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VOL XX.
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and lnniiitely more evil in Its practices
than the serfdom of the blacks, for 'which,
a little time ago, the Nation rent itself In
a tremendous war. It Is very true that
the slaves are few, and that local au
thority ought to suffice to set them free,
but It is also true that the chattels of
Chinatown are held In a bondage more
Infamous than anything that elsewhere
exists, or ever did elsewhere exist in
North America, and that local authority
Is powerless, paralyzed. The confession
Is shameful, but it Is the truth.
To begin with, the slaves are women
and their slavery is a slavery of shame
euch as the Caucasion scale of degrada
tion does not include. Tour slant-eyed
Oriental worships his ancestors, and Is
fond of his sons, but upon his daughters,
if they be too many, he lavishes none
of the tender regard with which the
"Western man of family cherishes the
women of his household.- The girl child
of the boats of crowded Canton, or of
any of the famine-menaced river prov
inces, is to her father something less
than his pig and more than his ducks
unless, perchance, a trader in girl flesh
traffics his way.
Grim Realism.
The familiar tale of the Chinese girl
child cast out to die "exposed" is the
best translation we have for the Oriental
phrase is grim realism. Considering it
from the experience of the almond-eyed
bondswomen of San Francisco's China
town, it were better to be "exposed"
than to be sold Into lifelong servitude
across the Pacific
The slave blight fell upon San Fran
cisco in 18G9. when a sailing ship brought
in through the Golden Gate 250 women,
in blouses and baggy trousers. Xiocal
authority took cognizance of them with
a singular shortness of vision. After due
consideration, the first installment of
chattels was permitted to land. The pro
cession of slave women marched up from
the docks under a strong police guard,
past historic Portsmouth Square and past
the old-time City Hall, to a temple in
St. Louis alley, and there, with a uni
formed Captain of Police in charge, they
were publicly auctioned off by the Chi
nese to whom they had been consigned.
At the next session of Congress, in 1S71,
the General Government first took notice
of Chinese slavery on the Pacific Coast,
when Horace Page, member of Congress
from the Third District of California,
introduced a law. still on the statute
books, making it a felony to import wom
en into the "United States for immoral
purposes, and fixing the maximum penalty
at 10 years' imprisonment and a fine of
$10,000.
There were a few convictions under the
Page law, although, curiously enough, the
first prosecution "was at New Tork, in
the case of a woman dubiously brought
from Paris. A Chinese who had en
gaged in the shameful business in San
Francisco was sentenced to the limit of
the law, and a woman detected in the
same nefarious trance, was sent to the
California State Prison for half the term
and given half the money penalty. Since
then the Page law has been a dead letter.
Now, after 30 years, in which preachers
have thundered from their pulpits; in I
wnicn a mtie group or home mission-
ASTORIA. Or., May .24.
John Brown's body lies a'tsouldering la the
grave,
John Brown's body lies a'mouldcrlng la the
grave,
John Brawn's body lies a'moulderlng la the
Krave,
As wo so marching on.
There was the spirit of the martyrs of
old in the noted Kansas Abolitionist,
John Brown, when he planned the memor
able raid on the arsenal at Harper's Fer
ry, Va., that set the country aflame with
excitement, aided in bringing on the
bloody war between the states and re
sulted ia his trial for treason and subse
quent execution.
There was that same martyr-like spirit
in pretty, blue-eyed Nellie Brown, grand
daughter of the famous border fighter,
when she sacrificed the splendid musical
education upon which she had set her
arles most of them women have labored
unceasingly, if unlawfully, in which the
city police have put forth spasmodic ef
forts, as public opinion pressed them too
hard, and In which legislature after Leg
islature has amended the state codes for
the emancipation of the women slaves of
Chinatown now comes the Federal Gov
ernment, knocking at the Iron-barred
wickets of Cum Cook alley and St. Louis
alley, of Spofford alley and of a dozen
other places In the wicked heart of China
town, and saying to the little slave wom
en, painted, bangled and marvelous as
to hair, that they are to be- free.
It is not quite-clear. to the average
San Franciscan, who has forgotten, since
the riots of 1S77, the' savage and bloody
scenes of the Kearney uprising, just why
"Washington has concerned itself in the
matter at this late day. A vigorous pro
test and a fat petition In 1S97, sufficed,
it Is true, to so strengthen the barrier
of Chinese exclusion that the Importation
of Chinese women has since been difficult
and expensive, but protest and petition
failed to do anything toward the libera
tion of the women already living here
In bondage.
