Shipping Lumber, Mendocino CountyShipping Lumber, Mendocino CountyClick Thumbnail for full-size Illustration
While you are talking about redeeming the New Jersey marshes these go-ahead Californians are actually diking and reclaiming similar and, in some cases, richer overflowed lands by the hundred thousand acres.
If you will take, on a map of California, Stockton, Sacramento, and San Francisco for guiding points, you will see that a large part of the land lying between these cities is marked "swamp and overflowed." Until within five or six years these lands attracted but little attention. It was known that they were extremely fertile, but it was thought that the cost and uncertainty of reclaiming them were too great to warrant the enterprise. Of late, however, they have been rapidly bought up by capitalists, and their sagacity has been justified by the results on those tracts which have been reclaimed.
These Tule lands—the word is pronounced as though spelled "toola"—are simply deposits of muck, a mixture of the wash or sediment brought down by the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers with the decayed vegetable matter resulting from an immense growth of various grasses, and of the reed called the "tule," which often grows ten feet high in a season, and decays every year. The Tule lands are in part the low lands along the greater rivers, but in part they are islands, lying in the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and separated from each other by deep, narrow "sloughs," or "slews" as they are called—branches of these rivers, in fact. Before reclamation they are overflowed commonly twice a year—in the winter, when the rains cause the rivers to rise; and again in June, when the melting of the snows on the mountains brings another rise. You may judge of the extent of this overflowed land by the following list of the principal Tule Islands:
These are the largest islands; but you must understand that on the mainland, along the Sacramento and its affluents, there is a great deal of similar land, probably at least twice as much more, perhaps three times.
The swamp and overflowed lands were given by Congress to the State; and the State has, in its turn, virtually given them to private persons. It has sold them for one dollar per acre, of which twenty per cent. was paid down, or twenty cents per acre; and this money, less some small charges for recording the transfer and for inspecting the reclamation, is returned by the State to the purchaser if he, within three years after the purchase, reclaims his land. That is to say, the State gives away the land on condition that it shall be reclaimed and brought into cultivation.
During a number of years past enterprising individuals have undertaken to reclaim small tracts on these islands by diking them, but with not encouraging success, and it was not until a law was passed empowering the majority of owners of overflowed lands in any place to form a reclamation district, choose a Board of Reclamation, and levy a tax upon all the land in the district, for building and maintaining the dikes or levees that these lands really came into use.
A Water Jam of LogsA Water Jam of LogsClick Thumbnail for full-size Illustration
Now, this work of draining is going on so fast that this year nearly six hundred miles of levee will be completed among the islands alone, not to speak of reclamation districts on the main-land. There seems to be a general determination to do the work thoroughly, the high floods of 1871-72 having shown the farmers and land-owners that they must build high and strong levees, or else lose all, or at least much, of their labor and outlay. During the spring of 1872 I saw huge breaks in some of the levees, which overflowed lands to the serious damage of farmers, for not only is the crop of the year lost, but orchards and vineyards, which flourish on the Tule lands, perished or were seriously injured by the waters.
Chinese labor is used almost entirely in making the levees. An engineer having planned the work, estimates are made, and thereupon Chinese foremen take contracts for pieces at stipulated rates, and themselves hire their countrymen for the actual labor. This subdivision, to which the perfect organization of Chinese labor readily lends itself, is very convenient. The engineer or master in charge of the work deals only with the Chinese foremen, pays them for the work done, and exacts of them the due performance of the contract.
The levee stuff is taken from the inside; thus the ditch is inside of the levee, and usually on the outside is a space of low marsh, which presently fills with willow and cotton-wood. You may sail along the river or slough, therefore, for miles, and see only occasional evidences of the embankment.
The soil is usually a tough turf, full of roots, which is very cheaply cut out with an instrument called a "tule-knife," and thrown up on the levee, where it seems to bind well, though one would not think it would. At frequent intervals are self-acting tide-gates for drainage; these are made of the redwood of the coast, which does not rot in the water. The rise and fall of the tides is about six feet. The levees have been in some places troubled with beaver, which, however, are now hunted for their fur, and will not long be troublesome. There is no musk-rat—an animal which would do serious damage here. The tule-rat lives on roots on the land, but is not active or strong enough to be injurious.
The levee is usually from six to eight feet broad on top, with the inside sloping; but I was told that experience had shown that the outside should be perpendicular. It is not unusual for parts of a levee to sink down, but I could hear of no case of capsizing. The Levee Board of a district appoints levee-masters, whose duty it is to look after the condition of the work, and on the islands I visited there were gangs of Chinamen engaged in repairing and heightening the embankments.
