LURE OF THE YELLOW MAN

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXXII, Issue 4216, 17 January 1921, Page 1

LURE OF THE YELLOW MAN

A VISIT TO LONDON'S CHINATOWN. (By W. A. Mutch). I havj been back to Chinatown." I have wandered again through Penny-fields and Limehouse Causeway and. all the maze of filthy streets around them in which is evidence of the lure of the yellow man. And I-am sick with nausea. In the morning I visited the Thames Police Court. Let me give you two portraits from Chinatown:— I.—Two fashionably-dressed girls appear charged with soliciting. Three or four days ago they were brought up and remanded on good conduct for a month. Within a week they are arrested on the same charge—victims of t-he lure of the yellow man. . 2.—A full-blooded negro, evidently in great anxiety of mind. He speaks broken English, and is with difficulty understood. Finally it appears he has lost "Flossie." Who she is he does not know, nor can he give her any other name. Only he tells the magistrate that "Flossie" has deserted him. I hear a spectator give th© key to the mystery in undertones: 'Flo live with him! No d fear. .She's got a Chinese with' dough." HALF-CASTE BABIES. The afternoon J spent on Commercial Road, East, the fashionable parade of Chinatown. Now three portraits :— I.—A group of seven girls, til from 18 to 20 years of age, and all well dre§sed. Three of the girls are English, one English-Chinese, one ■ English-negro, and two negroes. The centre of attraction is an English-Chinese bafcy belonging to one of the English girls. 2.—A sudden uproar in the street. Two half-castes have flown at each other*s throats. An English girl stands beside them, waiting to claim the victor. A member of X Division comes along and hales both -„the combatants off to prison. ; 3.—Two old women, bent and wrinkled with age, dressed in rags. They crept along, pitiable objects of humanity. These were the favourites of only a few years ago. Women age quickly in Chinatown. The evening in Pennyfields :— # I.—l enter a Chinese cafe. A desolation of bare boards and filthy walls, a sickening atmosphere. The place is crowded with the scum of humanity. I can find a seat only at a table where two girls are already: In spite of my sailorasliore make-up I am obviously unwelcome unless I can find a pal. I stand the»n a drink. They are somewhat mollified, but, "clearly, I must go. 2.—Outside I am accosted every few yards My girls of every hue and colour. There is no subtlety about their busi- j ness. An oath of contempt is fiung in my ear as I pass on. 3.—Chinese are flitting past me like shadows on the walls. They move noiselessly in great numbers. The air seems--' infected with their presence. Presently [ see them one by one vanish ifi a narrow doorway. I follow, but a big Chinese appears and looks at me with cynical eyes. I halt, and turn away in confusion.

THE DEVILISH SPELL. The terrible thing is that English girls in hundreds come under this devilish Rpell. And once a girl becomes a victim to the Chinese she is doomed to remain so. For the lure of the yellow man there is no antidote. Chinatown is a country from which there is no turning back. Every night English girls are lost within its toils. It is not only that their bodies are befouled. Their brains are benumbed of all moral sense. By land and sea, in every corner of the world, English dead have built around the name of England qualities, of courage, cleanness and high endeavour. We have learned the truth of what the poet sang:— There's never a flood goes shoreward now * . Bat lifts a keel we've manner; There's never an ebb goes seaward now But drops our dead on the sand. The dust of the English lies on countless fields of war. Chinatown is an ill monument to the memory of those who died.