y articles of Chinese workmanship, of a
cheap grade, all sorts of inexpensive ornaments for women and children's
wear, curiously fashioned from ivory, bone, beads, glass and brass,
water and opium pipes galore.

The opium pipe is something so unlike any European conception of a pipe
that it is difficult to describe it. It consists of a large bamboo tube
or cylinder, with a bowl about midway between the extremities. The bowl
is sometimes a very small brass plate, and sometimes an earthen
cup-shaped contrivance, with the top closed or decked over, having only
a tiny hole in the center. Into this little aperture the opium, in a
semi-liquid state, after being well melted in a lamp flame, is thrust by
means of a fine wire or needle. The drug is inserted in infinitesimal
quantities. It is said that all the Chinese smoke opium, although all do
not indulge to excess. Some seem to be able to use the drug without its
gaining the mastery over them.

There are more than a hundred opium dens in the Chinese quarters. These
places are used for no other purpose whatever at any time. If it were
the Chinese alone who frequented them, but little would be thought of
it. Hundreds of white people, men, women and the youth of both sexes,
have, however, become victims to this loathsome habit. So completely
enslaved are they, that there is no escape from the tyrant. For all the
poverty and untold misery this has brought upon these unfortunates, the
Chinese are responsible. Vices cluster around Chinese social life, and
nearly every house has its opium-smoking apartment, or rooms where the
lottery or some kind of gambling is carried on.

The residents of Chinatown have a government of their own, with its
social and economic regulations, and its police and penal department,
and they even inflict the death penalty, but in such a secret way that
the outside world seldom hears of these acts of high authority. This
social and commercial policy is controlled by six companies, to one of
which every Chinaman in the country owes allegiance and is tributary.
These companies severally represent different provinces in the Chinese
Empire, and upon every arrival of a steamer from that country, and
before the passengers are landed, the Chinese portion of them are
visited by an official of the six companies, who ascertains what
province each arriving coolie is from. That decides as to which company
he will belong.

Every Chinaman who comes is assured of his