But, doubt It as the average San Fran
ciscan may, the huge Federal machine
is moving, and there is now a fair pros
pect of an end to the slavery that has
so long disgraced San Francisco. And
when the Federal machine moves, -the
remote "West understands that something
important is happening. State courts may
palter, grand juries may demonstrate their
uselessness, police departments may blun
der and be opportunely blind, but when
the Government of the United States turns
its attention seriously to a matter, the
farthest state of the far West realizes Its
relation to the Kepubllc. It needs a
little valuable contact with the free-and-easy
life of a territory, or of a far-away
state, to appreciate the difference be
tween .respect for local institutions and
wholesome awe of the General Govern
ment. In the roundabout way that justice
sometimes travels, a man up in Michigan
was a potent factor in this affair Fred
McKenzle, of Calumet, in that state. A
newspaper dispatch about the slavery evil
in San Francisco attracted the notice of
Mr. McKenzle, and he was moved to
write a letter about it to the Department
of Justice at "Washington. Then the Fed
eral wheels began to turn. Attorney
General Griggs sent Mr. McKenzIe's let
ter to Frank S. Coombs, United States
Attorney for the Northern District of
California, with a request for information.
This letter evoked a prompt reply, read-
ing, In part, as follows:
"I understand the facts tn h m.
heart, for the odd bonnet and simple garb
of the Salvation Armle lassie.
Tet there Is no regret In her heart,
nothing but intense enthusiasm for the
work which she has taken upon herself.
Today she is Lieutenant Brown, and the
year that she has spent in the army has
but confirmed the belief that she has
found the field for her life labors. The
applause of cultured audiences, the praise
of masters, the vanities upon which suc
cessful artistes live, mean less to her
than doas the rousing, hearty approval of
men who know nothing of sonatas and
obligatos, but applaud because the tender,
sweet melodies that come from her violin
reach their simple hearts and touch upon
memories long ago effaced in nights of
carousal and dissipation in the under
world of poverty and crime.
Lieutenant Brown, despite the martial
sound, Is but a winsome Iblip of a girl yet.
POBTLAND,
lows: During the month of January two
buildings were sold at auction in San
Francisco; that they were at the time
houses of ill fame, and that the five
Chinese girls referred to were inmates
of the houses. I understand that these
girls were included as chattels, passing
with the houses. According to Oriental
custom, mysterious, inscrutable, without
the pale of the lav, these things are
done. The authorities do their best; yet,
inseparable from their institutions, these
degrading Influences are brought here with
the Chinese. There Is no doubt of the
trade and traffic In immoral slavery. They
are not sold In the market place under
the sanction which encouraged the trade
as of old, yet behind lies, deceits and
degrading practices, Chinese slavery seems
to be carried on."
Thus wrote the United States Attorney
for the Northern District of California to
the Attorney-General of the United States.
Another turn of the wheels ground out
not a letter, but a telegram from Wash
ington, under date of February 27, 1901:
Peremptory Instructions.
"United States Attorney, San Francis
co: Referring to yours of the 18th, mat
ter rests with state' authorities, 'but being
peculiarly important, you are directed to
inform and move "state officers and, in
conjunction with" Chinese Inspector Gard
ner, to render every possible assistance.
in punishing these degrading offenses and
preventing repetitions.
"GRIGGS. Attorney-General."
On the heels of this portentous dispatch
came, early in March, to the collector of
the port, the officer of the Government
who says In the first Instance, which of
the Immigrants shall and which shall not
land on these free shores, a copy of a
letter from Secretary of the Treasury
Gage to Attorney-General Griggs, saying
m part:
"It appears that the only possible means
of putting a stop to such practices is the
issuance of instructions by you, through
the United States Attorney, to the Mar
shal of said district, and his deputies, to
arrest all such Chinese girls as may be
the subjects of the above mentioned dis
graceful traffic, upon the ground that they
are here in violation of law, in order that
their right to be in the United States may
be passed upon by the courts."
The directions suggested by the Secre
tary of the Treasury have been received
by the United States Attorney from the
Department of Justice, and the wheels of
the Federal machine continued to revolve
tlowly, as is the way with great con
cerns, but surely and irresistibly.