You land at a wharf, and, standing on top of the levee, you see before you usually the house and other farm buildings, set up on piles, for security against a break and overflow; and beyond a great track of level land, two or three or five feet below the level of the levee, and, if it has but lately been reclaimed, covered with the remnants of tules and of grass sods.
When the levee is completed, and the land has had opportunity to drain a little, the first operation is to burn it over. This requires time and some care, for it is possible to burn too deep; and in some parts the fire burns deep holes if it is not checked. If the land is covered with dry tules, the fire is set so easily that a single match will burn a thousand acres, the strong trade-wind which blows up the river and across these lands carrying the fire rapidly. If the dry tules have been washed off, a Chinaman is sent to dig holes through the upper sod; after him follows another, with a back-load of straw wisps, who sticks a wisp into each hole, lights it with a match, and goes on. At this rate, I am told, it cost on one island only one hundred dollars to burn fifteen hundred acres.
When this work is done you have an ash-heap, extremely disagreeable to walk over, and not yet solid enough to bear horses or oxen. Accordingly, the first crop is put on with sheep. First the tract is sowed, usually with a coffee-mill sower or hand machine, and, I am told, at the rate of about thirty pounds of wheat to the acre, though I believe it would be better to sow more thickly. Then comes a band or flock of about five hundred sheep. These are driven over the surface in a compact body, and at no great rate of speed, and it is surprising how readily they learn what is expected of them, and how thoroughly they tramp in the seed. Dogs are used in this work to keep the sheep together, and they expect to "sheep in," as they call it, about sixteen acres a day with five hundred animals, giving these time besides to feed on the levee and on spare land.
Tule land thus prepared has actually yielded from forty to sixty bushels of wheat per acre. It does not always do so, because, as I myself saw, it is often badly and irregularly burned over, and probably otherwise mismanaged. The crop is taken off with headers, as is usual in this State.
For the second year's crop the land is plowed. A two-share gang-plow is used, with a seat for the plowman. It is drawn by four horses, who have to be shod with broad wooden shoes, usually made of ash plank, nine by eleven inches, fastened to the iron shoes of the horse by screws.
The soil does not appear to be sour, and no doubt the ashes from the burning off do much to sweeten it where it needs that. But several years are needed to reduce the ground to its best condition for tillage, and the difference in this respect between newly-burned or second-crop lands and such matured farms as that of Mr. Bigelow on Sherman Island—who has been there eight or nine years—is very striking.
It seemed to me that the farmers and land-owners with whom I spoke knew "for certain" but very little about the best ways to manage these lands, and that the advice of a thorough scientific agriculturist, like Professor Johnson of Yale, would be very valuable to them. Now, they know only that the land when burned over will bear large crops of wheat; and, of course, in all practical measures for economically putting in and taking off a wheat crop the Californian needs no instructor.
The soil seemed to me, so far as they dig into it—say six feet deep—to be, not peat, but a mass of undecayed or but partly decayed roots, strongly adhering together, so that the upper part of a levee, taken of course from the lowest part of the ditch, lay in firm sods or tussocks. These, however, seem to decay pretty rapidly on exposure to the air. The drainage is not usually deeper than four feet, and in places the water-level was but three feet below the surface. The newly reclaimed land being very light, suffers from the dry season, and is often irrigated, which, as it lies below the river-level, can be quickly and cheaply done.
Sherman Island was one of the earliest to be reclaimed, and there I visited the fine farm of Mr. Bigelow—a New Hampshire man, I believe, and apparently a thorough farmer. He has lived on tule land ten years, and his fields were consequently in the finest condition. Here I saw a three-hundred-acre field of wheat, as fine as wheat could be. He thought he should get about forty-five bushels per acre this year. He had got, he told me, between sixty-five and seventy bushels per acre, and without any further labor the next year brought him from the same fields fifty-two bushels per acre as a "volunteer" or self-seeded crop.
Here I saw luxuriant red clover and blue grass, and he had also a field of carrots, which do well on this alluvial bottom, it seems. But what surprised me more was to find that apples, pears, peaches, plums, grapes, apricots—all the fruits—do well on this soil. With us I think the pear would not do well on peat; but here it withstood last year's flood, which broke a levee and overflowed Mr. Bigelow's farm, and the trees do not appear to have suffered. He had also wind-breaks of osier willow, which of course grows rapidly, and had been a source of profit to him in, yielding cuttings for sale.
