North Carolina Standard

The Chinese In San Francisco.

The success which has attended the labors of the industrious Chinese in California, as indicated by the return of some of them with their golden acquisitions, has given quite an impetus to the feeling of emigration from the fatherland. We learn from the Alta California that the movement is spreading all along the Chinese seaboard, and as a consequence that nearly all the vessels that are up in the Chinese ports for California are intended to convey passengers.

Through their chief and agent, the Chinese in California have obtained possession of a large tract of land which they have commenced cultivating; they are settling it rapidly. They are said to be among the most industrious, quiet and patient people in the whole population. "Perhaps the citizens of no nation," says the Californian, " except the Germans, are more quiet and valuable." Many letters it is added, pass to and fro between China and California, and at each departure of ships for the Celestial Empire great numbers of California papers are sent to friends beyond the Pacific.

It is gratifying to be further told that the Chinese in California, instead of adhering tenaciously to the customs and usages of their own country, show a great facility in adopting our national characteristics in place of their own. They adapt themselves to our laws and manifest a preference for our institutions by applying for citizenship according to our laws. In dress, too, they are becoming Americanized. The wooden shoes give way to leather ones; the long queue is disappearing; the wide and full nankeens are found to be not so convenient as the more closely fitting American garment. They are also adopting the American hat—whether with any improvement or not in costume we do not know.

These particulars are strongly significant of the future destiny of California and our whole Pacific coast. We took occasion some time ago to refer to the analogy which our relations with Europe, already established by steady immigration on our Atlantic seaboard, must soon hold with the relations which by a similar process are likely to grow up between our Western territory and the old nations of the East. It seems that this latter process is rapidly making itself familiar; and with that activity in view which quickens the growth of all things in the golden soil of California, we may expect to see a wonderful advance in the multiplication of Oriental immigrants in that attractive region. It may not be far in the future when a son of the Celestial Empire, converted into an American citizen, may take his seat in the Congress of the Republic.

Baltimore American.