than
what a bad dream is to hopeless insanity. See the hundred forms on opium
pillows already under the Circean spell; swarms are without the chambers
awaiting their turn to enter and enjoy the fictitious delights of this
paradise.

While the opium habit is one that should be treated at once with wisdom
and severity, there is another point which seriously involves the
Chinese question, and, unhappily, it must be handled with gloves.
Nineteen-twentieths of the Chinese women in San Francisco are depraved!

Not far from one of the pleasure-houses we intruded upon a domestic
hearth smelling of punk and pestilence. A child fled with a shrill
scream at our approach. This was the hospital of the quarter. Nine cases
of small-pox were once found within its narrow walls, and with no one to
care for them. As we explored its cramped wards our path was obstructed
by a body stretched upon a bench. The face was of that peculiar
smoke-color which we are obliged to accept as Chinese pallor; the trunk
was swathed like a mummy in folds of filthy rags; it was motionless as
stone, apparently insensible. Thus did an opium victim await his
dissolution.

In the next room a rough deal burial case stood upon two stools; tapers
were flickering upon the floor; the fumes of burning punk freighted the
air and clouded the vision; the place was clean enough, for it was
perfectly bare, but it was eminently uninteresting. Close at hand stood
a second burial case, an empty one, with the cover standing against the
wall; a few hours more and it would find a tenant--he who was dying in
rags and filth in the room adjoining. This was the native hospital of
the quarter, and the mother of the child was the matron of the
establishment.

I will cast but one more shadow on the coolie quarter, and then we will
search for sunshine. It is folly to attempt to ignore the fact that the
seeds of leprosy are sown among the Chinese. If you would have proof,
follow me. It is a dreary drive over the hills to the pest-house.
Imagine that we have dropped in upon the health officer at his city
office. Our proposed visitation has been telephoned to the resident
physician, who is a kind of prisoner with his leprous patients on the
lonesome slope of a suburban hill. As we get into the rugged edge of the
city, among half-graded streets, strips of marshland, and a semi-rustic
population, we ask our way to the pest-house. Yonder it lies, surrounded
by that high white fence on t