Timothy does not do well on tule land, as its roots do not push down deep enough, and the surface of such light soils always dries up rapidly. Mr. Bigelow told me that he once sowed alfalfa in February with wheat, and took off forty-five bushels of wheat per acre, and a ton and a half of alfalfa later; and pastured (in a thirty-acre field) twenty-five head of stock till Christmas on the same land, after the hay was cut.
They have one great advantage on the tule lands—they can put in their crops at any time from November to the last of June.
It was very curious to sit on the veranda at the farm-house, after dinner, with a high levee immediately in front of us almost hiding the Sacramento River, and with a broad canal—the inner ditch—full of fresh water, running along the boundary as far as the eye could reach, the level of the levee broken occasionally by tide-gates. The prospect would have been monotonous had we not had at one side the lovely mountain range of which Mount Diablo is the prominent peak. But the great expanse of clean fields, level as a billiard-table, and in as fine tilth as though this was a model farm, was a delight to the eye, too.
It may interest grape-growers in the East to be told that of what we call "foreign grapes," the Muscat of Alexandria succeeds best in these moist, peaty lands. It is the market grape here. Trees have not grown to a great size on the tule lands, but bees are very fond of the wild-flowers which abound in the unreclaimed marshes, and, having no hollow trees to build in, they adapt themselves to circumstances by constructing their hives on the outside or circumference of trees.
Mount Hood, OregonMount Hood, OregonClick Thumbnail for full-size Illustration
Fencing costs here about three hundred and twenty dollars per mile. The redwood posts are driven into the ground with mauls. Farm laborers receive in the tules thirty dollars per month and board if they are white men, but one dollar a day and feed themselves, where they are Chinese.
On Twitchell Island I found an experiment making in ramie and jute, Mr. Finch, formerly of Haywards, having already planted twenty-six acres of ramie, and intending to put seven acres into jute, for which he had the plants all ready, raised in a canvas-covered inclosure. He raised ramie successfully last year, and sold, he told me, from one-tenth of an acre, two hundred and sixty three pounds of prepared ramie, for fifteen cents per pound. He used, to dress it, a machine made in California, which several persons have assured me works well and cheaply, a fact which ramie growers in Louisiana may like to know; for the chief obstacle to ramie culture in this country has been, so far, the lack of a cheap and rapidly-working machine for its preparation. It struck me that Mr. Finch's experiment with ramie and jute would promise better were it not made on new land from which I believe only one crop had been taken.
When these tule lands have been diked and drained, they are sold for from twenty to twenty-five dollars per acre. Considering the crops they bear, and their nearness to market—ships could load at almost any of the islands—I suppose the price is not high; but a farmer ought to be sure that the levees are high enough, and properly made. To levee them costs variously, from three to twelve dollars per acre.
The tule lands which lie on the main-land, and which are equally rich with the islands, are usually ditched and diked for less than six dollars per acre; and this sum is regarded, I believe, by the State Commissioners as the maximum which the owners are allowed to borrow on reclamation land-bonds for the purpose of levee building.
I spoke awhile back of the existence of beavers in the tule country. Elk and grizzly bears used also to abound here, and I am told that on the unreclaimed lands elk are still found, though the grizzlies have gone to the mountains. One of the curiosities hereabouts is the ark, or floating house, used by the hunters, which you see anchored or moored in the sloughs: in these they live, using a small boat when they go ashore to hunt, and floating from place to place with the tide. On one of these arks I saw a magnificent pair of elk horns from an animal recently shot.
Coast View, Mendocino CountyCoast View, Mendocino CountyClick Thumbnail for full-size Illustration
In the last year I have received a good many letters from persons desirous to try sheep-farming in California, and this has led me to look a little closely into this business as it is conducted in the northern parts of California.
There is no doubt that the climate of California gives some exceptional advantages to the sheep-grazer. He need not, in most parts of the State, make any provision against winter. He has no need for barns or expensive sheds, or for a store of hay or roots. His sheep live out-of-doors all the year round, and it results that those who have been so fortunate as to secure cheaply extensive ranges have made a great deal of money, even though they conducted the business very carelessly.
It ought to be understood, however, by persons who think of beginning with sheep here, that the business has changed considerably in character within two or three years. Land, in the first place, has very greatly risen in price; large ranges are no longer easily or cheaply obtained, and in the coast counties of Southern California particularly large tracts are now too high-priced, considering the quality of the land and its ability to carry sheep, for prudent men to buy.
