The Great Exodus: Aberdeen’s Chinese Community Vanishes in the Night

The citizens of Aberdeen woke last Saturday morning to find that in the silent watches of the night John Wing had winged his flight to other and more congenial climes, taking with him the entire flock of yellow birds. The exodus was complete, and there is not now a queue left to tell the tale. It is said that Wing tried to set fire to his old shack where he had a laundry, nailed up the doors, put the Chinese sign of the Evil One on the outside, and in his haste left much dirty linen behind.

Ed. Herald: —"I bowed my head and wept for the sins of my people This was when I had finished reading the Montesano telegram to the Post-Intelligencer, in regard to the Chinese exodus from Aberdeen. It has been said that "hatred is the offspring of envy and the offspring of hatred is lies." If that communication is not a grandchild of envy, it still resembles it so closely as to defy detection and yet it contained one assertion which I fear is too true; that is that during the entire flight into exile neither food nor water was offered to them.

Think of it, ye gods! Twelve long, long miles over the raging waters of the stormy Chehalis, with nothing between them and its cold, uninviting depths but the deck of the Wishkah Chief; and nothing to break the midnight gloom of their surroundings but the flickering lights of the steamer, and the twinkling of the pitying stars; and to add to their misery, not one morsel of food or one drop of water. We all know that this journey could not have been made in less than two full hours. Again I say, think of it Was ever such cruelty? It outzars the Czar. And, methinks, might have called from the eyes of the very devil tears sufficient to have quenched the fires of Hades. Poor 'John, oh! poor John! Words fail me, yet surely he must congratulate himself in having escaped from a people so cruel.