3. There is no occasion to be frightened lest we be overwhelmed by a rush of Chinese immigrants. The lapse of thirty years finds about 100,000 in the United States, and to-day they are going faster than they come; going, not because they are frightened, but for the very sensible reason that they can do better elsewhere. The supply has exceeded the demand. The wealthier Chinese find their impoverished countrymen thrown upon their charities, and they use every influence they can bring to bear to restrain others from coming. What if there are 400,000,000 of them just across the sea; they may as well stay there and starve, as to come 10,000 miles and do the same. If the recent bill had become a law, and had been executed, no others in all the land would have profited by it so much as the Chinese in California. 4. The anti-Chinese mania seems to neutralize, even in otherwise honorable men, all scruple about ascertaining the truth of statements before they make them, or even about repeating statements proven to be false. I brand it as a falsehood that the Chinese in this country are in any sense coolies. They are freemen. If they have borrowed money to come here, it has not been of the Six Companies; nor are the terms on which such loans are made in any wise different from those on which a New Englander might borrow in order to “go west.” I brand it as a falsehood that there is among them any _imperium in imperio_, defying our laws, and meting out to its victims punishment even unto death. The Six Companies are voluntary societies for mutual aid. Sometimes, instead of going to law, our Chinese agree to refer matters in dispute to the presidents of these companies as a board of arbitrators; but such arbitration is in principle and practice exactly that which American business men often resort to; exactly that which between Christians ought to be always a sufficient substitute for suits at law. Some years ago Chinese merchants were able to arrange with the steamship companies to sell no tickets to Chinamen unless they could show what has been incorrectly called a permit from one or the other of these companies. The object was to prevent men from leaving with their debts unpaid. In order to obtain one of these passes, a man must announce at the office of the company to which he belongs his intention of returning to China, and thus give his creditors, if he have any, an opportunity to protest. The result is, I suppose, that the glorious Anglo-Saxon liberty of running away from unpaid bills is, for them, somewhat curtailed. But our Congregational Association of Christian Chinese has the same authority to issue passes that the Six Companies have, and its passes are equally respected. And for years no Christian Chinaman has recognized any obligation to either of these companies in any way. I go into detail on this point, because much has been made of it, as an out-cropping of that _imperium in imperio_ of which so much has been said.