
But whatever the fortunes of the Indians, or the Chinese in their
appropriation of the Pacific coast, it would not have been so
advantageous to civilisation, to the progress of humanity. It would
have been loss, and a hindrance to the Anglo-Saxon race destined now
to rule the world and to break down every barrier and to set up the
standard of the Cross everywhere for the glory of the true God. His
hand is apparent in it all. He directs the great movements of history
for the welfare of mankind, and He controls the destinies of nations
for the advancement of His Kingdom!
CHAPTER XI
THE GENERAL CONVENTION OF 1901
First Services--Drake's Chaplain--Flavel Scott Mines--Bishop Kip--Growth
of the Church in California--The General Convention in San Francisco--A
Western Sermon--Personnel of the Convention--Distinguished
Names--Subjects Debated--Missions of the Church--Apportionment Plan--The
Woman's Auxiliary--The United Offering--Missionary Meeting in Mechanics'
Pavilion--College Reunions--Zealous Men--A Dramatic Scene--Closing
Service--Object Lesson--A Revelation to California--Examples of the
Church's Training--Mrs. Twing--John I. Thompson--Golden Gate of
Paradise.
As we turn away from Chinatown, with its Oriental customs and its
peculiar life and its religion, we naturally give ourselves up to
reflection on the mission and character of the Christian Church.
While we recognise the good that is done by "all who profess and call
themselves Christians," and thank God for every good work done in the
name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, we may more especially consider
the development of the Episcopal Church, pure and Apostolic in its
origin, on the Pacific coast. We must ever keep in mind the services
held in this region as far back as the year 1579, by Chaplain Francis
Fletcher, under Admiral Drake, when the old Prayer Book of the
Church of England was used on the shores of the Golden Gate, a fact
commemorated, as we have already noted in a previous chapter, by
the Prayer Book Cross erected by the late George W. Childs, of
Philadelphia, in Golden Gate Park. This was prophetic of bright days
to come. Time would roll on and bring its marvellous changes, but
the truth of God would remain the same, and the Church would still
flourish and the liturgy of our forefathers would hold its place in
the affections of the people of all ranks, as at this day. Drake and
Fletcher could hardly have realised, however, that the good seed which
they then sowed, though it might remain hidden from view for many
generations, would in time spring-up and yield a glorious harvest.
We are not unmindful, of course, of the labours and teachings of the
Franciscans among the California Indians; but when this order of
things passed away and the Anglo-Saxon succeeded the Spaniard and the
Mexican, it was but natural that the old Church which had made Great
Britain what it was and is, aye, and moulded our civilisation on
this continent, should seek a foothold in the beautiful lands by the
Pacific and on the slopes of the Sierras. Many of the Church's sons
were among the thousands who sought California in quest of gold, and
these Argonauts she would follow whithersoever they went. They must
not be left alone to wrestle with the temptations which would beset
them far away from home and the hallowing influences of sacred
institutions and religious services. Hence it is that we behold that
zealous missionary of the Church, the Rev. Flavel Scott Mines, going
forth to seek out Christ's sheep in San Francisco and elsewhere, and
to gather them into the fold of the Good Shepherd. His history is most
interesting and instructive. He was the son of Rev. John Mines, D.D.,
a Presbyterian clergyman of Virginia, and was born in Leesburg, Va.,
on the 31st of December, 1811. In 1830 he was graduated from Princeton
Theological Seminary, and soon after he became pastor of the Laight
Street Presbyterian Church, New York city, where he served with
distinction until he resigned his charge in 1841. In 1842 he took
orders in the Church, of which to the day of his death he was a loyal
son. Reasons for becoming a churchman and the motives which impelled
him are set forth in a striking and graphic manner in his monumental
book, "A Presbyterian Clergyman Looking For the Church," a work of
marked ability and of great utility. It had a large sale in his day,
and it is still sought after as a book of permanent value. It is a
strong plea for Apostolic Order and Liturgical Worship, and it is safe
to say that it has been instrumental in leading many an inquirer into
the "old paths" and the Faith as "once delivered to the Saints." The
Rev. Mr. Mines, after his ordination, became assistant minister in St.
