Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1892 — THE CHINESE QUARTER. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE CHINESE QUARTER.

fN THE ORIENTAL SECTION OF NEW YORK. Peeullaritlex to Be Found There—DewM Street* In Hie IJnyttme—Lively Soenee at h'lglit—A Harmless Lot of People—The Children of the Slums* John Chinaman in Gotham. New York has the unfortunate distinction of containing more unusual people to the square mile than any other portion of thie civilized world, says a Gotham correspondent of the GlobeDemoorat. For instance, there is a very large area right on the line of common travel between the business portion of the city and the general residence seotlon in which human beings are paoked as closely as sardines in a box. The section alluded to is what is oalled the “Chinese quarter," not that it consists entirely of Chinameu, but because pigtails and almond eyes are the distinguishing feature of the locality. It oomprises three streets —Mulberry, Doyers and Pell. They differ as to length and points of compass, but as to

Oriental complexion and Asiatic squalor they are distinct by themselves. When one comes to look the country over these squares don’t share much room between them, for the entire area which they describe is not much larger than an ordinary pasture lot behind a farmer's house; but all measurements are relative, and in the city of New York the ground upon which a tenement house may be placed, although it never is larger than 25 by 100 feet, can be made to oontain twenty or more families, with ail the joys and the sorrows which are peculiar to common humanity. Pell street is namel after a prominent man who gained American position

and universal rank by starting a large settlement in the County YVestchester, and also “taking up” some property in the city of New York. As he made a great deal of money by each operation no one whose opinion is worth anything In the real estate market is likely to find fault with him, but the fact remains that the street which is named after him hasn’t the slightest resemblance to the dignity and respectability which had been thought appropriate to the lord of Pelham Manor. It is a short street, only two blocks in length. It starts from one very ancient and now unpopular roadway—to wit: the Bowery—and

ends in another which is a great deal worse—by the name of Mott street. These several streets, all of which ara in the Chinese quarter, present different aspects at different times of the day, but they make a very different appearance at 7 o’clock in the morning. In several of then! there 11* of almond eyes, pigtails and everything •lee which pertains td Chinese custom. A man who had been in China might imagine himself back again were It not for the children, with faces distinctively American and manners peculiar only to unrestrained juvenility, who sprinkle themselves libejraliy upon all the sideA little before 9 o’clock all of those children will have disappeared, not to return again until the middle of the afternoon. When they start in the morning their faces and hands are irtttw, 'TT a in spite of an occasional patch they look as neat as any possible American sovereigns, but six or seven hours later they are sitting together on the curbstone over the gutter, having a

real good time with all their acquaintances, and feeling very glad that school and its various responsibilities and restrictions cannot begin before 9 o’clock the next day. Some of these x youngsters are entirely of Caucausion blood, and as good as any Whom they may meet in the school yard at dinner-time, for poverty does not destroy family Bpirit or prevent any man from making his children look as well as possible and giving them a fair start in the world. On the other hand, there are a great many youngsters whose eyes suggest the traditional almond which has marked the Asiatic raoe. They show, 1 also, that to many Chinamen in What is called the “laundry district” the goddess of love has appeared in the guise of an attractive woman of German or Irish extraction. There have been a number of warnings against mixed marriages down in that portion of the city. Clergymen, policemen and other men whose business it is to know what Ingoing on have said very earnestly that a woman with any respect for herself should avoid marriage with a Chinaman 'about as carefully as she would avoid taking an engagement as nurse In a smallpox hospital. But Cupid always gets ahead of the people who give advloe, so a number of pig-tailed gentlemen in the tiny bit of Manhattan Island whioh I am writing about have found satisfactory wives, and the wives seem entirely satisfied with their husbands. An entire newspaper could be filled with reasons why both parties to suoh a contraot would be probably disappointed, but that wouldn’t prove any-

thing more than occurs after most marriages upon which church and society smile. Every Chinaman is supposed to be here for the sole purpose of making enough money to go back to China and end his days there. W ere he to take an American wife with him, all of his ancestors who may be living would regard her first as a curiosity and then as a slave, to bfe sold at Whatever price could be obtained and for whatever purpose the purchaser might have in view. Quite possibly Nome of the Chinamen who nave married here do not intend to go back to Chink; they haye memories, and know that they are better off in a New York slum than they ever could be in their native land. Besides, evil commnnloations corrupt good manners. No Chinaman oan fail to be affected by American disrespect for age, although in the land of the Celestials one’s ancestors are reckoned almost among the deities. Why the CUm» Settled There. The Chinese sre Bald to have made a part of New York worse than it ever was before, but the real truth is that the Chinaman never settles anywhere exoept among the lowest and most debased people of the city into which he happens to have strayed. John Chinaman wasn’t looking for bad company when he selected his present colony site, but on genera] principles he assumed that he had reached his proper position. Nothing around him was quite as nasty and dirty as what he left behind him in his own native land, where pavements, street-sweepers and scavengers are unknown. He didn’t know how anything oould be worse than China, so he was ready to look for what might be better with the calm confidence of the poker player to whom any change of cards will be gratifying. He oould not settle in the Five Points, for that locality, besides being full of Italians, had been improving for many years. Visitors, strangers, philanthroSists, and missionaries dropped in there i such numbers that , the ordinary course of business was ,completely disarranged. Even a Chinese tramp knows when he is being looked at; he shrinks aside and endeavors to find a place where he will not be prominent. For some reason which no one has ever been able to discover the Chinese fixed upon Mott street as their permanent habitat, although Mott street, right In their vicinity, was the site of the original Boman Catholic

