A couple of hours sufficed to give us all the personal experience of this locality we had the least wish to acquire, though our official guide of the police force proposed to introduce us to other peculiar sights and into deeper cellars,--places usually hidden from the curious eyes of the general public. The vile practices, indecent and gross exhibitions, which are indulged in by these Mongolians, no respectable paper would publish in detail. In short, Chinatown is the repository of vice of the most brutal and disgusting character, affording the fullest entertainment for the low tastes of the most depraved. Finding that this pandering to the curiosity of a certain class of whites brings them in money, the Chinamen give them all the grossness they are willing to pay for.
The reader, however, must not entertain a wrong idea with regard to Chinatown, since in the midst of all this squalor, dirt, immorality, and wickedness, there are some of this race living here who keep themselves untainted by the objectionable associations that surround them. They are the exceptions, to be sure. We were told of several Chinese gentlemen, for instance, who have amassed large fortunes by legitimate trade, within the last ten or fifteen years,--men who, as reliable and honorable merchants, stand high among the commercial people of San Francisco. Three names were given us by a gentleman who was well informed in the matter, of Asiatics who were each worth over a million dollars. To these were added the names of two who are worth over two millions. These men will not return to China, because the property tax is so high there. Like many of our own citizens, these Chinese find their great satisfaction in accumulating wealth, and so go on adding daily to their possessions. We have said that there are thirty thousand Chinese in this district, but we were officially informed that forty thousand would be much nearer the true aggregate.
The impression prevails that the open immigration of this race has ceased at San Francisco, but the arrival of several hundreds by steamer the day before we visited their miserable quarter of the town, was duly announced in the papers. These came by the way of Japan. A sickening odor adheres to one's clothing for hours after returning from the Asiatic section of San Francisco,--a flavor of musk, opium, stale tobacco, and sandal-wood, the latter being freely burned as an incense before the Chinese gods; for amid all his filth and vileness, John does not forget scrupulously to fulfil the conventional requirements of his idolatrous faith.