George's Church, New York city, under Rev. Dr. James Milnor. From here
he went to the Danish West Indies and became Rector of St. Paul's
Parish, Fredericksted, St. Croix, about forty miles square and
embracing almost half of the island. Owing to failing health he
returned, after many arduous labours, to the United States, and became
Rector of St. Luke's Church, Rossville, Staten Island. He went finally
to San Francisco, where he preached for the first time on July 8th,
1849, in the midst of the gold excitement, and on July 22nd of this
same year, became the founder of Trinity Parish, where his honoured
name is still held in grateful remembrance, not merely by some of the
twenty-two original members, who still live, but by their children and
grandchildren. The first Trinity Church was located on the northeast
corner of Post and Powell Streets. It was a modest building, which, in
1867, gave place to an edifice, Gothic in design, costing $85,000. A
few years ago the present Trinity Church was erected on the northeast
corner of Bush and Gough Streets, with ample grounds for parish
buildings. This sacred edifice is one of the finest and largest
churches on the Pacific coast, and is a combination of Spanish and
Byzantine styles of architecture. It was designed by A. Paige Brown,
who was the architect of the California building at the Columbian
Exposition, in Chicago, and also of the new Bethesda Church, Saratoga
Springs, N.Y. I have thus dwelt with particularity on the Rev. Flavel
Scott Mines's life and work, because Trinity Parish is the mother of
all the other Parishes in California, and because here in this new
edifice, where there is a tablet to his memory, and where he is
buried, the General Convention was held in 1901, a council of the
Church which will ever be memorable. It is well also to rescue from
oblivion the memory of a man who laid the foundations of the Church in
California on the enduring principles of the ancient creeds. May we
not learn also from the facts of his life, which show how faithful and
accomplished he was, that the men who are to be heralds of the Cross
in new fields are to be the ablest and the best equipped that the
Church can furnish? Other early missionaries of the Church who may be
named here are the Rev. Dr. Ver Mehr, who arrived in San Francisco
in September, 1849, and in 1850 founded Grace Parish; and Rev. John
Morgan, who organised Christ Church Parish in 1853; and Rev. Dr.
Christopher B. Wyatt, who succeeded Mines in Trinity Church. There is
another also whose name is interwoven in the history of the Church's
mission in California. It is that of Right Rev. William Ingraham Kip,
D.D., LL.D., who was consecrated first Bishop of California, October
28, 1853. Few, if any, of his day, were better fitted in scholarship,
zeal, and other gifts and qualifications for his work than he, who is
the famous author of "The Double Witness of the Church," a book which
has largely moulded the faith and practice of the churchmen of this
generation. Bishop Kip's immortal work and Mines's incomparable volume
deserve to be ranked together, and though they differ widely in their
manner of presenting the Old Faith, yet are they one in purpose. Is it
not a little singular, or is it not rather a happy coincidence, that
the two foremost pioneers of the Church's work in California should
thus be the authors of works which are fit to take rank with the
Apologiai of the early Christian writers or the "Apologia pro Ecclesia
Anglicana" of Bishop Jewell?
Mines went to his rest in 1852, just in the prime of life, while Kip
was spared to the Church until 1893, witnessing its great increase and
reaping the abundant harvest from that early sowing. The growth is
seen to-day in the three dioceses in the State. California, the parent
diocese, with San Francisco as its chief city, Right Rev. William
Ford Nichols, D.D., Bishop, has its eighty-one clergymen, with its
eighty-six parishes and missions, and 8,585 communicants. Los Angeles,
Right Rev. Joseph Horsfall Johnson, D.D., Bishop, has its forty-nine
clergy, with its fifty-six parishes and missions, and 4,577
communicants; while Sacramento, Right Rev. William Hall Moreland,
D.D., Bishop, has thirty-four clergymen with seventy parishes and
missions, and a list of 2,556 communicants. All this, however, is not
the full evidence of the strength of the Church on the Pacific coast.
There are the church schools and hospitals and other agencies for
good, and there are the blessed influences which the Church, with
her stability and order and work, is exerting among the people. The
results arising from the presence of the members of the General
Convention will be gratifying. Everywhere throughout the State of
California this august body was hailed with a glad welcome, and San
Francisco and her suburban towns did everything possible to make
churchmen feel at home. The attendance at services was large, and a
deep and an abiding interest was enkindled. It was said by the press
and by leading citizens, that while many bodies had met in San
Francisco from all parts of the land, none had ever surpassed in
standard that of the Convention or even equalled it in dignity,
scholarship, eloquence and other noted characteristics. The newspapers
of the city, such as the _Daily Call_ and the _Chronicle_, gave
up large space to the services, debates and other features of the
Convention, and they were always complimentary in their comments on
individuals as well as on receptions and sermons and addresses. The
keynote of the Convention was struck by the Right Rev. Benjamin Wistar
Morris, D.D., Bishop of Oregon, in his sermon based on St. Luke,
chapter v, verse 4:--"Now when He had left speaking, He said unto
Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a
draught." The discourse was in every sense what the venerable prelate
had said it would be, a "Western" one, and it was a powerful plea
setting forth the urgent necessity of extending and supporting the
Church in her missionary efforts in the Pacific coast States.
