THE YELLOW YAHOO.

NZ Truth, Issue 80, 29 December 1906, Page 1

THE YELLOW YAHOO.

Unauestioftably _ftew Zealand has a terrible incubufe upon it m the shape of the horrible yellow man from far Cathay, and the hateful creature seems to have come tb stay. Whereever he goes, ; ih whatever trade he engages he is a curse, an undercutter, a wage reducer and a terrible menace both to molality' and race-purity. He has no moral code and he looks upon "white devils" as his legitimate prey. He is the foulest, filthiest heast on earth, .dirtier tMn the. animal the name of which we wronely use as the synonym for dirt— the pig-^-which is not a dirty animal at all, but one that is remarkably attentive to cleanliness, alwaiys keeping the bulk of its sty scrupulously free from dirt, wnile its very wallowing m mud-holes ie really done with a view to ,. clean'sihg its hide of parasites. The -Ghow takes nb such trouble. He love's squalor and revels m filth and : stehch, while his habits are worsen than thb&e of street monprels. There . is no limit to his indulgencje^knd being without any sense of^feame he does thmg£ openly (amonjgvhis compatriots) that the most depraved white, if he does similar . things, .does secretly, arid Would "sooner die than f^Ce exposure. Any surgieon who .fca;s served m hospitals m China will tell : of the librrors of sex perversion "-aaid. its results; ; the thousands, v of; young Chinamen and lads who go to the "white devil doctor" for relief from • -theft horP jto;e^t«/J*df^'fio^u*i^l indulgence, and neither victim nor perpetrator exhibit the slightest sign of. shame. Tn sanitary matters the Ohow is simply unspeakahle and wherever . he' plants his loathsome coloay there ensueth filth, delapidation, degradation and debauchery. He contaminates whole neighborhoods, for his abandonment to everything that he fpels he likes to do, his absolute disregard of the amenities, and his intense selfishness, rapidly sap tho better principles of the surrounding whites and ( thev soon fall into line, while their children grow uo m a moral atmosphere that entirely .saturates them so that their men-tali tv rare!**"- if ever, attains a vjjigher planp than that ol the yellow " .lagans itim <mi,x with.

Tv In Wellington the -Chinaman is* .'.particularly objectionable. Usually „;the foul thing gets the credit of bei-rag

•.bland, amiable and civil to servility. There's nothing bland or .servile about the Wellington Chow.

; Pn the contrary' he is an insolent, •truculent ruffian, and as ready with .obscenely brutal language as the

•toughest, marine fireman who ever £ame ashore to get drunk and a, hiding. Even m his mode of serving but the purchases he is dirty. A dainty, white-handed girl m a. lolly shop takejg a scoop to place the sweets on the scale. The leprous, unclean, microbes-nursery of a Chow hooks them up m his scaly, yellow claws. He rings rotten fruit upon the purchase and if the latter insists upon examining the goods, and rejects the decayed rubbish that he inevitably finds has been worked off on him, the yellow ape becomes abusive, and as often as not, refuses to serve at all— so arrogantly independent has the beast become, owing

to his almost entire monopoly of the fruit trade. He is a thief first, last

and always, and has as many tricks as a pack of, cards. Not satisfied With the rotten fruit act, the creature is addicted to such a dirty fraud as filling a" box writh cabbage

leaves, , laying a layer of strawberries over all and selling the sham to his sap-headed customers as a box of strawberries for a shilling. This happened no . longer ago than last

Friday week, when a man, seeing such Lories ticketed one shilling, m a Chow's fruiterv at Cuba and Ingestre

streets, thought vhe would give his '••> little daughters a treat and i.-ouffht one. There were just a dozen fruit m all, the rest was stale cabbage leaves made to look, even If the buyer had examined the fruit, as if it was only a leaf laid between layers of berries. So those strawberries worked out at a penny - apiece. Tt is nuts to these yellow thieves to. so defraud the hated whites. If a man with "a iew m" goes to make a purchase, the nutrid parran will playfully charge him half-a-crown for a shilling box of strawterries and he's very lucky if he dpftfi not ret a left-over box of rottenness, faked as to the lop layer, or one of the cabbage leaf variety. **' * . The menace these lacivious, unprincipled, insanitary brutes are to

