render of fugitive criminals, nor to entertain any requisition of that character from that Government under the treaty.

Government demands under its act of Parliament.

In addition to the impossibility of the It will be a cause of deep regret if a treaty United States entering upon negotiations which has been thus beneficial in its practi- under the menace of an intended violation cal operations, which has worked so well or a refusal to execute the terms of an exand so efficiently, and which, notwithstand-isting treaty, I deemed it unadvisable to treat ing the exciting and at times violent politi- of only the one amendment proposed by cal disturbances of which both countries Great Britain, while the United States dehave been the scene during its existence, sires an enlargement of the list of crimes for has given rise to no complaints on the part which extradition may be asked, and other of either Government against either its spirit improvements which experience has shown or its provisions, should be abruptly termi- might be embodied in a new treaty. nated.

It has tended to the protection of society and to the general interests of both countries, and its violation or annulment would be a retrograde step in international intercourse. I have been anxious and have made the effort to enlarge its scope and to make a new treaty which would be a still more efficient agent for the punishment and prevention of crime. At the same time I have felt it my duty to decline to entertain a proposition made by Great Britain, pending its refusal to execute the existing treaty, to amend it by practically conceding by treaty the identical conditions which that

It is for the wisdom of Congress to determine whether the article of the treaty relating to extradition is to be any longer regarded as obligatory upon the Government of the United States, or as forming part of the supreme law of the land Should the attitude of the British Government remain unchanged I shall not, without an expression of the wish of Congress that I should do so, take any action either in making or granting requisitions for the surrender of fugitive criminals under the treaty of 1842. Respectfully submitted. U. S. GRANT.

WASHINGTON, June 20, 1876.

REBELS ON INVESTIGATING COMMITTEES.

Since the Union was preserved by the Republican party, and the national credit has advanced under Republican influence until it has become as stable as the Great Republic itself, the country is confronted with a House of Representatives a majority of which is composed of ex-Confederates and sympathizing Democrats. Who do the ex-Confederates represent? They appear in the light of National Representatives, and claim to be such; but, judging from the action of the Democratic leaders and their rebel colleagues, the representation in the lower House of Congress is confined to admiration of little else than what sprang out of the rebellion, and to heaping favors of support on the men who did their best to destroy the Union and carry dismay and death into the households of

American citizens.

rebels were so prominent that they quite outshone their Democratic colleagues. But what a sight! Have the people duly considered what is passing at the Capitol at this very hour in this connection! The leaders of the Democracy were in close association with the leaders of the rebellion, and had not patriotism enough to sound the note of warning that the country was in danger. The Republican party met the armed hosts of treason and hurled them back until the people rallied from every quarter of the land, save the South, and boldly stood in the front determined to conquer or to die. Multitudes fell; but their ranks were speedily filled up again; and with the destruction of slavery, the cause of the war, the Confederacy collapsed; but unfortunately treason was not made odious as it should have been by making an example of some who had turned their arms against the

One of the first events announced on the assembly of the Confederate Congress of 1875-'6 was the proud intention to investi-nation. gate the Republican party. On the investigating committees every rebel was to find a place; and on some of the committees the

The country was rescued from the unholy grasp of treason only to find sitting in judgment upon its rescuers and preservers the

men red handed with a brother's blood, who | simple object to ascertain the truth they had confederated and conspired together to destroy it. Never in the history of humanity was such an anomaly known. Never were the spared foes of a people elevated to the judgment seat to pass upon the quality of the service of the men who spared their lives and let them go free! But to-day Confederates are sitting on Congressional committees investigating all sorts of trumped-up charges against Republicans. If Republicans had failed to do their duty when the Union was imperiled by Southern rebels and their Democratic allies there would be no

THE CHINESE IN AMERICA.

An issue has been made in the Senate must be conceded that it has probably been which must command the respectful consideration of the American people. Senator A. A. Sargent, of California, has presented the case of his constituents as against the unrestrained migration to our shores of a Chinese population in a form and with a seriousness of aspect that compels careful attention to the burden of his complaint.

The issues involved are of transcendent importance-to the present and future both —at least of our Pacific States, and probably of the entire country. Embraced within the question of Mongolian participation in our life and nationality will be found to be a reconsideration of the relations of races

to each other; and of what is really of far more consequence than the ethnological aspect, the effect of antedating conditions of climate, government, labor, ethics, and social life; in fact, of differing civilizations and circumstances. This is the primal fact to be considered in the matter of Chinese emigration and settlement, whether on the Pacific coast or elsewhere. There is also another and very important series of questions involved in the issue, which must be carefully considered. They are economic and self protective in character-facts which every community is bound to regard in dealing

with others.

as potential in remoulding and reanimating the countries from whence the emigrants came as it has been, industrially regarded, in making the wilderness "bloom and blossom as the rose," aiding to transform the once primeval forests and trackless prairies into harvest-waving fields, smiling with plenty, and made fit for the abode of a many million-handed nationhood.