The transaction at the back of all this,
liberally related in the local newspapers
and filtered through the press assocla-
with sincere, honest blue eyes, a mass
of fluffy brown hair and a pitying heart
that bleeds for the sufferings of the poverty-stricken
unsaved.,. Night after night,
for the past three or four months, she
has played her violin in the barracks of
the Salvation Army in Astoria. The au
diences are made up of a motley collec
tion of the flotsam and Jetsam of a sea
port town. Rough, sturdy sailors from
far-away Norway mingle with the swar
thy, quick-tempered fishermen from the
land of the vendetta. Habitues of the
gambling dens and concert halls, unem
ployed laborers. Itinerant tramps and here
and there a poor unfortunate of the half
world make up the crowds. Perhaps, un
der the tousled head of an unshaven, un
kempt, unrepentant auditor there remains
the vestige of a once brilliant mind that
can dimly comprehend that although the
music is simple, the skill Is artistic, but
OKEGON, SUNDAY MOBNING, MAY' 26, 1901.
tions and the telegraph .until some account v j iR i'Aai.im'mi $AZ,gWMmr?
of it fell under the eyes of Mr. McKenzle, jflBBBSjsSWMS
of Calumel, Mich. was not an extraordl- nPV'BWfet B9iiijR'K'' J
nary one for Chinatown. The pity of it is MjiSA' Ul' Yt PBPHHjpJBPf'ili
that somebody had not. seized upon a j ,J2MKBBJS'3 1""
psychological moment years before .and ' t 4t$yiiHMl($BBMtiS
st'.rrtd "Washington into acUon'with any BBilH"dllJ
one of a score of cases equally thrilling. KKf2bmmMiiMMKtfKKmiiImlK&
Cnuse of It All.
The transaction was the open auction
In January, 1901, of five Chinese girls, at
Ross alley, within sound and almost with
in sight of San Francisco's Hall of Jus
tice, newly opened for the use of the crim
inal courts of the fclty, and of police head
quarters. Gon Gow, a typical kwai kung, or
brothel-keeper, notified his creditors and
friends that in order to clear himself of
debt before the closing of the New Tear
festivities, during which good and bad
Chinese square accounts with their fel
lows, he would sell his house, furniture
and slaves. The sale was held on Janu
ary 20, and the hapless chattels of Gon
Gow went under the hammer at from $1700
to 52500 each. The day before Lung Gow,
a neighbor' of Gon Gow, four doors away
in Ross alley, had sold four- girls at about
the same figures.
Two days after Gon Gow's auction, Le
ong Tie, aged 12, was sold by a couple
who claimed to be her parents, to a mer
chant from the interior. Leong Tie's
price was $2300. and the deal was consid
ered a bargain from the purchaser's
standpoint, but between the sale and the
actual transfer, the. Presbyterian mission
people made a daring dash Into the pagan
fastnesses and bore away the slave clilld
to tlielr rescue home on the edge of Chi
natown. These were not pleasant things to hap
pen in a civilized and- liberty-loving com
munity, but a great many more things of
the same order had happened In the same
place before. In truth, they had hap
pened so often that people who knew all
about them had ceased to regard them,
with attention. That petulant pistols
should pop in Chinatown was accounted
a matter of course, like the grippe or the
dust-laden winds of Summer. The high
binder, with his hatchet, his revolver, his
bloody onfall and his triumphant perju
ry, when it came to explaining his mur
ders, was -.an unescapable evil, and so
were the day-by-day .accounts in the press
of rescue by fearless women, from this or
that mission, of slave girls held captive
In the depths of Darkest Chinatown.
Only of Passing: Interest,
A young woman artist, walking through
the quarter of the Orientals, saw a shab
by shrimp fisher fall dead before her and
turned In time to see the murderer, who
had fired from behind her, throw away J
such appreciative ones are -.rare. A
scant year ago Miss Nellie Brown
was the violinist In" the orchestra that
furnished the music for the fashionable
Presbyterian Church of Salem. She had
studied the violin for six years under the
direction of the best musicians in Port
land, and friends and family thought her
heart and mind dominated by her passion
for music. Arrangements had been made
for a season of Instruction In New Tork,
and later in Europe, and a brilliant mu
sical future was predicted for the tal
ented girl.
