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252 ACROSS AMERICA AND ASIA. [chap. xix.
glance at tho cliaractei'istics of ihm race, both in countries to
wliich they have emigrated, ancT in tbeii- own home.
Twenty years of contact between the two races in California
have done little toward removing the prejudice against the Chi-
nese. They have poured steadily into and out of the country;
but, 'surrounded by barriers, they have been forced to form a
world of their own. Within this some fifty thousand men have
been thriving, while many of them have amassed large fortunes.
Many an enterprise, too, has swamped in failure, which would
have given brilliant returns but for the tyranny of white workmen
who prevented the employment of cheap Chinese labor. This
tyranny is met with at every step : from the court-room, where
the Chinaman is denied the right of giving evidence in mixed
eases, to the "gold diggings," whei-e white rowdies, acting as aelf-
■ appointed collectors, levy the raining tax, which is never assessed
upon Americans. Recently, however, various manufacturers, far-
mei-s, and othei's, braving that ivild beast, the Irish mob, liavc
begun to employ Chinese labor, and with such success that capi-
talists see in it the sinew and muscle of the Far West.
