CHINESE IMMIGRATION 
A 
AND 
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL CAUSES 
OF 
TIIE DECAY OF A NATION. 
ARTHUR B. STOUT, M. D 
San Francisco, 1862. 
SAN FRANCISCO : 
AG NEW & DEFFEBACH, PRINTERS, 
Corner Sansome and Merchant Streets. 
1862. CHINESE IMMIGRATION 
AND 
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL CAUSES 
OF 
THE DECAY OF A NATION. 
ARTHUR B. STOUT, M. H. 
San Francisco, 1862. 
SAN FRANCISCO: 
AGNEW & DEFFEBACH, PRINTERS, 
Corner Sansome and Merchant Streets. 
1862. C ONTENTS. 
PART I. 
Page. 
Impurity of Race, as a Cause of Decay 5 
The Remedy 14 
PART II. 
Hereditary or Ante-Natal Causes of Decay 20 
The Remedy 25 IMPURITY OF RACE, 
AS A 
CAUSE OF DECAY. 
PART I. 
The Medical men disseminated through a state, are proper 
censors of the public health. It is their high province not only 
to cure disease, but to study and to promulgate the principles of 
Hygiene. In preventing the invasion of disease, they fulfill a 
more lofty, because more disinterested function, than in eradica- 
ting maladies already engendered. Occupying a high and influ- 
ential position, their counsels and their teachings are all-power- 
ful in contributing to improve the health, the strength, the vigor, 
both physical and intellectual, and also the endurance among 
nations of their race. It is in this view that I propose to exam- 
ine the various causes which combine to deteriorate the American 
people. 
I may at once state, in acknowledging my indebtedness, and in 
offering my humble tribute of gratitude to the high authorities 
whence I have drawn information, that I have freely consulted 
and drawn from the works of— 
Brasseur do Bourbourg, Histoire des Nations du 
Mexique et de Centrale durant les Sificles Anterieurs 
a Christophe Colomb. 
Types of Mankind, Nott and Gliddon. 
Yolney, Ruines des Empires. 
L’Abbfi Hue, Journey Through China. 
Morel, de l’esp6ce humaine : Paris, 1857. 
Combe, on the Constitution of Man. 
Michelet, La Femme : 1860. 
Davis’ History of the Chinese. sg&Sk 
Martin’s History of China. 
Gutzlaff’s History of China. 6 
The comprehensive work of Nott and Gliddon, replete with re- 
search, contains ample citations from Morton, Humboldt, Agassizi 
and all the great authors upon the subject. 
Sanger, History of Prostitution: 1859. 
Claiming nothing original, but that the knowledge of science 
when once published is the property of mankind, I hope by 
adducing these high authorities to obtain more appreciation of 
my views than if presented on my own unaided responsibility. 
If the State of California can receive benefit from medical re- 
search, it is chiefly by drawing attention to the discoveries of 
modern science in the matters I shall treat of, and at the earliest 
moment in its history engrafting them upon her institutions. 
Over the world is fast extending what is termed the great 
Caucasian Race of men. Children of migration, they move in 
vast waves over every continent. From the cradle to the grave 
they fluctuate in alternate ebb and flow over every region of 
Europe, vast tracts of Asia, the North and South of Africa, 
nearly all of North America, and are fast encroaching upon the 
South American continent. This is the race created with the 
highest endowments, and greatest aptitude under various circum- 
stances, to encounter the vicissitudes of every clime and every 
soil. God speed it on its way ! 
One great division of this race, the Anglo-Saxon, is now occu- 
pying America, and the type thence arising is the one in which 
I am at present interested. The history of the rise and fall of 
empires sufficiently attests the migratory nature of the parent 
stock ; and the American offspring appears abundantly imbued 
with the hereditary spirit. 
In history, the brilliant details of wars and victories dazzle 
the sight and engross the mind. The student of history iu wit- 
nessing the origin, the glory, and the demise of a nation, is apt 
to attribute to these wars, and their political sources, the catas- 
trophe which he mourns. In searching among the ruins of the 
past to discover a guiding principle for the future, it is to these 
causes that he looks for his material. 
But, in truth, a deeper cause, of which these wars and world- 
spread dissensions are only the effect, lies at the root of the evil. 
This cause, the abuse of the human system, insidiously gnaws 7 
into each individual body, undermines the strength and beauty of 
God’s noblest work, and thence penetrates, cancer-like, into the 
social, religious and political system. Thus contaminated, all 
the systems, in fatally allied conspiracy, attack the solidarity of 
the nation. 
The originally predominant purity of the animal economy, and 
of the intellectual government, offer a short-lived resistance. In- 
ternal dissension, fostered by a consequently invited aggression* 
exhausts the power of the race, and a nation, vanquished by itself* 
sinks into oblivion. 