Moreover, Southern California has some serious disadvantages for sheep-grazing which the northern part of the State—the Sacramento Valley and the adjoining coast-range and Sierra foot-hills—are without, and which begin to tell strongly, now that the wool of this State begins to go upon its merits, and is no longer bought simply as "California wool," regardless of its quality. Southern California has a troublesome burr, which is not found north of Sacramento, except on the lower lands. In Southern California it is often difficult to tide the sheep over the fall months in good order, whereas in the northern part of the State they have a greater variety of land, and do this more easily. The average of southern wool brings less by five or six cents per pound than that of the Sacramento Valley; and this is due in part to the soil and climate, and in part to the fact that sheep are more carefully kept in the northern part of the State.
Many of the sheep farmers in the Sacramento Valley have entirely done away with the mischievous practice of corraling their sheep—confining them at night, I mean, in narrow, crowded quarters—a practice which makes and keeps the sheep scabby. They very generally fence their lands, and thus are able to save their pasture and to manage it much more advantageously. They seem to me more careful about overstocking than sheep farmers generally are in the southern part of the State, though it should be understood that such men as Colonel Hollester, Colonel Diblee, Dr. Flint, and a few others in the South, who, like these, have exceptionally fine ranges, keep always the best sheep in the best manner. But smaller tracks, sown to alfalfa, are found to pay in the valleys where the land can be irrigated.
In Australia and New Zealand sheep inspectors are appointed, who have the duty to examine flocks and force the isolation of scabby sheep; and a careless flock-master who should be discovered driving scabby sheep through the country would be heavily fined; here the law says nothing on this head, but I have found this spring several sheep owners in the Sacramento Valley who assured me that they had eradicated scab so entirely from their flocks that they dealt also by isolation with such few single specimens as they found to have this disease.
Moreover, I find that the best sheep farmers aim to keep, not the largest flocks, but the best sheep. There is no doubt that the sheep deteriorates in this State unless it is carefully and constantly bred up. "We must bring in the finest bucks from Australia, or the East, or our own State," said one very successful sheep farmer to me; "and we must do this all the time, else our flocks will go back." "It is more profitable to keep fewer sheep of the best kind than more not quite so good. It is more profitable to keep a few sheep always in good condition than many with a period of semi-starvation for them in the fall," said another; and added, "I would rather, if I were to begin over again, spend my money on a breed worth six dollars a head, than one worth two or three dollars, and I would rather not keep sheep at all than not fence." He had his land—about twenty-five thousand acres—fenced off in lots of from four to six thousand acres, and into one of these he turned from six to eight thousand sheep, leaving them to graze as they pleased. He had noticed, he told me, that whereas the sheep under the usual corral system feed the greater part of the day, no matter how hot the sun, his sheep in these large pastures were lying down from nine in the morning to four or five in the afternoon; and he often found them feeding far into the night, and rising again to graze long before daylight. They were at liberty to follow their own pleasure, having water always at hand. An abundant supply of water he thought of great importance.
Indian Sweat-HouseIndian Sweat-HouseClick Thumbnail for full-size Illustration
Of course, where the sheep are turned out into fenced land no shepherds are required, which makes an important saving. One man, with a horse, visits the different flocks, and can look after ten or fifteen thousand head.
The farmer whom I have quoted does not dip his sheep to prevent or cure scab, but mops the sore place, when he discovers a scabby sheep, with a sponge dipped into the scab-mixture.
He gets, he told me, from his flock of ten thousand merinoes, an average of seven pounds per head of wool, and he does not shear any except the lambs, in the fall. It is a common but bad practice here to shear all sheep twice a year; and where, as is too often the case, a flock is very scabby, no doubt this is necessary.
He had long sheds as shelter for his ewes about lambing-time, so as to protect them against fierce winds and cold rain storms; and he saved every year about two hundred tons of hay, cut from the wild pastures, to feed in case the rain should hold off uncommonly late. His aim was to keep the sheep always in good condition, so that there should never be any weak place in the wool. His sheds cost him about one dollar per running foot. The sheep found their own way to them.