Cathedral of the city of New York—an edifice to which thousands of devout worshipers resort to this day. Of oourse, John, Chinaman couldn’t be expected to pay any respect to a place of this sort; he had no animosities, but neitherbad he any sympathies, so he slowly Qjrerran Mott street until to-day, except for the Cathedral hßd the bouse of the clergyman difectly .opposite, there are very few buildings of* any kind in front of which there sign. In this part of the city John Chinaman can be studied at leisure, and it Is only fair to him to say that he*stands this’sort of ordeal quite as wellks if he were' an American. He never _pretended r \o~ pe anybody in particular, ■and he makes no pretensions now, but he does know that he works a fall day lor a day's pay and doif t charge more than anyone else, and why it is that little Irish boys should thro* cobblestones at him and die German children should jeer him he can’t understand. Neither can I. He has

! taken an American wife, and he has the reputation of beinga very considerate t husband and father, a virtue which isverv scarce in the part of the city of which he is the fondest His children don’t braid their hair into queues, but they do have almond eyes, and they are very fond of their father, whioh seems to show that, after all the bad things I that are said about him, John still has a ! heart in the right place, which is out- \ side Of his outlandish clothing. If any ! Californian who is rabid on the subject of possible Asiatic dominion in this country were to come over here and go through the Chinese quarter of this city, | he would be obliged to see a great many I things which wouldn’t be in keeping | with Pacific coast ideas. One is that ! the environment doesn’t always make the man. Bight down in shabby, dirty Pell street he would find two or three Cnrnesa shops, each of which is managed by a man who is quite as shrewd, sympathetic, and quick-witted as any ; man in a similar position anywhere else ] ia the United States. Another Ride. There is another side, however, to the slum life of this quarter of old New York, and it is visible after 6 p. m. when the workmen in the few factories on the street go away and the inhabitants of the various tenement houses in the vicinity return to their homes. Then the aspect of the street is entirely different Everybody likes a resting time once In twenty-four hours, and if Pell street and Mott street and Doyers street live up to their privileges there is nothing in the laws of the Police Department or In the city ordinances in general to prevent them. , It is after 6 in the afternoon hnd be^gre 1 7 in the morning that the very unameilcan spectacles which are presented in this locality may be seen by any one who chooses to look. It is due the inhabitants to say that they make no secret of their customary methods of life, and the social code of manners in the poorer districts finds no fault with the American shimmer's stare, although it is quite as offensive as anything British. Let the visitor beware, though; because the people live out of doors when the weather allows it does not follow that they expect uninvited visitors to enter their houses. Nobody in the Chinese quarter is likely to be ugly, but a great many are as full of self-respect as if they lived on Fifth avenue or on one of the swell streets which cross that fashionable thoroughfare. They sit on their doorsteps and lire escapes In full view of every one, for to the Chinaman privacy is desirable only for vicious purposes. Visits are exchanged as informally as among the Dutch founders of the city, and the sidewalks are crowded with men chatting with one another. YVindow shades are not drawn, so any one may pry into the domestic affairs of John Chinaman to his heart’s content. Indeed, one must look aside from the Chinese if he would see the dark side of Chinatown. The Celestials have their vices, chief among which are gambling and opium smoking, but a more quiet, harmless lot of people can not be found in the best streets of the city. The miseries and mysteries of the vicinity are to be found not among the Asiatic heathen but in the houses in which Caucasians huddle together. Why lodging houses and family tenements should be popular in a part of the city which is full of beings’ whom the lower classes profess to abhor is hard to explain; that they are ’ there, and fully occupied, can

be seen at a glance. Perhaps the occupants have learned by experience that the Chinese are inoffensive neighbors; certainly no other class of men drink so little or make less trouble for those who do not annoy them. It never is hard to find drunken men of other nationalities in Chinatown, but a reeling Chinaman would be a curiosity. The American corner loafer is there with his irrepressible inclination to make Borne howl; tramps of any and all nationalities are there, too, lor part of Chinatown’s streets are storage places for w-agons at night,and a wagon is as good'a bed as any tramp asks for in warm weather.

A CHARACTERISTIC GROUP.

SOMEWHAT AMERICAN.

A PELL STREET HOME

UNITED WE STAND.