Then one day the plans were all turned
topsy-turvy, when, amid the expostula
tions of family and protests of friends,
Nellie Brown gave up everything for the
Salvation Army. A meeting -held In the
church under the auspices of .visiting offi
cers of that organization, resulted In her
conversion; her purpose was fixed, and her
' I -
his smoking revolver, but her account of
the tragedy was of only passing Interest
in her studio. Thirty years of well
planned highbinder killings and of thrill
ing rescues of slave girls by the devoted
women of the missions had wearied the
nearby spectators. It remained for a man
in Michigan to be shocked and to shock
the Government.
Normally, there are In San Francisco's
Chinatown at this time something- like
30,000 souls. Of these perhaps 2500 are
grown women, and of these, again, some
500 are creatures of the salve dens. Possi
bly 500 more are the mooey chai, whom
the tourist may see now and then, bearing
the fat, jolly babies of Chinatown along
the streets, or scuffling away from the
butcher shop or the vegetable store, with
tiny bundles swinging at string ends from
their finger's.
The mooey chai are slaves, but not the
slaves for whose behoof the power of the
general Government has been envoked.
They are the hand-maidens the family
servants of Chinatown, sold Into their
bondage through the Hong Kong slave
marts, at anywhere from 6 to 10 years of
age, for, say, $300 Mexican cash, which
means $150 in American gold, and shipped
to San Francisco to be household drudges
for their purchasers. More often than
not the mooey chai are sold ultimately
Into respectable 'marriage. After that
their future depends upon their husbands.
As for the real slave girls, the chattels
such as Gon Gow sold at auction, they
must be sought in the deeper mazes of
the Chinatown labyrinth, where burning
punk sticks flood the air with their sickly
sweet clouds, where the high-pitched
three-string fiddles wall to the clashing
of cymbals and the shrilling of unmelo
dious flutes. The sightseer may have a
glimpse of them, but only of the baser
sort. The Oriental brooks no Caucasian
' determination could not be swerved.
During the year that has since elapsed
she has traveled up and down the Coast,
with special emissaries of the army, doing
missionary . work and establishing new
posts. Officers who outranked her found
that the magical violin would compel at
tention when "words were of no avail.
I found Lieutenant Brown in the living
rooms in the rear of the barracks on Com
mercial street. The front part of the
building Is given over to the large hall
where the nightly meetings are held.
Scriptural mottoes and biblical pictures
adcrn the walls, and rough benches fill
the rejom. Down a narrow flight of stairs
in the rear are several rooms partitioned
off where the workers live. On the day I
called the little violinist was engaged in
the prosaic task of washing clothes with
the prosaic task of washing clothes.
"How did I happen to join the army?"
rivalry. Of the 60 and odd dens where the
aproximate 500 girl slaves are held cap
tive, the greater part are under the pro
tection of Kwai Kung Tong, or asso
ciation of slave-owners, with its fund for
the corruption of courts and police and
the hiring of shrewd lawyers, and with
its retinue of hatchetmen to protect its
members from the exactions and incur
sions of still other Tongs, which subsist
by blackmail and armed foray.
Some of these slave women come from
the river folk the boat-dwellers of China.
These were not sold, but born Into shame
ful lives. Others are the superfluous girl
babies of honest but poverty-smitten par
ents, saved from "exposure" to be sold at
from next to nothing to $600 Mexican, acr
cording to the distance of their homes
from Hong Kong and to their promise of
beauty. Still others were betrayed or
bodily kidnaped and, later, sold on the
other side.
All of them the mooey chai, the slave
born and the slave by force are ignorant
beyond belief. Their minds are filled with
the nameless horrors, supposed by them
to be practiced upon Chinese people by
the "foreign devils" among whom they
dwell. To their Ignorance add their bone
bred superstition, their utter lack of mor
als or civilized standards, and their dread
of foreigners, and you may well imagine
that the task of the religious women who
pluck one of them, now and then a brand
from the burning, has only begun when
the rescue is accomplished. The best
the1 missions can do for their protegees,
after" they have been drilled with infinite
patience into something like an under
standing of "foreign devil" ways, is to
marry them, "church fashion," as the
astute heathen puts it, to a countryman
of the better sort; but even this does not
always suffice.
It was one of the sorrowful admissions
lowed a long season of work In China with
she said, in response to a question. "It
was all In a sentence said at the army
meeting, held In the Presbyterian Church,
in Salem, a year ago. I don't believe I
could recall the words, but the purport
was that while the churches accomplished
much good In their way, they did not
reach the ones who needed salvation most.
I pondered over It, and thought It all out
by myself. "When I felt that the conclu
sion I had reached was the only one pos
sible, I announced my intention of join
ing the army and did so. .
