But without them how would these great works get done? Later on I intend describing some of the undertakings in progress in the State. Delay in them--still worse, the stoppage of them--would be a calamity indeed. After all, the Chinamen work for about eighty or ninety cents a day, and out of this sum the contractor has to find them food. The food, save the rice, is purchased in the State; the material of the clothes they wear is manufactured and sold in the United States; the tools they work with also. So that it is only the profit on their labor's price which goes to China; and some of that goes to pay their passage in the ships which transport them to and fro. And their labor remains--its results felt by every passenger and freighter on the railroads, and every Oregonian directly or indirectly interested in increasing the population of the State. Naturally, it is easy to have too much Chinaman. I should grieve to see them multiply so as to dominate the State. Excellent servants, but bad masters. And by all means let us have treaties with China to enable the influx of these Mongolians to be regulated. Already we have laws forbidding the employment of Chinamen on government or municipal public works. And I do not see that there is any economy in the working or superiority in the labors on such undertakings. For household service on this coast they are simply indispensable. They receive high wages: for a good Chinese cook you must pay from fifteen to twenty-five dollars a month. A laundryman and house-servant can be had for somewhat less. But our experience and observation lead us to the knowledge that two Chinese servants will do well the work of four English servants. Another thing is that, having learned to cook any special dish, you may be sure of having it always thereafter equally good. If they are a bother sometimes by not comprehending orders, they make up for it by quaint ways. An English neighbor of ours has one Chee, a boy of sixteen, as house-servant, and a very good cook and general servant she has made of him. Chee and his mistress are on the best of terms usually; sometimes they fall out. [Sidenote: "_HEAP DEBBLE-Y IN THERE!_"] The mistress was staying with us for a few days once, while her husband was out hunting in the hills, and she preferred sleeping in her own house. This Chee strongly disapproved, as it involved his going up to make the bed and clean the house, instead of having high-jinks in the China house down in the town. When his mistress went into the house, Chee pointed into her bedroom, and in a mysterious voice warned her thus: "Heap debble-y in there. Some time I make bed, I see four, fi' debble-y go under bed. Some time come catch you in night!"