SUN YAT SEN AND THE CHINESE REPUBLIC
be had at any price on the gold side of the American Continent, and Europe was too far away to supply this need in those early days of slow Atlantic and transcontinental travel. Therefore, in the dilemma, the American miners turned to China.
"Bring us over the Chinese at any price!" was their cry, with the result that, in short order, Chinese were being shanghaied, or otherwise brought to California by inducements little short of kidnapping. But, once in California, these Chinese received such fabulous wages that they were well satisfied with the fate that at first had seemed so cruel.
Then these emigrants—with their hoards of virgin gold nuggets, of five-, ten-, and twenty-dollar gold pieces, gold grains in leather pouches, such as had never before been seen in or about the Harbor of the Golden Star or Choy Hung—commenced to return to their homes.
"I met one of these when I was still very young," said the Reformer. "I stood in the door of the tea-house while he told the tale of his wanderings; of the great sea he had traversed for days and days, and then a fair land with mountains and water the same as in China, but with gold, oh, so much gold! But there were men—called men of red—and highwaymen; and they
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