John Chinaman is a stranger and a waif in the great city, but he has managed to establish a distinct quarter in Clark street. In other portions of the city are Chinese laundries, where the almond-eyed Celestials conduct their business of washing and ironing; but here are the headquarters of the Mongolians, their gaming and opium dens. Though peaceable as a rule, they are sometimes troublesome, and the police find them hard customers to handle. They are inveterate gamblers, and one of their chief dissipations consists in stupifying themselves by smoking opium. The opium dens are simply dirty rooms provided with wooden bunks, and sometimes beds, in which the smokers may lie and sleep off the effects of the terrible drug. Many of these places are patronized by white people, and some number women of the lower class among their customers. Half nude men and women of all nationalities and colors are sometimes found lying in heaps in a single room. These cases are rare, however, as the authorities are watchful for this class of law-breakers. The Pawnbrokers The stranger passing along Clark street is struck with the number of quiet, dingy looking shops over which are suspended the old sign of the Lombards—three gilt ball signs; all of the latter more or less dingy, may be seen in many other quarters of the city, but they are nowhere so numerous as in the street we have mentioned. These pawnbrokers’ shops, and, as a rule, the proprietors, are leeches—sucking the life blood of the poor, and grow rich upon their miseries. Of course, in all large cities there must of necessity be a great aggregation of poverty and misery. To the poor, the pawnbroker is a necessity. They must have some place to which they can repair at once and, by pledging such articles as they possess, raise the pittance they so sorely need. Municipal legislators the world over recognize this necessity, and endeavor to throw such safeguards around the business of pawnbroking that the poor shall not be entirely at the mercy of the brokers. The great state of Illinois has in the last few years passed a state pawners law which has given to thousands of the poor low rates of interest.