New York conducts
itself when its members mean to steal a watch or two.

These rowdies were "Hoodlums;" and it is the Hoodlums chiefly who clamor
about the Chinese, and who are "ruined by Chinese cheap labor." The
anti-Chinese agitation in San Francisco has led me to look a little
closely into this matter, and I declare my belief that there are not a
hundred decent men who work for a living in that city engaged in this
crusade against the Chinese. If you could to-day assemble there all who
join in this persecution, and if then you took from this assemblage all
the Hoodlums, all the bar-room loafers, and all the political demagogues,
I don't believe you would have a hundred men left on the ground. That is
to say, the people who actually earn the bread they eat do not persecute
the Chinese.

If an Eastern reader suggests that it argues a lack of public spirit
in the decent part of the community to allow the roughs to rule in this
matter, I take leave to remind him of the time, not very long ago, when
the same combination of Hoodlum and demagogue mobbed negroes in New York,
and threatened vengeance if colored people were allowed to ride in the
street-cars. Here, as there then, there are unfortunately newspapers
which ignorantly pander to this vile class, and help to swell the cry of
persecution. And here, as in New York a few years ago, it results that
the proscribed race is hardly dealt with, not only by the roughs, but
sometimes in the courts, and gets scant and hard justice dealt out to it.
The courageous and upright action of Mayor Alvord in vetoing the inhuman
and silly acts of the city supervisors, which, by-the-way, has made him
one of the most popular men in California, for the moment shamed the
demagogues and silenced the rowdies; but there are means of annoying the
Chinese within the law, which are still used. For instance, there is an
ordinance declaring a fine for overcrowding tenement-houses, and requiring
that in every room there shall be five hundred cubic feet of air for each
occupant, and for violating this a fine of ten dollars is imposed. This
ordinance is enforced only against the Chinese--so I am assured on the
best authority, and they only are fined. But justice would seem to demand
not only that the law should be enforced against all alike, but that the
owner of the property should be made liable for its misuse as well as the
unfortunate and ignorant occupants.

The Chinese quarter in San Francisco