| Last week we gave our readers a sketch of North Adams, where the Chinese shoemakers have settled down, and of the general work-room where they are employed. This week we continue the series, with illustrations that give some insight into the life and ways of this peculiar class of immigrants. |
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| The first illustration is the portrait of Ah Sing, the foreman of the band, who is considered one of the most intelligent Chinamen in America. He has lived some time in this country, chiefly in San Francisco, where he attended an evening school, and learned to speak and read and write English with considerable fluency and correctness. He is a smart, wide-awake specimen of a Chinaman, and exhibits no little tact in the management of his countrymen in their new situation. |
| The Chinese have their own culinary department, as they would find it impossible to adapt themselves to the style of cookery prevalent in most New England towns, which must be acknowledged to be almost as barbarous as their own. They also have a general sleeping apartment, fitted up with bunks very much in the manner of the steerage of an emigrant ship. — These are kept in the neatest order and scrupulously clean. As yet, the Chinese associate but little among the towns-people; though they are not molested in any way, and have their own playground for exercise and recreation. Their quiet behavior and steady application to work have done much to conciliate their neighbors, who begin to feel that even the Chinese in this country, when they behave themselves and attend to their own business, have rights which all are bound to respect. |
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