Chinese women in the city, but nearly all the
Chinamen are married. They have a great fondness for Irish wives, and
nearly all have two, and some of them three wives apiece. Families of
this size are very expensive luxuries, and it takes all John's industry
to provide for them. A gentleman not long since asked one of these much
married individuals how he managed to keep his wives from fighting. He
was answered that they got along very peaceably together. Upon being
pressed, however, John admitted that they did fight sometimes.

"Then how do you manage them?"

"When he fightee," said John, dryly, "me turnee him out in the yardee.
Me lockee the door, and let him fightee out. He git tired soon, and me
let him in. Me--what you call him?--boss here."

The children by these queer unions seem to be healthy, and nearly all of
them speak Chinese in talking to their fathers, and their English has a
decided brogue. Many of the Chinese decorate their houses with the
letters they have received from home. These letters are curious
collections of hieroglyphics, some of which are executed in brilliant
colors.

There is a Chinese boarding house for sailors of that nationality in
Baxter street, kept by a Chinaman and his wife, who is also an Oriental.
These Chinese sailors are simply cooks or stewards of vessels arriving
here from China or California, and not able-bodied seamen. They do not
frequent the ordinary sailor's boarding houses, and are never seen in the
dance houses or hells of Water street. They pass their time on shore
quietly in their countryman's establishment, and some of them use this
season of leisure in trying to acquaint themselves with the English
language. All are opium smokers.

[Picture: CHINESE CANDY DEALER.]

The main room of the boarding house in Baxter street is fitted up with a
series of beds or berths, one above another, extending around it. At
almost any time one may find several Chinese lying in these berths
smoking opium. The opium pipe is a large piece of wood pierced down the
centre with a fine hole. The stem is very thick, and is about eighteen
inches long. The smoker has before him a box of soft gum opium and a
small lamp. He takes a little steel rod, picks off a small piece of
opium with it, holds it in the flame of the lamp for a few minutes, and
when it has become thoroughly ignited, places it in the bowl of his pipe
and puffs away, repeating the operatio