I find it is the habit of the forehanded sheep-grazers in the Sacramento Valley to own a range in the foot-hills and another on the bottom-lands. During the summer the sheep are kept in the bottoms, which are then dry and full of rich grasses; in the fall and winter they are taken to the uplands, and there they lamb, and are shorn. Where the range lies too far away from any river, they drive the sheep in May into the mountains, where they have green grass all summer; and about Red Bluff I saw a curious sight—cattle and horses wandering, singly or in small groups, of their own motion, to the mountains, and actually crossing the Sacramento without driving; and I was told that in the fall they would return, each to its master's rancho. I am satisfied that, except, perhaps, for the region north of Redding, where the winters are cold and the summers have rain and green grass, and where long-wooled sheep will do well, the merino is the sheep for this State; and "the finer the better," say the best sheep men. Near Red Bluff I saw some fine Cotswolds, and in the coast valleys north of San Francisco these and Leicesters, I am told, do well.
A great deal of the land which is now used for sheep will, in the next five, or at most ten years, be plowed and cropped. There is a tendency to tax all land at its real value; and, except with good management, it will not pay to keep sheep on land fit for grain and taxed as grain land, which a great deal of the grazing land is. As the State becomes more populous, the flocks will become smaller, and the wool will improve in quality at the same time.
I have seen a good deal of alfalfa in the Sacramento Valley, but I have seen also that the sheep men do not trust to it entirely. They believe that it will be better for sheep as hay than as green food; and this lucerne grows so rankly, and has, unless it is frequently cut, so much woody stalk, that I believe this also. It makes extremely nice hay.
Every man who comes to California to farm ought to keep some sheep; and he can keep them more easily and cheaply here than anywhere in the East.
For persons who want to begin sheep-raising on a large scale and with capital the opportunities are not so good here now; but there are yet fine chances in Nevada, in the valley of the Humboldt, where already thousands of head of cattle, and at least one hundred thousand sheep, are now fed by persons who do not own the land at all. I am told extensive tracts could be bought there at really low prices, and with such credit on much of it as would enable a man with capital enough to stock his tract to pay for the land out of the proceeds of the sheep. The white sage in the Humboldt Valley is very nutritious, and there is also in the subsidiary valleys bunch-grass and other nutritious food for stock. Not a few young men have gone into this Humboldt country with a few hundreds of sheep, and are now wealthy. The winters are somewhat longer than in California, but the sheep find feed all the year round; and they are shorn near the line of the railroad, so that there is no costly transportation of the wool. Mutton sheep, too, are driven to the railroad to be sent to market, and for stock, therefore, this otherwise out-of-the-way region is very convenient.
Riding through the foot-hills near Rocklin—where I had been visiting a well-kept sheep-farm—I saw a curious and unexpected sight. There are still a few wretched Digger Indians in this part of California; and what I saw was a party of these engaged in catching grasshoppers, which they boil and eat. They dig a number of funnel-shaped holes, wide at the top, and eighteen inches deep, on a cleared space, and then, with rags and brush, drive the grasshoppers toward these holes, forming for that purpose a wide circle. It is slow work, but they seem to delight in it; and their excitement was great as they neared the circle of holes and the insects began to hop and fall into them. At last there was a close and rapid rally, and half a dozen bushels of grasshoppers were driven into the holes; whereupon hats, aprons, bags, and rags were stuffed in to prevent the multitudes from dispersing; and then began the work of picking them out by handfuls, crushing them roughly in the hand to keep them quiet, and crowding them into the bags in which they were to be carried to their rancheria.
"Sweet—all same pudding," cried an old woman to me, as I stood looking on. It is not a good year for grasshoppers this year; nothing like the year of which an inhabitant of Roseville spoke to me later in the day, when he said, "they ate up every bit of his garden-truck, and then sat on the fence and asked him for a chew of tobacco."
The sheep ranges of the northern interior counties are less broken up than in the coast counties farther south; and it is better and more profitable, in my judgment, to pay five dollars per acre for grazing lands in the Sacramento Valley than two dollars and a half for grazing lands farther south and among the mountains. The grazier in the northern counties has two advantages over his southern competitor: first, in the ability to buy low-lying lands on the river, where he can graze from three to six or even ten sheep to the acre during the summer months, and where he may plant large tracts in alfalfa; and, secondly, in a safe refuge against drought in the mountain meadows of the Sierras, and in the little valleys and fertile hill-slopes of the Coast Range, where there is much unsurveyed Government land, to which hundreds of thousands of sheep and cattle are annually driven by the graziers of the plain, who thus save their own pastures, and are able to carry a much larger number of sheep than they otherwise would.