The action of the brain guides both the physical movements 
and the intellectual emanations. From the blood the brain de- 
rives its nutriment. If the aliment be rendered impure, the 
cerebral mechanism receives a corresponding alteration. As the 
blood degenerates so will the race of men; and a degenerate 
nation can neither dictate to nor survive one of higher physical 
and intellectual endowment. 
To the Caucasian race, with its varied types, has been assigned 
the supremacy in elevation of mind and beauty of form over all 
mankind. High over the rest it surveys the field of life. Ap- 
pointed by the Creator to wield all human destinies, He has 
endowed it with the power above all others to study, to admire, 
and rule such of his Almighty works as enter within the sphere 
of man. No new combination of distinct existing races can 
improve this Divine excellence. Whatever enters it, tends to 
destroy it. In proportion to the rapidity with which deleterious 
elements are introduced, must be the ratio in the course of time 
of its degeneration and final extinction. 
Our new American embranchment stands now isolated among 
nations in its purity and highest degree of cultivation and refine- 
ment, proudly rivaling them all. Yet, from the nature of its 
social and political institutions, more than all of them subject 
and exposed to a fearful pressure from without, it hence tends to 
destructive amalgamations, and the ruinous influences of 
ing political systems. These conditions are magnified by the mer. 
cenary efforts of self interest, by the abuse of a morbid philan. 
thropy in liberal government, and by belief in the general equal, 
ity of mankind. 8 
The time to urge and impress the mind with the necessity of 
preserving the purity of race, is while the race is new, and thus 
close the door to amalgamations while the stock is pure and 
young. To permit the ingress of an inferior race is to strike at 
self-destruction. A government to protect its people should 
strive to preserve the purity of the race ; and, irrespective of 
political theories, should guard it from every amalgamation with 
inferior types. 
No State of our Union is so exposed and threatened as Califor- 
nia. At the very dawn of its existence it is menaced with the 
introduction of these pernicious elements ; and if now the strug- 
gle for life be not commenced, it must forever be abandoned. The 
degeneration will pursue its course, in personal and individual 
antipathies finding its only check. 
I am led to these reflections from the contest now waging in 
regard to the Chinese immigration. It is stated that the Supreme 
Court has decided that the legislative statute preventive of this 
immigration is unconstitutional. But little versed in legal lore, 
I dare not oppose the wisdom of the Court in its constitutional 
decision. But, in a physiological view, the argument may yet be 
open. The first law of nature is to preserve the purity of the 
race—provided the race be of all others the superior. Self, 
preservation claims the first protective enactment. If the world 
mourns the presence of a Negro race in the Eastern and Southern 
States, what tears may be shed when, in the course of ages, the 
great West is overwhelmed with a Chinese immigration. Once 
permitted it must be forever endured. The work of degeneration 
once commenced, its progress must pursue its insidious and em- 
poisoning influence, not for a few years, but for centuries to come. 
The legislation now enacted is less for our own than for genera- 
tions which, in the future, by their purity shall bless, or in their 
degeneration shall curse, their ancestral stock. 
Among the causes I have yet to enumerate, which together 
combine to exhaust and degrade a race, the intermixture of blood 
with inferior races is the most potent and the most deplorable. 
All the arguments of the advantages of commerce, and the tolera- 
ration of liberal government, sink into insignificance in compari- 
son with the primary law of nature, which teaches self-preservation 9 
in protecting the purity of type in the race, and perpetuating the 
endurance of the nation. When we contemplate the ruins of 
empires, we read the neglect of these laws. 
By the adoption of bad blood we voluntarily introduce the 
deadliest foe to our existence. If we but exclude this internal 
enemy, no outward force can crush our nation. It is in the 
healthful consolidation of all the means which invigorate the 
mental and physical energies, and the exclusion of all the con- 
stitutional destructive influences, that the highest type of mankind, 
all radiant with its manifold beauties, can be attained. All 
liberal laws are made special to the race which adopts them. 
There is no oppression in excluding inferior races from their 
enjoyment. By intermarrying with Europeans, we are but re- 
producing our own Caucasian type ; by commingling with the 
Eastern Asiatics, we are creating degenerate hybrids. We may 
seek to exchange commodities, but never to blend races. The 
argument that justice demands, while we are claiming free admis- 
sion and intercourse with China, that we should freely open to 
the Chinese our portals and adopt them as our own, is not founded 
in nature. The Chinese may gladly court an American emigra- 
tion to their land, for every combination improves and exalts 
their enervated race ; while, on the contrary, every permanent 
settlement of a Chinaman on our soil creates a depreciation in 
the blood of our own. “ Commercial alliances, if you will, with 
all the nations upon the earth, but political alliances and social 
entanglements with none of them.” 
In thus refusing to the Eastern Asiatics the privilege of free 
immigration and permanent domicile in the land, I would not be 
thought to deny to an ancient and once enlightened race the 
merit due to their intelligence. Only it is vain for man to seek 
to unite that which the Creator has so distinctly divided. The 
Divine Will has imbued every race with excellent qualities, but 
has shown in the distinctions established in accordance with 
topography, clime and physological development, that they were 
not created to be indifferently blended. 
