One night, of course, I spent several hours in the Chinese quarter, and I cannot tell why, but I took a great fancy to the Celestial, as he is to be seen in San Francisco. Politically, nationally, and commercially, I hate Pekin and all its works. But individually I find the Chinaman, all the world over, a quiet-mannered, cleanly-living, hard-working servant. And in all parts of the world, except California, my estimate of Johnnie is the universal one. In California, however, so the extra-white people say, he is a dangerous, dirty, demoralizing heathen. And there is no doubt of it that, in the Chinese quarter of the city, he is crowded into a space that would be perilous to the health of men accustomed to space and ventilation, but I was told by a Chinaman that he and his people had been prevented by the city authorities from expanding into more commodious lodgings. As for cleanliness, I have travelled too much to forget that this virtue is largely a question of geography, and that, especially in matters of food, the habits of Europeans are considered by half the world so foul as to bring them within the contempt of a hemisphere. As regards personal cleanliness, the Chinese are rather scrupulous. But I wonder San Francisco does not build a Chinatown, somewhere in the breezy suburbs, and lay a tramway to it for the use of the Chinamen, and then insist upon its sanitary regulations being properly observed. San Francisco would be rather surprised at the result. For the settlements of the Chinese are very neat and cleanly in appearance, and the people are very fond of curious gardening and house-ornamentation. The Chinese themselves would be only too glad to get out of the centre of San Francisco and the quarters into which they are at present compelled to crowd, while their new habitations would very soon be one of the most attractive sights of all the city. As it is, it is picturesque, but it is of necessity dirty--after the fashion of Asiatic dirtiness. Smells that seem intolerable assail the visitor perpetually, but after all they were better than the smell from an eating-house in Kearney Street which we passed soon after, and where creatures of Jewish and Christian persuasions were having fish fried. I am not wishing to apologize for the Chinese. I hate China with a generous Christian vindictiveness, and think it a great pity that dismemberment has not been forced upon that empire long ago as a punishment for her massacres of Catholics, and her treason generally against the commerce and polity of Europe. But I cannot forget that California owes much to the Chinese.