Moreover, nearness to the railroad is an important advantage for the sheep-farmer; and I found that the most enterprising and intelligent sheep men in the northern counties send their wool direct by railroad to the Eastern States, instead of shipping it to San Francisco to be sold.
Finally, much of the land now obtainable for grazing in the Sacramento Valley, at prices in some cases not too dear for grazing purposes, is of a quality which will make it valuable agricultural land as soon as the valley begins to fill up; and thus, aside from the profit from the sheep, the owner may safely reckon upon a large increase in the value of his land. This can not be said of much of the grazing land of the southern coast counties, which is mountainous and broken, and fit only for grazing.
Of course I speak here of the average lands only. There are large tracts or ranchos in the southern coast counties, such as the Lampoe rancho of Hollester & Diblee, and lands in the Salinas Valley, which are exceptionally fine, and to which what I have said of the coast panchos generally does not apply.
Another coast view, Northern CaliforniaAnother coast view, Northern CaliforniaClick Thumbnail for full-size Illustration
As I crossed from Oakland to San Francisco on a Sunday afternoon last July, there were on the ferry-boat a number of Chinese. They were decently clad, quiet, clean, sat apart in their places in the lower part of the boat conversing together, and finally walked off the boat when she came to land as orderly as though they had been Massachusetts Christians.
There were also on the boat a number of half-grown and full-grown white boys, some of whom had been fishing, and carried their long rods with them. These were slouchy, dirty, loud-voiced, rude; and, as they passed off the boat, I noticed that with their long rods they knocked the hats of the Chinese off their heads, or punched them in the back, every effort of this kind being rewarded with boisterous laughter from their companions. Nor did they confine their annoyance entirely to the Chinese, for they jostled and pushed their way out through the crowd of men and women very much as a gang of pickpockets on a Third Avenue car in New York conducts itself when its members mean to steal a watch or two.
These rowdies were "Hoodlums;" and it is the Hoodlums chiefly who clamor about the Chinese, and who are "ruined by Chinese cheap labor." The anti-Chinese agitation in San Francisco has led me to look a little closely into this matter, and I declare my belief that there are not a hundred decent men who work for a living in that city engaged in this crusade against the Chinese. If you could to-day assemble there all who join in this persecution, and if then you took from this assemblage all the Hoodlums, all the bar-room loafers, and all the political demagogues, I don't believe you would have a hundred men left on the ground. That is to say, the people who actually earn the bread they eat do not persecute the Chinese.
If an Eastern reader suggests that it argues a lack of public spirit in the decent part of the community to allow the roughs to rule in this matter, I take leave to remind him of the time, not very long ago, when the same combination of Hoodlum and demagogue mobbed negroes in New York, and threatened vengeance if colored people were allowed to ride in the street-cars. Here, as there then, there are unfortunately newspapers which ignorantly pander to this vile class, and help to swell the cry of persecution. And here, as in New York a few years ago, it results that the proscribed race is hardly dealt with, not only by the roughs, but sometimes in the courts, and gets scant and hard justice dealt out to it. The courageous and upright action of Mayor Alvord in vetoing the inhuman and silly acts of the city supervisors, which, by-the-way, has made him one of the most popular men in California, for the moment shamed the demagogues and silenced the rowdies; but there are means of annoying the Chinese within the law, which are still used. For instance, there is an ordinance declaring a fine for overcrowding tenement-houses, and requiring that in every room there shall be five hundred cubic feet of air for each occupant, and for violating this a fine of ten dollars is imposed. This ordinance is enforced only against the Chinese—so I am assured on the best authority, and they only are fined. But justice would seem to demand not only that the law should be enforced against all alike, but that the owner of the property should be made liable for its misuse as well as the unfortunate and ignorant occupants.
The Chinese quarter in San Francisco consists, for the most part, of a lot of decayed rookeries which would put our own Five Points to the blush. The Chinese live here very much as the Five Points' population lives in New York. And here, as there, respectable people—or people at any rate who would think themselves insulted if you called their respectability in question—own these filthy and decayed tenements; live in comfort on the rent paid them by the Chinese; perhaps go to church on Sunday, and, no doubt, thank God that they are not as other people. It is very good to fine a poor devil of a Chinaman because he lives in an overcrowded tenement; but what a stir there would be if some enterprising San Francisco journal should give a description of these holes, and the different uses they are put to, and add the names and residences of the owners.
