The Hidden Cruelty of Early Seattle

If the advocates of Chinese cheap labor, and the admirers of the national characteristics of that peculiar people, would make a tour of Chinatown in this city, they would see sights that would open their eyes, and possibly change their opinions on the enormity of the evil that curses our city. At the invitation of Superintendent Woolsey, a representative of the Times took a hurried stroll through two or three alleys, between Commercial and Pandora streets, in the rear of the old Chinese theater. The cabins are known as Kwong Tin’s, and for absolute and positive degradation, filth and all uncleanliness, they exceed anything that was ever witnessed before. In one low hovel, under a pile of dirty clothing, lay a wretched Mongolian, whose feet were entirely eaten away by leprosy. The Superintendent pulled the clothing aside and exhibited the victim's shrivelled limbs, terminating at the ankles, and slowly, but surely, drying up and falling away day by day. The abject misery of the poor helpless wretch, depending as he is on the cold charity of others, only a little better situated than himself, is appalling to the witness. The visitor turned away sickened and disgusted, and with a feeling of commiseration for the miserable being who silently counts the months or weeks that will pass before the terrible disease has finished its work. The poverty of the occupants of these cabins simply compels the belief there is no lower stage to which they can descend. In view of these circumstances it is not surprising that robberies are of frequent occurrence. The law that permitted the companies directly responsible for the importation of this coolie element, have much to answer for, and when the unalterable misery caused by the greed and avarice of the monopolist, white and yellow, becomes unbearable to a larger number of their victims than at present, our city and provincial authorities will have a question to deal with that will tax their ingenuity to the utmost.