Odd, Old News: ‘Kill the Serpent in the Egg.’

[Photo from the Humboldt State University Library, Special Collections, Humboldt Room, Undated]

Chinatown in Eureka in the 1870’s was situated between E and F and Fourth and Fifth streets. A ghetto of mere huts made of rough lumber, it stood over a filthy swamp that was likened to a cesspool. To the Euro-American eye all manners of vices were practiced there as we shall see in a future Odd Old News post, but until those vices were taken up by whites, little attention was drawn to Chinatown at this time.

The Chinese supplied a cheap labor force for large road construction projects in the county, and many were happy to use them in their homes as menial laborers. Ever present in American History, racial prejudice, in this case against the Chinese, was widespread and virulent, culminating in the first expulsion of the Chinese from Eureka in 1886 after the accidental fatal shooting of a Eureka citizen. Perusing the newspapers of the early 1870’s and ‘80’s one can see the racial animus heating up.

Today’s article gives a window into how the Chinese were viewed in that time, and offers what is perhaps the first warning against drug use in the Humboldt County history.

CAUCASSION FALLING VICTIM TO HEATHEN PRACTICE
Evening Standard
December 17, 1877

It may not be generally understood, but it is true that there are in Eureka two opium smoking dens where white persons are supplied with this deadly and fascinating drug, and all the facilities used for smoking it. This practice has existed amongst the Chinese ever since people came here. This fact never attracted much attention because whatever practices they may engage in seldom disturbs anyone. They are exclusive and but little is known of their practices, and no one concerns himself about their vices. If the practice of opium smoking were confined to the Chinese, this article would not be written; but it is not. White people are adopting the practice and white boys occasionally enter these dens; at first from motives of curiosity, and as lookers on merely.

After a time they are induced to try a pipe, and anyone knows with what great avidity Americans seize on any foreign vice, will not need to be told that there is danger in the very existence of these dens in an American city. We learned tobacco smoking from the Indians. We learned absynthe drinking and some other things, which decency forbids the mention of, from the French. Now we are catching the infection of opium smoking from the Chinese.

With thus much premised, we will now be a little more specific. Last night three women, accompanied by a son of respectable citizen of this place, went to China Mary’s for the purpose of smoking opium in this Chinese den. It was easy to imagine what the concomitants must have been. This instance is not singular. There is another place near China Mary’s house, where there is a room fitted up with opium benches, pipes, lamps and all the other means for indulging in the detestable habit. To these two places white people resort continually. There are some persons in town who have some of the first marks of the opium vice plainly stamped on their faces. There will be more unless the evil is corrected, and the remedy cannot be applied too soon.

In San Francisco the vice has become so prevalent that the authorities have found it necessary to enact laws prohibiting the keeping of these opium dens. Laws will not stop the practice, however, when it is once formed. Two things with reference to opium are well established: One is, that a Caucassian brain cannot endure the drug in any form. Another is, that the habit of using it is one which it is almost impossible to shake off when once contracted. To such an extent has the practice become prevalent in San Francisco that some very respectable people have been compelled to put their sons and daughters under actual physical restraint. It is perhaps possible to stop this evil in the beginning, if action is promptly taken in the matter.

The press of the city might do something if it were possible to obtain the names of the persons who frequent these places; but that is very difficult if not impossible. The better plan would be for the authorities to declare opium dens a nuisance, as they have done in San Francisco, and denounce penalties against all who maintain or frequent them. They should be reached in some way. Kill the serpent in the egg.