California has, according to Cronise—a good authority—40,000,000 acres of arable land. It has, according to the last census, 560,247 people, of whom 149,473 live in San Francisco, and yet nowhere in the United States have I heard so much complaint of "nothing to do" as in San Francisco. One of the leading cries of the demagogues here is that the Chinese are crowding white men out of employment. But one of the complaints most frequently heard from men who need to get work done is that they can get nobody to do it. A hundred times and more, in my travels through the State, I have found Chinese serving not only as laborers, but holding positions where great skill and faithfulness were required; and almost every time the employer has said to me, "I would rather, of course, employ a white man, but I can not get one whom I can trust, and who will stick to his work." In some cases this was not said, but the employer spoke straight out that he had tried white men, and preferred the Chinese as more faithful and painstaking, more accurate, and less eye-servants.
A gentleman told me that he had once advertised in the San Francisco papers for one hundred laborers; his office was besieged for three days. Three hundred and fifty offered themselves, all presumably ruined by Chinese cheap labor; but all but a dozen refused to accept work when they heard that they were required to go "out of the city."
The charge that the Chinese underbid the whites in the labor market is bosh. When they first come over, and are ignorant of our language, habits, customs, and manner of work, they no doubt work cheaply; but they know very accurately the current rate of wages and the condition of the labor market, and they manage to get as much as any body, or, if they take less in some cases, it is because they can not do a full day's work. It is a fact, however, that they do a great deal of work which white men will not do out here; they do not stand idle, but take the first job that is offered them. And the result is that they are used all over the State, more and more, because they chiefly, of the laboring population, will work steadily and keep their engagements.
Moreover, the admirable organization of the Chinese labor is an irresistible convenience to the farmer, vineyardist, and other employer. "How do you arrange to get your Chinese?" I asked a man in the country who was employing more than a hundred in several gangs. He replied: "I have only to go or send to a Chinese employment office in San Francisco, and say that I need so many men for such work and at such pay. Directly up come the men, with a foreman of their own, with whom alone I have to deal. I tell only him what I want done; I settle with him alone; I complain to him, and hold him alone responsible. He understands English; and this system simplifies things amazingly. If I employed white men I should have to instruct, reprove, watch, and pay each one separately; and of a hundred, a quarter, at least, would be dropping out day after day for one cause or another. Moreover, with my Chinese comes up a cook for every twenty men, whom I pay, and provisions of their own which they buy. Thus I have nobody to feed and care for. They do it themselves."
This is the reply I have received in half a dozen instances where I made inquiry of men who employed from twenty-five to two hundred Chinese. Any one can see that, with such an organization of labor, many things can be easily done which under our different and looser system a man would not rashly undertake. So far as I have been able to learn, such a thing as a gang of Chinese leaving a piece of work they had engaged to do, unless they were cheated or ill-treated, is unknown. Then they don't drink whisky. With all this, any one can see that they need not work cheaply. To a man who wants to get a piece of work done their systematic ways are worth a good deal of money. In point of fact, they are quick enough to demand higher wages.
A Saw-Mill Port on Puget SoundA Saw-Mill Port on Puget SoundClick Thumbnail for full-size Illustration
Of the population of Califoraia when the census of 1870 was taken, 49,310 were Chinese, 54,421 were Irish, 29,701 were Germans, and 339,199 were born in the United States. In an official return from the California State prison, the number of convicts in 1871, the last year reported, is given at 880; of whom 477 were native born, 118 were Chinese, 86 were Irish, 29 were German. This gives, of convicts, one in every 635 of the whole population of the State; one in 711 of the native born; one in 417 of the Chinese; one in 632 of the Irish born; and one in 1024 of the Germans. That is to say, of the different nationalities the Germans contribute the fewest convicts, the native born next, the Irish next, and the Chinese the greatest number proportionately.
But pray bear in mind the important fact that the Chinese here are almost entirely grown men; they have no families here, and but a small number of women, almost all of whom are, moreover, prostitutes.
If, then, you would compare these figures rightly you would have to leave out of the count the women and children of all the other nationalities; it would, perhaps, then appear that the Chinese furnish a much smaller proportion of criminals than the above figures show; and this in spite of the well-known fact that Dame Justice commonly turns a very cold shoulder toward a Chinaman. I wonder that the comparison shows so favorably for them.
It is said that they send money out of the country. I wonder who sends the most, the Chinaman or the white foreigner? If one could get at the sums remitted to England, Ireland, and Germany, and those sent to China, I don't know which would be the greater.
