LIVERPOOL’S “YELLOW PERIL.”

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XV, Issue 887, 7 March 1907, Page 21

LIVERPOOL’S “YELLOW PERIL.”

The sudden agitation against the Chinese resident in Liverpool was primarily caused by the decision of the emigration authorities in London to allow about thirty Chinamen to be sent to Liverpool. There are stated to be about 500 Chinese subjects in the city, though the official figures do not exceed 240. The Chinese work chiefly in laundries, of which there are fifty in various parts of the town, and they have succeeded in throwing a good many of the useful laundry hands out of employment. A little colony has in the last two years sprung up in Pitt-street, Cleveland Square, and Frederick-street — and old and decayed neighbourhood round the Customhouse and Sailor •’ Home. Here there are many Chinese shops and lodging-houses, which are particularly clean in appearance, and often gaudily painted with native lettering and ornamentation. Local tradesmen speak well of these aliens. They say that they are honest, and always pay for what they order, and are quiet and orderly in their habits.

Some Chinese men have married English women, in which cases the homes are well kept, and the children sent to the local schools. Charges of gambling and opium-smoking are made against the Chinese. These are true, but the habits are looked upon as a recreation, and are strictly kept in a limited area. Their excuse is that they cannot read English papers, and that therefore they must have their own amusements. Interference with these pursuits in the last few weeks

they have naturally resented in a very determined manner, roughly handling local pressmen and any suspicious inquirer, There are opium-smoking “dens” behind many of these old shops where Chinamen smoke all day. Most of them are dirty, and have little daylight. Gambling with dice is a very common thing here, but what squalor there is does not appear nearly so bad as that to be seen in the “slum” life of Liverpool. The Seamen’s Club is specially fitted up as an “opium-room,” with sofas, cushions, and barbaric decoration on native wood-work. In front of these settees are ranged trays to hold the pipes, lamps, and little rods for lighting the opium. So notorious has “Chinatown” (with a resident population of fifty-eight) become, that the City Council, after a debate, has appointed a commissioner to inquire into the moral and industrial condition of the Chinese in Liverpool. The commission will have to satisfy the public on many points which are probably exaggerated. At present Liverpool seems convinced that it has a Yellow Peril of gigantic dimensions.