our growing girlhood is too patent to be denied, and the mother who sands her little lass to the Chow shop to buy vegetables^ does so at the risk of her physical and moral safety, of. her body and soul. No female child is ever allowed to leave the shop without an oily grin and a "lillee plesent" m the shape of a banana, an apple or « an . orange. Next time she is told . "You welly ni lillee girl. You come anytime you likkee, me givee you plesent." And m nine cases out of ten the poor kid, . who ' probably never has a Chance to get fruit otherwise, does go back when she is not on an errand and is beguiled into the back room.. God help . her then !. The thought is horrible, repugnant, but it is there, i No use to blink the truth. The children of the poor— and riot only the poor either, but -those of fairly well-to-do people, who arc sent to these hellish, traps to purchase for mother, have their little feet set on the road to Hell, and don't you forget it, mothers of Wellington. The rnbst casual passer-by •can. see. tihis afct being nerformed, any d^y -in t^e' week,. especially where the 6h'o^; shop -is m the poorer quarters of;, tie tiown. . Can note the flushed chefek_ai_Ld Sparkling eye of the ten or twelve .year-old girl -as she listens to what < the leering satyr is whispering to her. .Caii ; . see the . little hand | stretched out for the paltry, bribe ; ! aye; J can>ev^'wal^ MSsfepVt^^^^ cesses of the shop, or come hastily out, flushed and nervous. All this lean he seen from the street, if you are watchful or happen along at the right moment. Girls of nine or ten may ,be. heard bfazenlv asking a grinning chinky : *.*Got any speckys, John ?" "Speckys" being armies that have begun to decay These have "heen there before," and,, the lost little ones are merely demandtofr their pay m advance. Are you listening mothers of a Grand White Race ? Do you set any value om your child's purity, on her soul, on her dear, soft, white body that you brought- into th<_ world m sore travail ? If you dn. don't send, her shopping at the Chow's.

There are. other things that go to make the Chinaman a dancer to the community. Not only are his fruit'» and vegetables a menace to health from the fact that they lie m foully insanitary, close, and smelly environments; but the way he packs his narrow back ' premises, m the most crowded centres and among valuable buildings, with inflammable material is a danger.These places are always piled fcigh with empty fruit oases and all sorts of inflammable rubbish that a carelessly dropped match or a wind-driv-en spark would instantaneously transform into a raginr bonfire. That this sort of thing is, allowed ,to exist is a disgrace to -'the civic authorities. Only the other day the inspector of nuisances and things was to be seen' hectoring a r^sP'-oVible European draper and ordering him peremptorily to remove some rolls of cloth that, standing on the window ledge m a not crowded part of Cuba-street, he considered were obstructing the traffic. Yet just next door was a real job for Mr Inspec--tor j that badly wanted doing. The next shop is a Chow fruiter- and the yard of it is a pile, a jumble, a wilderness, a jungle of empty cases and unrecognisable rubbish. The stench of it is terrible and it and the flies attracted hy it enter and pollute every house m its blastiferous . neighborhood. A big. private hotel that this fearsome yard abuts on, cannot have the windows on that side, opened by reason of the stink and flies. But no Inspector bothers John Chinaman. Ii a white trader allowed such a state of affairs to exist he would be pursued under the Building Act, by the . Superintendent of the Fire Brigade and by the Sanitary Inspector ; even if he escaped being arraigned for sedition and high treason. What good reason can anyone give for the immunity of the yellow man from the penalties of the law ? Our matristracy seem in&bued with the idea that John is a poor, gentle, long-sufferinr* harmless creature that needs tender protection. If a Chow is convicted of an offence he is not punished with a third of what would be dea.lt out to a similarly offending white man ; while if he Proceeds agaiinst a European for assault, say. the Word of accuser and One of his born-liar countrymen, to whom perjury is .a mem* ipst. wii] be taken against that of half-a-dozen white witnesses, and conviction is

almost assured. "These poor, inoffensive Chinese must be protected" pompously puffs the Bench, and he proceeds to heavily fine the defendant. A case m ,p.oint occurred io Greymouth quite recently. > Two ; #ere walking on thigv fpotpath, -liyheji a Chow, ;6n his Wi ong side,'- delibjefaiely bumped one\ 6!f them .out of -his ivay. The white was a heavy man and he instantly humped back, sending the impudent, insolent thine; sprawling m the gutter. The Chow gave the man m charge,, and a rotten, shameless, unpatriotic purblind, wicked Bench actually fined the poor devil, witix costs, ten guineas, with the option of two or thre© months' gaol, "The hard-wor-kina:. honest, inoffensive Chinaman must he protected," aye, at the cost of the honest, hard-working white man to whom the country belongs and to which country he is of value as a producer and spender. The alien gets the best of.it all the time. _

Well, to a greaV extent the workers bring it upon themselves, by enabling the yellow curse to live and compete with the white trader. Not only do our women patronise the Chows for their greens and grubby fruit, but their husbands— who . might be suspected of. having enough brains- to know better and tb • recognise the danger to themselves, as workers, from the influx of the alien horded follow suit. Every day, bi r stronp. well-dressed- artisans can be seen buying their tobacco ami cigarettes from the Chows, keeping ■ them busy and their tills full while the white tobacconist next door stands idle and can rf.oarcely pay his rent. And why do these despicable : traitors to, their race "and country do this ?> Why, for the paltry bribe of a box of matches thrown m with a ulu? of tobacco ! Shame on ye, men of Wellington, shaane !