But a Chinese, to whom I mentioned this charge, made me an excellent answer. He said: "Suppose you work for me; suppose I pay you; what business I what you do with money? If you work good for me, that all I care. No business my what you do your pay." Surely he was right; the Chinaman may send some part of his wages out of the country, though not much, for he must eat, must be clothed and lodged, must pay railroad and stage fares, must smoke opium, and usually gamble a little. When all this is done, the surplus of a Chinaman's wages is not great. But suppose he sent off all his pay; he does not and can not send off the work he has done for it, the ditches he has dug, the levees he has made, the meals he has cooked, and the clothes he has washed and ironed, the harvest he has helped to sow and gather, and the vegetables he has raised; the cigars, and shoes, blankets, gloves, slippers, and other things he has made. These remain to enrich the country, to make abundance where, but for his help, there would be scarcity, or importation from other States or countries.
But lately it is asserted that the Chinese have brought or will bring the leprosy hither. This is a genuine cry of anguish and terror from the Hoodlums; for, bear in mind that, according to the best medical opinion in the Sandwich Islands, where this disease is most frequent and has been most thoroughly studied, it is communicated only by cohabitation or the most intimate association. If you ask a policeman to pilot you through the Chinese quarter of San Francisco between eight and eleven o'clock any night, you will see the creatures who make this outcry. They are Hoodlums, gangs of whom per ambulate the worst alleys, and pass in and out of the vilest kennels.
I was curious to know something about the "Chinese Companies" of which one frequently hears here, and which exercise important powers over their countrymen all over the State. What follows concerning these organizations I derived from conversation with several Chinese who speak English, and with a missionary who labors among them.
There are six of these companies, calling themselves "Yong Wong," "Howk Wah," "Sam Yup," "Yen Wah," "Kong Chow," and "Yong Woh." They are benevolent societies; each looks after the people who come from the province or district for whose behalf it is formed.
When a ship comes into port with Chinese, the agents of the companies board it, and each takes the names of those who belong to his province. These then come into the charge of their proper company. That lodges, and, if necessary, feeds them; as quickly as possible secures them employment; and, if they are to go to a distant point, lends them the needed passage-money. The company also cares for the sick, if they are friendless and without means; and it sends home the bones of those who die here.
Cape Horn, Columbia RiverCape Horn, Columbia RiverClick Thumbnail for full-size Illustration
Moreover, it settles all disputes between Chinese, levies fines upon offenders; and when a Chinaman wishes to return home, his company examines his accounts, and obliges him to pay his just debts here before leaving.
The means to do all this are obtained by the voluntary contributions of the members, who are all who land at San Francisco from the province which a company represents.
In the Canton company, "Sam Yup," I was told that the members pay seven dollars each, which sum is paid at any time, but always before they go home.
"Suppose a man does not pay?" I asked a Chinese who speaks English very well. He replied, "Then the company loses it; but all who can, pay. Very seldom any one refuses."
"Suppose," said I, "a Chinaman refuses to respect the company's decision, in case of a quarrel?" He replied, "They never refuse. It is their own company. They are all members."
Naturally there are sometimes losses and a deficit in the treasury. This is made up by levying an additional contribution.
"Do the companies advance money to bring over Chinese?" "No," was the reply, "the company has no money; it is not a business association, but only for mutual aid among the Chinese here." Nor does it act as an employment office, for this is a separate and very well organized business. It sends home the bones of dead men, and this costs fifteen dollars; and wherever the deceased leaves property or money, or the relatives are able to pay, the company exacts this sum.
It is evident that the Chinese in California keep up a very active correspondence with San Francisco as well as with China. They "keep the run" of their people very carefully; and the poorer class, who have probably gone into debt at home for money to get over here, seem to pay their debts with great honesty out of their earnings. It is clear to me that the poorer Chinese command far greater credit among their countrymen than our laboring class usually receives, and this speaks well for their general honesty.
I do not mean to hold up the Chinaman as an entirely admirable creature. He has many excellent traits, and we might learn several profitable lessons from him in the art of organizing labor, and in other matters. But he has grave vices; he does commonly, and without shame, many things which we hold to be wrong and disreputable; and, altogether, it might have been well could we have kept him out.
The extent to which they carry organization and administration is something quite curious. 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. That they deprive any white man of work is absurd, in a State which has scarcely half a million of people, and which can support ten millions, and needs at least three millions to develop fairly its abundant natural wealth; and no matter what he is, or what the effect of his presence might be, it is shameful that he should be meanly maltreated and persecuted among a people who boast themselves Christian and claim to be civilized.