In singular opposition to the freedom of admission of the 
Chinese, or “Indians,” granted by the decision of the Supreme 
Court, stands their exclusion, by statute, from the privilege of 10 
giving testimony in court against one of the Caucasian race. 
This almost denies them the rights of human beings ; denies them 
the faculty to see, to hear, to tell the truth ; and with an arro. 
gance truly worthy of a “ bamboo despotism,” assumes a superi- 
ority far beyond the physiological differences of race which the 
Creator has designed. In Austria, a nobleman cannot be tried 
in a plebeian court. Our democratic country goes still further; 
and denies to both pure races, as well as hybrid modifications, the 
right to peril the life or property of a Caucasian. The law of 
the State declares the following persons shall not be witnesses : 
“ Indians, or persons having one-fourth or more of Indian 
blood. Negroes, or persons having one-half or more Negro 
blood.” 
In 1854, Judges Murray and Heydenfeldt, in rendering a judg- 
ment—The People v. Hall—state as follows : 
“ From that time,” the landing of Columbus in America, “ the 
American Indians, and the Mongolian or Asiatic were regarded 
as the same type of the human species.” 
*• At the period whence the legislation dates, those portions of 
Asia which include India proper, the Eastern Archipelago, and 
the countries washed by the Chinese waters, were denominated 
the Indies, from which the inhabitants had derived the generic 
name of Indians.” 
“Ethnology at that time was unknown as a distinct science, or 
if known, had not reached that high point of perfection which it 
has since attained by the scientific inquiries and discoveries of 
the master minds of the last half century. Few speculations had 
been made with regard to the moral or physical differences be- 
tween the different races of mankind.” 
The learned Judges, then, with much apparent reluctance» 
admit and say : “ Although the discoveries of eminent archeolo- 
gists and the researches of modern geologists have given to this 
continent an antiquity of thousands of years anterior to the evi- 
dence of man’s existence, and the light of modern science may 
have shown conclusively that it was not peopled by the inhabi- 
tants of Asia, but that the Aborigines are a distinct type, and 
as such claim a distinct origin ; still, this would not alter the 
meaning of the term (Indian), and render that specific which was 
before generic.” 11 
We have then two races of Indians, the Asiatic or Mongolian, 
and the American Indians, the Aborigines of the continent. The 
American Aborigines are only termed Indians because the origi- 
nal discoverers of America supposed they had reached the Indies 
by a western route when they arrived at the West India Islands. 
Both are pure blood races, and both possess their peculiar and 
eminent qualities. Although experience proves they cannot 
blend as races with the Caucasian, without detriment to the last 
race, yet it has never shown that they are unworthy of respect 
and honor in their rank among nations. 
Who can regard the magnificent monuments of China, the 
excellence of her arts, the extent of her productions, and the 
refinement of her parental government before the Tartar dynasty? 
and say a Chinaman dare not open his lips in testimony for or 
against a white man ? Who can contemplate the vast ruins of 
Central America, whose splendor still defies the wreck of time? 
the mounds of the United States, the traces everywhere of former 
power and thought, and refuse to the Aboriginal of America, 
fallen as he may be, the right to confront the aggressive Caucasian 
in the cause of justice ? We may hold the Negro our slave, but 
as nature has created him with sufficient qualities to render him 
of value, even as a slave, he should still be allowed to see, to 
hear, and tell the truth. The mixed races, in their turn, should 
have their testimony taken at its value ; but yet, though freely 
associated with at one moment, they are turned out of court the 
next. Thus, in supercilious pride, the white lord disdains the 
laws of nature ; and while he too often converts them to his 
purposes, subverts the natural claims of God’s creatures. These 
are the tyrannies which in time combine to overthrow his empire. 
If individual worthlessness cancel the value of a testimony let it 
be rejected as individual, but deny not to races their innate pre- 
rogatives. The same law which would restore their natural right 
would guard against its abuse. False testimony may be given 
in either case ; we avoid its liability by statutory provisions. A 
radical principle should not be denied because errors of fact may 
endanger its application. 
In ages far remote, when the historian shall search the records 
of the past, it will be in the laws of the State, as its best and 12 
most authentic monuments, that he will estimate the degree of 
civilization to which the people had attained. Laws, then, should 
immediately follow in the wake of science. They should be modi, 
fled with the progressive knowledge of the day. We contend these 
laws are not the index of the age, nor do they express our de- 
gree of civilization. They may have suited the era of Columbus* 
but science in ethnology, geology and archeology has doomed to 
forgetfulness those old ideas. 
A broadcast view over the country will show the progress of 
deterioration by the blending of races, as it insidiously but 
surely advances. 