"Do I regret It? Indeed I do not. I
have been unusually fortunate in having
had pleasant assignments, and I have
seen little of the adverse circumstances
under which some of the army workers
have to labor. I love the work, and while
I still retain my affection for music. It
Is secondary to the one great purpose "of
my life. 1 should have enjoyed going on
20. 21.
soma years of vigorous usefulness at tn
head of a local Chinese mission, that dur
ing one of his raids, he found, in a certain
group of dens, a half-dozen girls who had
been graduated from his institution.
And yet the mission rescuers toll on.
They are threatened with death," and
hordes of angry Chinese beat upon their
doors. "White watchmen, in the pay o
the Kyal Kung Tong, assault them, and
even strike these gently reared, high
souled women la the face and tear their
clothes. Courts, inferior and superior,
are used to block their efforts, and the
processes of the law which, technically,
they violate. In the name of Christian
freedom, are invoked against them, with;
success.
If the rescued slave, produced In court
by means of the writ of habeas corpus,
should be remanded to the mission, there.,
are left a variety of criminal proceedings
to drag her back to slavery. She may
be accused of stealing the clothes she
wears, or the cheap bracelets that hang
loosely from her wrists. A husband will
rise up to claim her, or a father and
mother, with stories so ingeniously de
vised as almost to deceive the elect. When
it is considered that, now and then, there
occurs a pliant Judge or Prosecuting At
torney, and that what the Chinese in our
midst does not know about perjury ha
does know about his national practice of
bribery, the wonder grows that the mis
sion people are ever victorious in the
courts.
San Francisco has pretty well forgotten
a Chinese case that Is worth citing here
to show against what odds the mission
folk have worked and are working. It ia
the case of Kim. Quey, who was taken
from the Presbyterian Mission, on Sacra,
mento street on March 30, 1900, by a,
Deputy Sheriff from a neighboring county
armed with a warrant from a Justice of
the Peace in the same county. The train
that carried Kim Quey and the deputy
bore also the two highbinders who had
procured the warrant. It carried, besides,
Donaldlne Cameron, matron of the in
vaded mission a slender, refined young
woman, with the cool nerve of a gun
fighter, quick-witted and of endless
energy.
Th.e slender young missionary followed
Kim Quey Into a country jail and re
fused to leave her, but was at length re
moved after midnight by force. Then Kim
Quey was driven out on the highway by
her captor and a local constable. At 3
o'clock in the morning the Justice of the"
Peace met them, as did the highbinders,'
and after a roadside trial accepted a triv
ial fine from a white lawyer who "ap
peared" for the slave girl, In lieu of pun
ishment for alleged theft and handed her
over to the two Chinese, one of whom had
acted as interpreter in the farcical trial.
That would have been the last public ap
pearance of Kim Quey, if it had not been
lor the indomitable pluck, and energy of
Miss Cameron. She raised the hue and
cry at Palo Alto, where the Infamy had
been worked out. The students of Stan
ford University burned the Jdstlce la
efflgy and were in a way to lynch hint
when he fled. Mass meetings in near
by towns were followed by substantlaf
subscriptions from citizens and students
of both Stanford University and the Uni
versity of California, toward a fund for the
prosecution of the offenders. The Justice,
the Deputy, the Constable, the lawyer
and one highbinder were tried and ac
quitted, there being no state law to cover
the case. The girl was recovered and de
ported to China, where she now lives with
the parents from whom she was abducted.
It seems now as If the end of the China
town Infamy were near. Unquestionably
the Government has the power to stop
the slave traffic; apparently It has tho
will.
with the Instruction, but it is not too lata
now. l practice every day, and the time
may come when I shall be stationed in a.
large city. Then I will resume, but not
so that It shall Interfere with my work
In the army."
Lieutenant Brown's father Is now a res
ident of Portland. He Is Salomon Brown
and was one of the four sons of the fa
mous Abolitionist. His childhood was
spent amid the strenuous scenes of the
border warfare that raged In Kansas over
the slavery question, a prominent part In
the fighting being taken by the elder
Brown and his sons.
After the war between the states, Salo
mon Brown removed to Humboldt County,
California, where he engaged In cattle
raising on a large scale. Business re
verses followed an accident. In which he
was "thrown from a horse. Subsequently
he lived In Salem, and recently he moved
to Portland. ROBERT TYLER.