As a political force, the doctrines set forth and maintained so steadfastly by the American Republic-such only as could be born of a free and federative nationality cradled as was this Union-the doctrines of a freely chosen expatriation and nationality, have crowned us as a people with the greatest of honor, while exercising a marvelous influence on the diplomacy and jurisprudence of governments differing in spirit and form from our own. It must, therefore, be for no light reason that American statesmen can approach even to the outer verge of considering whether or not the time may not have arrived for us as a nation to call a halt in this direction. It is to this point, both initial and conclusive, that the question of Chinese emigration to our shores is rapidly drawing public attention. The right of self-preservation belongs to a nation as equally as it does to the individual. It must be exercised, however, only after the most complete delibOn the question of race assimilation the eration and when all minor and precautionbest instincts of the American people are in ary steps have been duly taken. Long beantagonism to the theory that there is any fore we debate the great issue, whether we danger to our national progress or ethnic can or not as a people declare our inability quality by the free admission to our shores to admit the Asiatic alien and emigrant to of all men, of whatever race or clime, who citizenship with correlative publie and somay come to us under fair circumstances of cial associations, we must have made full self-dependence, and with reasonable pros-examination of the characteristics and cirpeets of industrial and social well-doing. cumstances attendant on such an emigration No student of modern history will or can ig- as that now coming from China to our shores. nore the marvelous influence that has been We must learn all that is possible as to its exercised on the political and social life of extent-past, present, and probable. It is older countries and nationalities through our duty to examine into the conditions the remarkable immigration movement which which surround the Chinese in his own from 1820 to 1860, in especial, has almost country as well as those by which he is enlanded the population of an empire upon vironed in our own midst. our shores. Setting aside all considerations edge of his habits and associations, personal affecting personal fortunes, and looking only and collective, are of the greatest value in at emigration as one of the great historical making up that judgment upon which alone and political forces known to our era, it legislative action should be based. Such

A fair knowl

This total is doubtless arrived at by count2 ing all the Chinese who have landed on the Pacific coast since the immigration fairly begun in 1853, and does not accurately represent those now resident either in the whole country or on the Pacific coast alone. The excess of 2,666 over the Six Companies' figures, as shown by the official reports, doubtless indicates the Chinese who have 310 landed at other than Pacific coast ports during the quarter of a century embraced.

cheapness for which the mass of Chinese useful laboring population. They are pawork and live, but by all careful and pru- tient, persistent, observing, imitative. Their dent citizens who see the relations of cause ambition is limited, but what they do is thorand effect, and are justly alarmed at the oughly done, and when they have free opporherding and living together, in any one lo- tunity their capacity, as drudges at least, cality, State, or section, of a clanish people, makes them more serviceable in that sense alien in all their habits, taking no root in than a population more progressive, pushour midst, guarding sedulously, with the ing, and ambitious would or could be. They congenital capacity for such faith which continually illustrate in this respect the comes of a forty-centuried stability of ideas fabled race between the tortoise and the and institutions, their own methods of living hare. No one has denied to the earlier Chiand believing; and certain, too, to have in- nese emigration serviceable industrial qualiherited a very large proportion of the strange fications, and it is because of these that the and lecherous vices and peculiarities which present conditions, which are bringing a all travel, observation, and study prove to much inferior and less desirable class, has be a terrible feature of old and closely-guard- been allowed to grow up heretofore unchecked civilizations, such only as have been ed and largely unnoticed. nursed and preserved among Asiatic nations from almost prehistoric days.

Such, then, as to present numbers, are the relations of the Chinese population in the United States. A very small number are living in Massachusetts and New Jersey, chiefly, as to the former State, at North Adams, in the employ of a noted shoe manufacturer, and in the latter at a large laundry near New York city. There are also, both in Massachusetts and Connecticut, a

number of Chinese pupils, sent by the Im

That at the present time there are nearly or quite 130,000 Chinese resident in California alone will not be questioned. That about 30,000 of these are now herded together in the city of San Francisco is without doubt. That a considerable proportion of the balance are crowded into the larger towns of the State, and that a very small proportion of the whole number are employed either in mining, agricultural, or other outdoor labor is beyond dispute. That in this entire population there are not 200

preserving unbroken his inherited associations and national characteristics. The exceptions are such as tend only to prove this general rule.

families; in San Francisco itself, not over perial Government to be educated in this one-half that number; that the greater numcountry. A few of their countrymen live in ber of the Chinese women resident there the Empire City. It is stated by the police and in the Chinese quarters of other Califorthat they are numerous enough at this date nia towns are in fact brought as slaves from to support a joss house, maintain an opium China, and used in America as courtezans den, and indulge freely in gambling. There of the worst type. It is not denied that the is a China in petto, known as Donaven's Chinese emigrant comes, as a rule, as an alley, in that city, but otherwise the few alien, remains as such, and returns to his score Celestials there are industrious and in-native country, at the earliest opportunity, offensive. They usually follow peddling cigars or similar employments, and preserve their pigtails, if nothing else, to indicate their origin. In nearly all of the larger American cities a few stray Chinese may be found. and within the past two years Chinese laundries have been established in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and probably elsewhere. But, as will be seen, the great bulk of the Chinese are residents of California. They are found all along the Pacific coast and throughout the mining States and Territories. These people, outside of California, are usually regarded as a

It will be observed that the major portion of the population under consideration have migrated hither since the making and ratification of the Burlingame treaty in 1868–269. The number of Chinese landing on our shores from 1868 to 1875, inclusive, is 108,039. It will be noticed that the largest increase dates from 1867, and that fact itself indicates that the migration had then become, as it has since continued to be, an