Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1893 — The Chinese in San Franeisco. [ARTICLE]

The Chinese in San Franeisco.

A mirage of Turanian civilization, a shadow of the past projected upon the present, a frontispiece out of the book of life—this, and more, is the Chinese quar ter in San Francisco. These 30,000 souls, huddled together in spaces well nigh unbreathable, uninhabitable, jostling each other along dark and crowded thoroughfares, silently and imperturbably pursuing their mysterious ways, so supremely indifferent to all that hems them in, men they seem not, but shades “all too palpable” from the deep Tartarus of Time. Architecturally, however, Little Chin is at most but an influence, and it is doubtful whether a single structure in the entire colony owes its existence entirely to Chinese capital. Indeed, the necessities of the case made no such demand upon the frugal and thrifty Mongol. Like Moliere, he took his own wherever he found it. The huge business block of San Francisco's early commercial period and the hastily constructed shanty of the sand hills alike became his property by. right of conquest, and he found both orders of American architecture equally available. The shanty soon shone resplendent in vernal green and sacrificial red; and the hard uncompromising lines of warehouse, dry-goods emporium, and office building were softened by many a jutting gable and projecting balcony, hung with lanterns and refreshed with lilies -HUrta-'-Magazine.