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ilt them, had run out their own balconies and entrances, and had given the quarter that feeling of huddled irregularity which makes all Chinese built dwellings fall naturally into pictures. Not only this; they had burrowed to a depth of a story or two under the ground, and through this ran passages in which the Chinese transacted their dark and devious affairs--as the smuggling of opium, the traffic in slave girls and the settlement of their difficulties. In the last five years there was less of this underground life than formerly, for the Board of Health had a cleanup some time ago; but it was still possible to go from one end of Chinatown to the other through secret underground passages. The tourist, who always included Chinatown in his itinerary, saw little of the real quarter. The guides gave him a show by actors hired for his benefit. In reality the place amounted to a great deal in a financial way. There were clothing and cigar factories of importance, and much of the Pacific rice, tea and silk importing was in the hands of the merchants, who numbered several millionaires. Mainly, however, it was a Tenderloin for the house servants of the city--for the San Francisco Chinaman was seldom a laundryman; he was too much in demand at fancy prices as a servant. The Chinese lived their own lives in their own way and settled their own quarrels with the revolvers of their highbinders. There were two theatres in the quarter, a number of rich joss houses, three newspapers and a Chinese telephone exchange. There is a race feeling against the Chinese among the working people of San Francisco, and no white man, except the very lowest outcasts, lived in the quarter. On the slopes of Telegraph Hill dwelt the Mexicans and Spanish, in low houses, which they had transformed by balconies into a semblance of Spain. Above, and streaming over the hill, were the Italians. The tenement quarter of San Francisco shone by contrast with those of Chicago and New York, for while these people lived in old and humble houses they had room to breathe and an eminence for light and air. Their shanties clung to the side of the hill or hung on the very edge of the precipice overlooking the bay, on the verge of which a wall kept their babies from falling. The effect was picturesque, and this hill was the delight of painters. It was all more like Italy than anything in the Italian quarter of New York and Chicago--the very climate and surroundings, th
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