To illustrate the ramifications which result from the fusion of 
three races—the Caucasian, the Aboriginal American, and the 
Negro—I take the arrangement of Tschudi, and adopted by Nott 
and Gliddon : 
Parents. 
Children. 
White father and Negro mother 
.. Mulatto. 
it 
tt 
and Indian mother 
,. .Mestiza. 
Indian father and Negro mother 
. .Chino. 
White father and Mulatto mother 
.. Cuarteron. 
it 
ii 
and Mestiza mother 
. .Creole, pale brownish complexion. 
it 
ii 
and Chino mother 
. .Chino-bianco. 
U 
ii 
and Cuarterona mother... 
.. Quintero. 
it 
a 
and Quintera mother 
. .White. 
Negro 
father 
and Indian mother 
.. .Zambo. 
it 
ti 
and Mulatto mother 
.. .Zambo-negro. 
U 
it 
and Mestiza mother 
.. Mulatto-oscuro. 
a 
ii 
and Chino mother 
. .Zambo-chino. 
a 
it 
and Zamba mother 
..Zambo-negro, perfectly black. 
a 
it 
and Quintera mother 
. .Mulatto, rather dark. 
Indian 
father and Mulatto mother 
. .Chino-oscuro. 
it 
it 
and Mestiza mother 
. .Mestizo-claro, frequently very beautiful' 
it 
ti 
Chino mother 
.. Chino-cola. 
ii 
ii 
and Zamba mother 
. .Zambo-claro. 
ik 
it 
and Chino-Chola mother.. 
...Indian, with frizzly hair. 
it 
it 
and Quintera mother 
.. Mestizo, rather brown. 
Mulatto father and Zamba mother 
.. Zambo, a miserable race. 
ii 
it 
and Mestiza mother 
. .Chino, rather clear complexion. 
ii 
it 
and Chino mother 
. .Chino, rather dark. 
Here, then, are twenty-three varieties, or crosses, occupying 
our soil with their progeny, and multiplying their kind, to the 
continual detriment of the Caucasian race. “ To define their 
characteristics correctly,” adds the learned German, “ would be 13 
impossible, for their minds partake of the mixture of their blood. 
As a general rule, it may be fairly said, that they unite in them- 
selves all the faults, without any of the virtues, of their progeni- 
tors ; as men they are generally inferior to the pure races, and 
as members of society they are the wprst class of citizens.’’ 
On some of these mixtures the author is doubtless too severe, 
for several of them possess commendable qualities, but are al- 
ways far inferior to the pure white race. It will be seen that 
Tschudi gives the scientific definition of the term Creole. This 
does not regard the signification indulgently given to the term 
in some of the Southern States, where it is simply applied to the 
native offspring of foreign parents, even when the parentage is 
pure white. The author studied these amalgations in Peru ; but 
in the United States, where more benign institutions exist, their 
better qualities being elicited, and their vices repressed, they 
appear in a more favorable aspect. These combinations, to the 
number of many millions, are now engrafting themselves, with 
their injurious tendencies, upon our race. Their increase is im- 
mense. However impossible or inexpedient it may be to disturb 
them, is a question of national policy, as “ better to bear the ills 
we have, than fly to those we know not of.” Still, in the pro. 
gress of ages the pernicious element cannot fail to augment, and 
greatly to the detriment of the pure and superior race. 
Let us now in imagination pass over a space of two hundred 
years, and observe the country when, in addition to the American 
Indian and Negro amalgamation, the Asiatic Indian shall have had 
free scope ; when, in that time which for nationalities is short, 
the Chinese, Japanese, Malays and Mongolians of every caste, 
shall have overrun the land ; when they, in their turn, have given 
origin to their countless varieties of hybrid creatures. As the 
locusts of California overrun the fields of the husbandman, will 
these swarms of beings degenerate our land. In the progress of 
this debasing alloy, and in the course of time, may another Vol- 
ncy follow his guiding genius from “ those ramparts of Ninevah, 
those walls of Babylon, those palaces of Persepolis, those temples 
of Balbeck and of Jerusalem,” and after dwelling a time in 
mournful meditation over those yet more ancient forest-covered 
ruins of Mexico and Central America, come to pour out his last 
lamentations on the crumbling remains of our own Republic. THE REMEDY. 
Wbat is the remedy for this vast evil ? Early prevention is 
the only specific. Plant not the germs and there will be naught 
to eradicate. While the Chinese immigration is controlled by a 
few leading men, heads of societies, or Hong merchants, its res- 
triction may be easily accomplished. The correction must com. 
mence at its source. Better would it be for our country that the 
hordes of Genghis Khan should overflow the land, and with armed 
hostility devastate our vallies with the sabre and the fire-brand, 
than that these more pernicious hosts, in the garb of friends, 
should insidiously poison the well-springs of life, and spreading 
far and wide, gradually undermine and corrode the vitals of our 
strength and prosperity. In the former instance we might 
oppose the invasion with sword and rifled cannon ; but this des- 
tructive intrusion enters by invisible approaches—is aided and 
fostered in its advance by those who forget or never dream of 
their country’s interest, while they seek to advance their private 
ends. 