The attendance of members in the House of Deputies was unusually
large, and while some familiar faces were missed, like Dean Hoffman,
of the General Theological Seminary; Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix, of Trinity
Parish, New York; Rev. Dr. Edward A. Renouf, of Keene, N.H.; Rev.
Dr. W.W. Battershall, of Albany, N.Y.; Mr. Spencer Trask, of Yaddo,
Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; Mr. Louis Hasbrouck, of Ogdensburgh, N.Y.; Mr.
G.P. Keese, of Cooperstown, N.Y.; and Judge Robert Earl, of Herkimer,
N.Y., yet the personnel of the Convention was up to the usual
standard. The new deputies, clerical and lay, felt at home at once,
and some of them made good reputations for themselves in debate and in
committee-work. It would seem invidious, perhaps, to single out any
one deputy more than another, when all excelled, yet the names of some
of the representative clergymen and laymen of the Church may justly be
mentioned, as for example, Rev. Dr. John S. Lindsay, of Boston, Mass.,
the distinguished and well-balanced President of the House; Rev. Dr.
Arthur Lawrence, of Stockbridge, Mass.; Rev. Dr. Reese F. Alsop, of
Brooklyn, N.Y.; Rev. Dr. J. Houston Eccleston, of Baltimore, Md.; Rev.
Dr. Samuel D. McConnell, of Brooklyn, N.Y.; Rev. Dr. J.S. Hodges, of
Baltimore, Md.; Rev. Dr. George Hodges, of Cambridge, Mass.; Rev. Dr.
Cameron Mann, of Kansas City, Mo.; Rev. Dr. James W. Ashton, of Olean,
N.Y.; Rev. Dr. Robert J. Nevin, of Rome, Italy; Rev. Dr. John Fulton,
of _The Church Standard_, Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev. Dr. William B,
Bodine, of Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev. Dr. Charles S. Olmstead, of Bala,
Pa.; Rev. Dr. George McClellan Fiske, of Providence, R.I.; Rev. Dr.
Edgar A. Enos, of Troy, N.Y.; Rev. Dr. J. Lewis Parks and Rev. Dr.
William M. Grosvenor of New York; Rev. Dr. R.M. Kirby, of Potsdam,
N.Y.; Rev. Dr. John H. Egar, of Rome, N.Y.; Rev. Dr. George D.
Silliman, of Stockport, N.Y.; Rev. Dr. John Brainard, of Auburn, N.Y.;
Rev. Dr. H. Martyn Hart, of Denver, Col.; Rev. Dr. Edwin S. Lines, of
New Haven, Conn; Rev. Dr. Daniel C. Roberts, of Concord, N.H.; Rev.
Dr. Alfred B. Baker, of Princeton, N.J.; Rev. George S. Bennitt, of
Jersey City, N.J.; Rev. Dr. J. Isham Bliss, of Burlington, Vt.; Rev.
John Henry Hopkins, of Chicago, Ill.; Rev. Dr. Campbell Fair, of
Omaha, Neb.; Rev. John Williams, of Omaha, Neb.; Rev. Dr. Frederick W.
Clampett, of San Francisco, Cal; Rev. R.G. Foute, of San Francisco,
Cal.; Rev. Dr. Angus Crawford, of Alexandria Seminary, Va.; Rev.
Dr. Randolph H. McKim, of Washington, D.C.; Rev. Dr. Frederick
P. Davenport, of Memphis, Tenn.; Rev. Dr. Alex. Mackay-Smith, of
Washington, D.C.; Rev. Henry B. Restarick, of San Diego, Cal.; Rev.
B.W.R. Tayler, of Los Angeles, Cal.; Rev. Dr. David H. Greer, of New
York; Rev. Dr. William R. Huntington, of New York; Rev. Dr. Beverly D.
