poor on the street, dressed in their Oriental costumes, looking like
tiny yellow flowers, as they pick their way daintily along the walk,
or are carried in the arms of the happy father--never the mother. If
you would make the father smile, show an interest in the boy he is
carrying so proudly.

To gamble is a Chinaman's second nature. Games of fan-tan and pie-gow
are constantly in operation; and the police either tolerate or are
powerless to stop them. Tong wars are of frequent occurrence, crime
and its punishment being so mixed up that an outsider cannot unravel
them. The San Francisco police have struggled with the question, but
have finally left the Chinese to settle their own affairs after their
own fashion. Opium dens flourish as a matter of course, for opium and
Chinese are synonymous words. You can tell an opium fiend as far as
you can see him; his face looks like wet parchment stretched over a
skull and dried, making a truly gruesome sight. Every ship that comes
into the bay from the Orient is searched for opium, and quantities of
it are found hidden away under the planking, or in other places less
likely to be detected by the sharp-eyed officials. When found it is
at once confiscated.

[Illustration: IN CHINATOWN]

The Chinese are an extremely superstitious people, and it is very
difficult to get a photograph of them, for they flee from the camera
man as from the wrath to come. When you think you are about to get a
good picture, and are ready to press the button, he either covers his
face, or turns his back to you. The writer was congratulating himself
on the picture he was about to take of four Chinese women in their
native costumes, and was just going to make the exposure, when four