The Chinaman appears thoroughly at home here, and revels in his native
dress,--pigtail, odd shoes, and silk attire,--even though he may adopt
the American style while working as a stevedore on the wharves, or while
engaged in various avocations about the other parts of the city. Here
without the least attempt at disguise all the many vices of the race are
freely indulged in, especially as regards sensuality, opium-smoking, and
gambling. A Chinaman rarely touches spirituous liquors, so that there is
no drunkenness to be seen in the district, but only that insensibility
which is the effect of indulgence in opium. The thirty thousand Asiatics
who live in Chinatown are packed together at night like dried herring in
a box. Twenty of them often sleep in the same small room, lying upon the
floor, without even an apology for a bed. Here they cook and eat
mysterious dishes after the custom of their race, amid smells and filth
which no American or European stomach could endure.

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
dolla