When the engrafting is thus perfected, eradication becomes 
impossible. Let the Attilas of Asiatic despotism appear, and 
every freeman will prove to be a Meroveg ; but against a Coolie 
who can struggle ? What though the labor of Coolies be cheaper 
than that of the stalwart men of our own race? We must nev- 
ertheless lose by the exchange. If the former drive back these 
hardy pioneers, who shall defend the land ? Who shall whiten 
the plains with their homesteads ? Who shall form the families 
of the Republic? The vigorous strength of Caucasian labor 
cannot be nourished with a handful of rice, nor will their intelli- 
gence for their own emolument, or their aspirations for their 
children, accept existence in a state of protracted Coolieism or 
serfdom. Reduce their wages to the rates of Coolieism and you 
degrade them, physically and morally, to the state of Coolies. 
Our native and adopted people require the higher rates of 
wages, for they have higher functions than mere daily labor to 
perform. They are the volunteers in the promotion and the 
defence of the rights of man. To them we look for the mainte- 
nance of the Union and the progress of civilization. If, by inad- 
equate recompense for their labor, we banish them eastward from 15 
our frontier and adopt the Chinese immigrant in their steady 
who will repel the foreign aggressor whom war shall invite to 
our shore ? What part in the fierce drama of national defence 
will the Coolie play ? Why, exactly the part of the crow in an 
unguarded cornfield—to sieze the grain and fly at the first sign 
of gunpowder. 
The preventive remedies are : 
I. The action of the General Government to reform our treaty 
stipulations with the Empire of the East. 
II. The intervention of the Legislature of the State to enact 
such laws as shall be radical in preventing immigration. 
III. The encouragement of local associations to elevate every 
possible barrier to its progress. 
IV. The cultivation of a public opinion which shall be all pow- 
erful to discountenance the employment of Chinese labor. It is 
not my province to enter into the details of these four classes of 
remedial agents. I leave them to the more competent authori- 
ties in their respective departments, and respectfully invite all 
to co-operate therein, from the Executive at Washington to the 
humblest operative whose voice speaks by a ballot. 
It is appropriate to ask, what is the position which the Asiatic 
stranger should receive in the State ? What national view should 
be taken of his desire to visit the country ? In what aspect 
should he appear to every generous citizen ? The just reply 
would be, he should be regarded as a guest in a foreign land. 
“ Stranger is a holy name.” The munificent host should extend 
to him his cheerful and enriching hospitality. It may not always 
be requited here, but our adventurers on Asiatic soil may receive 
the reward. With the extension of commerce and the increase 
of associations which thence arise with this remarkable nation, 
the fairest facilities for the agents of both parties, and respect- 
ively in each other's country, should be encouraged. My argu. 
ments against extended immigration, permanent residence or 
adoption as freeholders, are entirely distinct from these com- 
mercial considerations. 
I do not seek to embarrass trade, but I do desire to prohibit 
immigration as a national measure to obtain population ; to dis- 
pose of public or private lands ; to acquire cheap labor, or to 16 
consult the convenience of reckless speculators. Let us receive 
the Chinaman, whether Mandarin or Coolie, with a respect due 
to his ancient grandeur, his still existing power and ability. 
Let us refuse him permanent domicile, elective rights, title in fee 
to land, declare null by statute intermarriage, and compel the 
ultimate return of every trader to his native land. With a con. 
stantly increasing commerce his total exclusion is impracticable. 
Let us, therefore, receive him as a transient resident, teach him 
our language, inspire him with regard for our religion, instruct 
him in the principles of our sciences, initiate him into the details 
of all our practical arts, display to him our improved 
manufacturing machinery, improved implements of trade, and our 
economical modes of labor-saving husbandry. 
Let us imbue him with a love of all the refinements of our 
social system, and a desire to adopt the extended comforts of our 
mode of living. Let Chinamen thus accomplished return to their 
native homes, and diffuse, broad-spread, the instruction thus ac- 
quired. 
These are the influences which convert a nation. This is prac- 
tical Christianity : this is the means to protect the purity of our 
own race, and elevate the other to the highest degree of attaina- 
ble civilization. The history of China gives the most convincing 
testimony that the Chinese people, in earlier ages, received with 
welcome, and were exceedingly disposed universally to adopt 
the Christian religion. Its missionaries, pious, fervent and 
devoted as individuals, were honored for their scientific attain- 
ments. Their knowledge in mathematics and astronomy pro- 
moted them to the highest places of preferment. 
Emperors themselves were softened by their influence and 
yielded to their persuasion. Their Christian doctrine received 
a wide extension, and Christian altars arose among heathen 
temples. But it soon appeared that to accept the Christian worship 
it would be necessary to submit to Roman rule. The adoption of 
Christian rites involved the disintegration of political structures. 
