While on the subject of the Chinaman I may note that of course we
did not get through California without hearing the Chinese problem
warmly discussed. It is the burning question just now upon the
Pacific coast, but it seems to me our Californians' fears are, as
Colonel Diehl would put it, "slightly previous." There are only
about 130,000 Chinese in America, and great numbers are returning
as the result of hard times, and I fear harder treatment. There is
no indication that we are to be overrun by them, and until they
change their religious ideas and come to California to marry,
settle, die, and be buried there, it is preposterous to believe
there is any thing in the agitation against them beyond the usual
prejudice of the ignorant races next to them in the social scale.
I met the owner of a quicksilver mine, whose remarks shed a flood
of light upon the matter. The mine yields a lean ore, and did not
pay when worked by white labor costing $2 to $2.50 per day. He
contracted with a Chinaman to furnish 170 men at one-half these
rates. They work well, doing as much per man as the white man can
do in this climate. He has no trouble with them--no fights, no
sprees, no strikes. The difference in the cost enables him to work
at a profit a mine which otherwise would be idle; and to such as
talk against Chinese labor in the neighborhood, he replies, "Very
well, drive it off if you please, but the mine stops if you do.
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