was the
law, and I must be vaccinated anyhow. The doctor would never let me
pass, for the law obliged him to vaccinate all Chinamen and charge them
ten dollars apiece for it, and I might be sure that no doctor who would
be the servant of that law would let a fee slip through his fingers to
accommodate any absurd fool who had seen fit to have the disease in some
other country. And presently the doctor came and did his work and took
my last penny--my ten dollars which were the hard savings of nearly a
year and a half of labour and privation. Ah, if the law-makers had
only known there were plenty of doctors in the city glad of a chance
to vaccinate people for a dollar or two, they would never have put the
price up so high against a poor friendless Irish, or Italian, or Chinese
pauper fleeing to the good land to escape hunger and hard times.

AH SONG HI.

LETTER IV

SAN FRANCISCO, 18--.

DEAR CHING-FOO: I have been here about a month now, and am learning a
little of the language every day. My employer was disappointed in the
matter of hiring us out to service to the plantations in the far eastern
portion of this continent. His enterprise was a failure, and so he set
us all free, merely taking measures to secure to himself the repayment
of the passage money which he paid for us. We are to make this good to
him out of the first moneys we earn here. He says it is sixty dollars
apiece.

We were thus set free about two weeks after we reached here. We had been
massed together in some small houses up to that time, waiting. I walked
forth to seek my fortune. I was to begin life a stranger in a strange
land, without a friend, or a penny, or any clothes but those I had on my
back. I had not any advantage on my side in the world--not one, except
good health and the lack of any necessity to waste any time or anxiety
on the watching of my baggage. No, I forget. I reflected that I had one
prodigious advantage over paupers in other lands--I was in America! I
was in the heaven-provided refuge of the oppressed and the forsaken!

Just as that comforting thought passed through my mind, some young men
set a fierce dog on me. I tried to defend myself, but could do nothing.
I retreated to the recess of a closed doorway, and there the dog had me
at his mercy, flying at my throat and face or any part of my body that
presented itself