in this land has a good steady income and a stylish suit of new bandages
every day, and travels around on a shutter.
I will say, in conclusion, that my share of the welcome to our guest is
none the less hearty because I talk so much nonsense, and I know that I
can say the same for the rest of the speakers.
JOHN CHINAMAN IN NEW YORK
As I passed along by one of those monster American tea stores in New
York, I found a Chinaman sitting before it acting in the capacity of a
sign. Everybody that passed by gave him a steady stare as long as their
heads would twist over their shoulders without dislocating their necks,
and a group had stopped to stare deliberately.
Is it not a shame that we, who prate so much about civilization and
humanity, are content to degrade a fellow-being to such an office as
this? Is it not time for reflection when we find ourselves willing to
see in such a being matter for frivolous curiosity instead of regret and
grave reflection? Here was a poor creature whom hard fortune had exiled
from his natural home beyond the seas, and whose troubles ought to have
touched these idle strangers that thronged about him; but did it?
Apparently not. Men calling themselves the superior race, the race of
culture and of gentle blood, scanned his quaint Chinese hat, with peaked
roof and ball on top, and his long queue dangling down his back; his
short silken blouse, curiously frogged and figured (and, like the rest of
his raiment, rusty, dilapidated, and awkwardly put on); his blue cotton,
tight-legged pants, tied close around the ankles; and his clumsy blunt-
toed shoes with thick cork soles; and having so scanned him from head to
foot, cracked some unseemly joke about his outlandish attire or his
melancholy face, and passed on. In my heart I pitied the friendless
Mongol. I wondered what was passing behind his sad face, and what
distant scene his vacant eye was dreaming of. Were his thoughts with his
heart, ten thousand miles away, beyond the billowy wastes of the Pacific?
among the ricefields and the plumy palms of China? under the shadows of
remembered mountain peaks, or in groves of bloomy shrubs and strange
forest trees unknown to climes like ours? And now and then, rippling
among his visions and his dreams, did he hear familiar laughter and half-
forgotten voices, and did he catch fitful glimpses of the friendly faces
of a bygone time? A cruel fate it is, I said, that is befallen this
bronzed wanderer. In order that the group of idlers might be touched at
least by the words of the poor fellow, since the appeal of his pauper
dress and his dreary exile was lost upon them, I touched him on the
shoulder and said:
“Cheer up–don’t be downhearted. It is not America that treats you in
this way, it is merely one citizen, whose greed of gain has eaten the
humanity out of his heart. America has a broader hospitality for the
exiled and oppressed. America and Americans are always ready to help the
unfortunate. Money shall be raised–you shall go back to China you shall
see your friends again. What wages do they pay you here?”
“Divil a cint but four dollars a week and find meself; but it’s aisy,
barrin’ the troublesome furrin clothes that’s so expinsive.”
The exile remains at his post. The New York tea merchants who need
picturesque signs are not likely to run out of Chinamen.
HOW I EDITED AN AGRICULTURAL PAPER –[Written abort 1870.]
I did not take temporary editorship of an agricultural paper without
misgivings. Neither would a landsman take command of a ship without
misgivings. But I was in circumstances that made the salary an object.
The regular editor of the paper was going off for a holiday, and I
accepted the terms he offered, and took his place.
The sensation of being at work again was luxurious, and I wrought all the
week with unflagging pleasure. We went to press, and I waited a day with
some solicitude to see whether my effort was going to attract any notice.