To save the Empire they must reject the new religion. The 
snow white robes of the Church concealed in their folds the keys 
of Empire and an iron sceptre. To escape the latter they re- 
jected the whole. As they had surrounded themselves with a 17 
material wall to exclude the inimical Tartars, so they enveloped 
themselves in political exclusion to evade revolutionizing doc- 
trine. Christianity was not offered to them as a heaven-sent 
boon without a price. Its intrinsic worth and beauty was to cost 
Empire and independence; to be harvested in subjection and be 
mulcted by tyranny. 
The Christianity we offer is for its own enlightenment. We 
ask no sway ; we seek no territory. The seeds we plant offer 
their ten-fold harvest for the benefit alone of the nation which 
reaps. 
The anti-Christian religions of Asia should constitute an insur- 
mountable bar to the free admission of Asiatics on this continent, 
While but few are here, the occasional appearance of an idol tem- 
ple may not be of consequence ; but when, ere long, the immigra- 
tion, if not prevented, will be immense, these people will claim 
permission to worship according to their Oriental doctrine. 
In every valley and over every plain Christian churches and 
heathen temples, side by side, will offer their grotesque contrast 
to the sight. It may be safely questioned whether, in admitting 
into our Constitution the free toleration of all religions, the 
framers of our Magna Charta had any other than Christian doc- 
trines in their view. Their attention was engrossed with the 
European systems and the controversies from which they had just 
escaped. Had they foreseen the extension of territory which 
their young Republic was destined to acquire, and the close inter- 
course with the Asiatic world which would ensue, they would 
have confined within Christian limits such universal toleration. 
The population of China exceeds 300,000,000 of inhabitants. 
The territory they occupy is scarcely large enough to contain 
them. Although the aggregate amount of their labor is immense, 
the great majority of them can only obtain a scanty subsistence 
by the most patient and incessant industry. Extreme poverty 
universally prevails, and a recompense inconceivably small is the 
reward of their toil. Hundreds of thousands of these impover- 
ished beings would gladly escape to other realms if the oppor- 
tunity were offered them to improve their condition. The 
overflow from their native land to this country, if no restriction 
withheld them, would be immense, and the Vanderbilts of com- 18 
inerce would even now have covered the seas with their fleets 
if no barrier intervened to prevent their transportation to our 
State. We owe to their own laws and to the peculiar tenets of 
their religion our immunity from this inundation. The very lim- 
ited number of Chinese which, under special contracts, are per- 
mitted to emigrate are compelled by law to return within a spe- 
cified time, or, in case of death, the rites of their religion require 
that their remains be restored for interment in their ancestral 
graveyards. 
Thus are we indebted to foreign laws and not to our own pre- 
cautions for the salvation of the country. 
Let but these barriers burst and we have no protection from 
the hosts which will flow across the Pacific. That these barriers 
will burst is the manifest destiny of the Chinese nation. The 
most casual observer must easily discern that an entire social, 
religious, and political reorganization is in progress throughout 
the whole of Asia. This metamorphosis is her infallible destiny. 
If Asia is to participate in the refinements of civilization and the 
progress of human culture throughout the world, she must accede 
to and adopt this radical revolution. With or without her con- 
sent this destiny will be accomplished. Time is the only ques- 
tion. The encroachments of English power from the west, the 
gradual but certain approaches of Russia from the north, the 
allied fleets of England and of France which hover along and 
seek admission by her eastern shores, must eventually overwhelm 
the Asiatic continent. India crushed by the grasping hand of 
trade; the Hindoos brutalized in their idolatry; and China'torn 
by rebellion, poisoned with opium and starving in poverty, must 
fall together in one general ruin. Railroads and canals will 
penetrate the deserts ; the lightning telegrams which will shortly 
flash through the Russian Empire of the North, and the navies 
armed with all the batteries of modern invention, which invest 
the continent, all concentrate their intellectual and physical 
resources against the numerous but defenseless nations of Asia. 
If England and France, for their own aggrandizement, arrested 
for a while the encroaching power of the Czar at Sebastopol, 
they gave to Oriental exclusiveness its death blow at Pekin. 19 
The former act can have hut limited effect, but the 
be forever permanent. 
Thus do all civilized nations, while advancing their varied 
interests, combine to destroy the ancient religions and idolatries 
of Asia, and regenerate its exhausted races. Islamisin and Pa- 
ganism must alike sink into oblivion, and Christianity enter, like 
sunlight into chaos, to illuminate and revivify this ancient world. 
Be it so ; and when this destiny shall be accomplished will be 
the moment to review our national policy, repeal preventive 
laws and admit Asiatics to tho privileges of freemen. FA.KT II. 
I have now to consider other causes which singly, or in combi- 
nation, when acting upon the human system, impede its normal 
development or undermine and enervate its beauty and strength. 