Tucker, of Norfolk, Va.; Rev. Dr. Carl E. Grammer, of Norfolk, Va.;
Rev. Dr. William T. Manning, of Nashville, Tenn.; Rev. Frederick A. De
Rosset, of Cairo, Ill.; Rev. Richard P. Williams, of Washington, D.C.;
Rev. Dr. Henry W. Nelson, of Geneva, N.Y.; Rev. Dr. John Kershaw, of
Charleston, S.C.; Rev. Dr. Herman C. Duncan, of Alexandria, La.; Rev.
Dr. John K. Mason, of Louisville, Ky.; Rev. Dr. Walter R. Gardner, of
Algoma, Wis.; Rev. Dr. George C. Hall, of Wilmington, Del; Rev. J.L.
McKim, of Milford, Del.; Rev. Dr. Henry L. Jones, of Wilkesbarre, Pa.;
Rev. Dr. George C. Foley, of Williamsport, Pa.; Rev. Dr. Storrs
O. Seymour, of Litchfield, Conn.; Rev. Dr. Charles E. Craik, of
Louisville, Ky.; Rev. C.S. Leffingwell, of Bar Harbour, Me.; Rev.
Dr. Rufus W. Clark, of Detroit, Mich.; Rev. Dr. Lucius Waterman, of
Claremont, N.H.; Rev. Dr. Henry H. Oberly, of Elizabeth, N.J.; Rev.
Julian E. Ingle, of Henderson, N.C.; Rev. Dr. Charles L. Hutchins, of
Concord, Mass., the efficient Secretary, always patient and courteous;
Rev. Dr. Henry Anstice, of Philadelphia, Pa.; Rev. Edward W.
Worthington, of Cleveland, Ohio, and Rev. William C. Prout, of
Herkimer, N.Y., Assistant Secretaries; Mr. George M. Darrow, of
Murfreesboro, Tenn.; Dr. William Seward Webb, of Shelburne, Vt.; Mr.
Henry E. Pellew, of Washington, D.C.; Mr. Linden H. Morehouse,
of Milwaukee, Wis., of _The Young Churchman_ Co.; Judge James M.
Woolworth, of Omaha, Neb.; Mr. Burton Mansfield, of New Haven, Conn.;
Hon. Cortlandt Parker, of Newark, N.J.; Judge Charles Andrews, of
Syracuse, N.Y.; Mr. John I. Thompson, of Troy, N.Y.; Mr. Leslie
Pell-Clarke, of Springfield Centre, N.Y.; Hon. George R. Fairbanks, of
Fernandina, Fla.; Judge L. Bradford Prince, of Santa Fe, N.M.; Hon.
Francis A. Lewis, of Philadelphia, Pa.; Hon. Francis L. Stetson, of
New York; Mr. George C. Thomas, of Philadelphia, Pa., Treasurer of the
Board of Missions; Hon. W. Bayard Cutting, of New York; Judge John H.
Stiness, of Providence, R.I.; Hon. Joseph Packard, of Baltimore, Md.;
Hon. Charles G. Saunders, of Lawrence, Mass.; Hon. Arthur J.C. Sowdon,
and Hon. Robert Treat Paine, of Boston, Mass; Mr. William B. Hooper,
of San Francisco; Mr. Henry P. Baldwin, of Detroit, Mich.; Mr. Francis
J. McMaster, of St. Louis, Mo.; Mr. William H. Lightner, of St. Paul,
Minn.; Mr. Richard H. Battle, of Raleigh, N.C.; Hon. G.S. Gadsden,
of Charleston, S.C.; Mr. George Truesdell, of Washington, D.C.; Mr.
George M. Marshall, of Salt Lake City, Utah; and Mr. Joseph Wilmer,
of Alexandria Seminary, Va. There is one other name which must not
be omitted, that of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, of New York city, who,
notwithstanding his vast business interests, was in his seat from the
opening of the Convention until the closing session, watching all the
debates and deliberations with the deepest interest, and serving on
various important committees. Many of the members of the Convention,
too, were deeply indebted to him for a gracious hospitality dispensed
by him in his magnificent temporary home on California Avenue.
To name the Bishops who in one way and another made their presence
felt in their own House, in the Board of Missions and elsewhere, at
meetings and in services, it would be necessary to speak of all who
were in attendance on the Convention. Those who were specially active,
however, were Bishop William Croswell Doane, of Albany; Bishop Henry
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