opium-dens, lottery
cellars, "fantan" cafes, low hovels, and other kindred establishments.
Here one requires a guide to make his way understandingly and safely.
The unintelligible notices posted upon the buildings in Chinese
characters are a curious puzzle to the uninitiated. The signs over the
shops are especially peculiar; they do not denote the name of the owner,
or particularize the business which is done within, but are assumed
titles of flowery character. Thus,--Kong, Meng & Co. means "Bright Light
Firm;" Sun Kum Lee & Co. is in English "New Golden Firm;" Kwong Hop
signifies "New Agreement Company;" Hi Cheong, "Peace and Prosperity
Firm;" Kwong Tu Tye, "Flourishing and Peaceful Company,"--and so on.
John is an inveterate smuggler, and manages to get a large amount of his
precious opium landed without paying any portion of the high rate of
duty imposed by the Government. The Chinese are very impulsive, and will
follow one another sometimes, like a flock of sheep after a leader. Not
long since there burst out in their Melbourne quarter an epidemic of
suicide, and many of them resorted to it. The mode they adopted was that
of strangulation, which they effectually accomplished by knotting their
pigtails about their throats.

There is a Chinese Doctor of Medicine in this Asiatic section of
Melbourne who was educated in Pekin, and who is said to have been once
attached to the family of the Emperor of China, but for some
irregularity was banished from that country. We were told that he had
performed some remarkable cures among the better class of citizens, in
cases which had been given up by European physicians. It was said that
he might command a large professional practice if he would remove from
the locality where his countrymen lived and which is held in such bad
odor.

John is nowhere a favorite, as we have already clearly demonstrated,
however advantageous may be his frugal and industrious habits in the
formation of new States. That he possesses at least this recommendation
has been fully proved in the instances of California and Australia. In
the official report of the completion of the first Atlantic and Pacific
railroad, the following paragraph appears: "Labor was difficult to get,
and when obtained, more difficult to control, until the Chinese arrived;
and to them is due the real credit of the construction of the road."
This paragraph of course refers to the Pacific end of the route. It is
as a rule the wors