Of these, are first, hereditary diseases, as phthisis or consump- 
tion, scrofula, syphilis, mental alienation, and epidemic diseases : 
secondly, material agents deleterious to the human economy. The 
first class acts in a double manner on the individuals themselves 
subject to the maladies, and secondarily on their progeny. The 
second class, comprising active material agents used to excess, 
contains all the stimulant as well as the narcotic agents resorted 
to by man to exalt his enjoyments or appease his miseries. They 
are opium, tobacco, fermented liquors, and all stimulo-narcotic 
agents more or less in common use as luxuries of life. 
It will readily be perceived that each one of these causes is 
worthy of a monograph ; but the present occasion compels me to 
group them, and sweep over the field with hasty speed. 
Could I in one terse page exhibit all the miseries, all the deg- 
radation, all the ruin which the abuse of these agents has, in the 
great revolution of time, accumulated upon the human races, not 
all the famed artists of the past, nor the ambitious aspirants to 
future greatness, would suffice to portray the dreadful picture. 
Could I annihilate them, the arsenal of death would be well 
nigh exhausted. 
As the maladies indicated in the first class are in many cases 
only the effect of the agents enumerated in the second class, the 
above arrangement is not arbitrary, but for convenience alone. 
PHTHISIS AND SCROFULA. 
Phthisis, or Consumption, and Scrofula are, of all others, the 
most destructive maladies of onr country. To expatiate upon 
their insidious invasion, enumerate their manifold manifestations, 21 
describe the fear and anxiety which invests their suspected exist- 
ence, or enter into their minute pathology, is foreign to my sub- 
ject. To evoke their causes, and indicate the mode to evade 
their intrusion upon the animal economy, is a matter of public 
hygiene. The individual who once so lives as to engender in his 
system the germ of these diseases, commits an enduring wrong 
upon his lineal successors. These diseases, in their chronic or 
hereditary condition, are diseases of debility, and entail upon the 
families they invade a successively enfeebling progeny. For the 
climatic influences which lay their foundation, men can scarcely 
be responsible, except in the careless neglect of the sanitary 
measures which protect the system from changes of weather. 
But other causes combine to give them origin. These are, the 
gradual but long-continued introduction into the economy of 
agents which for a time stimulate, yet ultimately enervate 
its powers, and radically alter the constituents of the animal 
tissues. 
When a rich, healthful, normal blood no longer permeates the 
blood vessels, distributing to the various tissues their quota of 
natural components, and when the brain no longer daily 
receives its adequate allowance of pure blood, its reflex influences 
upon the tissues are correspondingly altered and necessarily 
vitiated. Degeneration, with its series of hereditary contam- 
inations of the pure type, commences. Thence may be traced 
the origin, in numerous instances, of miliary tubercles, whether 
of the lungs, brain or bones, and the enervation of scrofulosis. 
"Who can calculate the innumerable losses to society and its 
population which result from neglected Syphilis! Its deeply 
engrafted poison follows in the race to every generation, except 
in those instances where its immediate or hereditary presence 
produces sterility, and then the State loses a family. 
How often are the best directed efforts of science in curing 
uterine maladies and restoring fertility, rendered ineffectual 1 
The latent virus has stricken its victim, and too often, even when 
suspected or detected, refuses to relax its grasp. The influence 
of this malady upon the uterus is either entirely to arrest devel- 
opment, to degenerate its product, or to produce the actual death 
SYPHILIS. 22 
of the ovum. Fortunate for society, except in a numerical point 
of view, when the arrest of development or the death of the 
progeny occurs—for its elaboration is always defective, and a 
race of a lower type produced. 
I must touch for a moment the vast subject of Mental Aliena- 
tion. When the empire of the brain over the economy is once 
profoundly injured and subverted, all that long train of heart- 
rending diseases which fill the asylums devoted to insanity is 
founded. The perverted mind and distorted body are together 
the dreadful signs of the degradation which ensues from the 
abuse of the laws of nature, and excess in the use of the agents 
given to man for enjoyment and the perpetuation of his perfect 
race. This subject opens to view the great national question of 
alcoholic intoxication, or the empoisonment of the system by the 
abuse of fermented liquors. Its exponents fill our hospitals, 
alms-houses, orphan asylums, lunatic asylums and prisons. With- 
out attempting to advert to all the maladies which arise from 
this cause, or dilate upon idiocy, mania, epilepsy, delirum tremens, 
softening of the brain, hereditary mania, atrophy of general form 
and strength, paralysis, and general depravation, both moral and 
physical, of the system, I shall draw upon Morel for a picture of 
the condition of Sweden, and ask every reader, from the deplo- 
rable condition of another country, to draw the natural deduction 
for our own, and from their fate learn our own salvation : 
“There are annually manufactured in Sweden, on the most 
moderate calculation, 2,000,000 litres of brandy of the country. 
