[Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands by Charles Nordhoff]@TWC D-Link book
Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands

CHAPTER V
12/13

For instance, there are not only organized bands of laborers, submitting themselves to the control and management of a foreman; benevolent societies, administering charity and, to a large extent, justice; employment societies, which make advances to gangs and individuals all over the State; but there is in San Francisco a society or organization for the importation of prostitutes from China.

The existence of this organization was not suspected until during last summer some of its victims appealed to a city missionary to save them from a life of vice.

Thereupon suit was brought by Chinese in the courts for money which they claimed these women owed; and, on an examination, I was told, no attempt was made to conceal the fact that a regularly formed commercial organization was engaged in either buying or kidnapping young women in China, bringing them to San Francisco, there furnishing them clothing and habitations, and receiving from them a share of the money they gained by prostitution.
But the Chinaman is here; treaty laws made by our Government with his give him the right to come here, and to live here securely.

And this is to be said, that if we could to-day expel the Chinese from California, more than half the capital now invested there would be idle or leave the State, many of the most important industries would entirely stop, and the prosperity of California would receive a blow from which it would not recover for twenty years.

They are, as a class, peaceable, patient, ingenious, and industrious.


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