CHAPTER VII.
CHINAMEN OF SAN FRANCISCO--THEIR CALLINGS AND CHARACTERISTICS A Visit to Chinatown--Its Boundaries--A Terra Incognita--Fond of Mongrels--My Licensed Guide--The Study of the Signs--Men of All Callings--Picture of the Chinaman--Devoid of Humour--Confucius--Great Men from Good Mothers--Confucius to Women--Mormonism and Mohammedanism--How to Regenerate China--Slaves of the Lamp--Chinamen Impassive--Aroused to Wrath--How They Dress--The Queue--"Pidgin" English--Payment of Debts--Bankrupt Law--Suicide.
When in the City of the Golden Gate you will not fail to visit the Chinese Quarter, or "Chinatown," as it is popularly called.

Just as in an Oriental city like Jerusalem or Constantinople you find different nationalities or races living apart from each other, so here in San Francisco you have "Little China" in the heart of Anglo-Saxon civilisation.

It is as if you had unfolded to your wondering eyes in a dream some town from the banks of the Pearl River, the Yangtse-Kiang, or the Hwangho or.

Yellow River; and it seems strange indeed that, without the trouble or expense and danger of crossing the waters of the Pacific, you can by a short walk from the midst of the teeming life of an American City, be ushered into streets that are foreign in appearance and where scenes that are unfamiliar to the eye attract your attention on every hand.

With the exception of the houses, which, as a rule, take on a European or an American style of architecture, you might imagine that you were in Canton or some other Chinese city.
The life is truly Asiatic and Mongolian in its character and in its display as well as in its customs.