A Bit of Old China

"It is but a step from Confucius to confusion", said I, in a brief discussion of the Chinese question. "Then let us take it by all means", replied the artist, who had been an indulgent listener for at least ten minutes. We were strolling upon the verge of the Chinese Quarter in San Francisco, and, turning aside from one of the chief thoroughfares of the city, we plunged into the busiest portion of Chinatown. From our standpoint the corner of Kearny and Sacramento Streets we got the most favorable view of our Mongolian neighbors. Here is a goodly number of merchant gentlemen of wealth and station, comfortably, if not elegantly, housed on two sides of a street that climbs a low hill quite in the manner of a tea box landscape. A few of these gentlemen lodge on the upper floors of their business houses, with Chinese wives, and quaint, old fashioned children gaudily dressed, looking like little idols, chatting glibly with one another, and gracefully gesticulating with hands of exquisite slenderness. Confucius, in his infancy, may have been like one of the least of these. There are white draymen and porters in the employ of these shrewd and civil merchants, and the outward appearance of traffic, as conducted in the immediate vicinity, is rather American than otherwise.