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 went by gave him a steady stare as long as their heads would twist over their shoulders without danger of 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 fellowbeing 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
