Goldsmiths Friend Abroad Again | Page 5

wanted to dance, shout, sing, worship the generous Land of
the Free and Home of the Brave. But as I walked from the gangplank a
man in a gray uniform--[Policeman]-- kicked me violently behind and
told me to look out--so my employer translated it. As I turned, another

officer of the same kind struck me with a short club and also instructed
me to look out. I was about to take hold of my end of the pole which
had mine and Hong-Wo's basket and things suspended from it, when a
third officer hit me with his club to signify that I was to drop it, and
then kicked me to signify that he was satisfied with my promptness.
Another person came now, and searched all through our basket and
bundles, emptying everything out on the dirty wharf. Then this person
and another searched us all over. They found a little package of opium
sewed into the artificial part of Hong-Wo's queue, and they took that,
and also they made him prisoner and handed him over to an officer,
who marched him away. They took his luggage, too, because of his
crime, and as our luggage was so mixed together that they could not tell
mine from his, they took it all. When I offered to help divide it, they
kicked me and desired me to look out.
Having now no baggage and no companion, I told my employer that if
he was willing, I would walk about a little and see the city and the
people until he needed me. I did not like to seem disappointed with my
reception in the good land of refuge for the oppressed, and so I looked
and spoke as cheerily as I could. But he said, wait a minute--I must be
vaccinated to prevent my taking the small-pox. I smiled and said I had
already had the small-pox, as he could see by the marks, and so I need
not wait to be "vaccinated," as he called it. But he said it was the law,
and I must be vaccinated anyhow. The doctor would never let me pass,
for the law obliged him to vaccinate all Chinamen and charge them ten
dollars apiece for it, and I might be sure that no doctor who would be
the servant of that law would let a fee slip through his fingers to
accommodate any absurd fool who had seen fit to have the disease in
some other country. And presently the doctor came and did his work
and took my last penny--my ten dollars which were the hard savings of
nearly a year and a half of labour and privation. Ah, if the law-makers
had only known there were plenty of doctors in the city glad of a
chance to vaccinate people for a dollar or two, they would never have
put the price up so high against a poor friendless Irish, or Italian, or
Chinese pauper fleeing to the good land to escape hunger and hard
times.
AH SONG HI.

LETTER IV
SAN FRANCISCO, 18--. DEAR CHING-FOO: I have been here about
a month now, and am learning a little of the language every day. My
employer was disappointed in the matter of hiring us out to service to
the plantations in the far eastern portion of this continent. His enterprise
was a failure, and so he set us all free, merely taking measures to secure
to himself the repayment of the passage money which he paid for us.
We are to make this good to him out of the first moneys we earn here.
He says it is sixty dollars apiece.
We were thus set free about two weeks after we reached here. We had
been massed together in some small houses up to that time, waiting. I
walked forth to seek my fortune. I was to begin life a stranger in a
strange land, without a friend, or a penny, or any clothes but those I had
on my back. I had not any advantage on my side in the world--not one,
except good health and the lack of any necessity to waste any time or
anxiety on the watching of my baggage. No, I forget. I reflected that I
had one prodigious advantage over paupers in other lands--I was in
America! I was in the heaven-provided refuge of the oppressed and the
forsaken!
Just as that comforting thought passed through my mind, some young
men set a fierce dog on me. I tried to defend myself, but could do
nothing. I retreated to the recess of a closed doorway, and there the dog
had me at his mercy, flying at my throat and face or any part of my
body that presented itself. I shrieked for help, but the young men only