But very little of this is exported. Sweden contains 3,000.01)0 
inhabitants. By deducting from this number the children, a large 
number of women, ana persons whose local position forces them 
to moderation, 1,500,000 inhabitants remain who annually con- 
sume each from eighty to one hundred litres of brandy. It is 
easy to perceive the progressive decay in those families in which 
the alcoholic degeneration has controlled the mass of the hered- 
itary phenomena.” 
“ It is an indisputable fact,” says Huss, a scientific Swede, 
“ that the Swedish people in their stature and their physical 
force have degenerated from their ancestry.” Translating again 
MHNTAL ALIENATION from Morel, he states that “ it is certain that the constitution of 
the Swedes lias undergone considerable pathological modifica- 
tions. It is vain to seek in the country those men of the North 
so boasted of by historians and poets.” Special maladies, as 
chronic gastritis and scrofula, have, in frightful extension, be- 
come general. An affection, formerly unknown—Chlorosis—has 
invaded all classes, as well rich as poor, and rages both through 
the country and in the cities. 
Into this state of health, the details of which I omit, other 
causes may indeed enter ; but alcoholism, with its persistent but 
degenerating erythism, enters for a very large proportion. No 
person of experience will deny the indispensable necessity of the 
use of fermented liquors under circumstances of unusual fatigue 
of mind or body, nor their importance as a remedial agent in 
adynamic diseases. Their moderate use to enhance the enjoy- 
ments of the festal hour, has been admitted for all time. It is 
their steady, persistent abuse until the blood has become vitiated 
—until the brain no longer performs its normal functions—until 
the constituent solid tissues of the body are involved in the dis- 
ease, and the mental erythism of alcohol combines with corres- 
ponding enervation of body to destroy the healthy structure, im- 
poverish the body and degenerate the progeny, that they are to 
be inveighed against as poisons. It is then they create their her- 
editary maladies ; it is then the vice of the parent is perpetuated 
in the offspring, ruins the family and degenerates the natiou. 
Who has not seen in the features of the child the altered likeness 
of the inebriate father? To illustrate these varied conditions, 
the plates of Morel will serve better than elaborate phrases, and 
to them I refer the reader. Thus it is that the sins of the parents 
are visited on their children “ unto the third and fourth gener- 
ations.” 
The consumption of tobacco is increasing annually to an enor- 
mous amount. In intensity of action upon the system, it excels 
the different stimulo-narcotic agents used in other countries. It 
surpasses hasheesh and opium in activity if taken internally, and 
stands prominent as a deleterious agent, when abused, to the 
TOBACCO. 24 
vigor and health of the economy. If our Government require 
funds for war, let taxation fall heaviest on these articles ; then, 
at least, may the consumer, while he ruins himself, enrich the na- 
tion. It would be interesting to trace its enervating influence 
in its varied symptoms, but a recapitulation of the deleterious 
effects of all this class of substances may be found in the conse- 
quences of the abuse of opium, as narrated by authors who have 
studied it among a people addicted to its excessive abuse. 
OPIUM. 
The Abb6 Hue states, that “ at present China purchases opium 
annually of the English to the amount of £35,000,000. Large 
fine vessels, armed like ships of war, serve as depots to the Eng- 
lish merchants. These rich speculators live habitually * in the 
midst of gaiety and splendor, and think little of the frightful 
consequences of their detestable traffic. When from their superb 
palace-like mansions on the seashore, they see their beautiful 
vessels returning from the Indies, gliding majestically over the 
waves, and entering with all sails spread into the port, they do 
not reflect that the cargoes borne in these superb clippers are 
bringing ruin and desolation to numbers of families. With the 
exception of some rare smokers, who, thanks to a quite excep- 
tional organization ! are able to restrain themselves within the 
bounds of moderation, all others advance rapidly toward death, 
after having passed through the successive stages of idleness, 
debauchery, poverty, the ruin of their physical strength, and the 
complete prostration of their intellectual and moral faculties. 
Nothing can stop a smoker who has made much progress in this 
habit; incapable of attending to any kind of business, insensible 
to every event, the most hideous poverty and the sight of a 
family plunged into despair and misery cannot rouse him to the 
smallest exertion, so complete is the disgusting apathy in which 
he is sunk.” 
The use of opium, to an abuse, and as a deleterious stimulant, is 
becoming more and more familiar to Americans, but the vice bears 
no comparison to that of China. The moment to cure the disease 
is, however, to strike it in its infancy. With the fearful picture, 
then, of the destructive influence on the system of the abuse of 
opium in China, why should not a legal enactment restrain the 
sale of the fatal drug? THE REMEDY. 
What barrier can be placed to the invasion and progress of 
these ruinous causes of degeneration ? Several I have already 
proposed. The most important, however, consists in intellectual, 
moral and physical education. The secret of public health and 
national endurance is in the promotion of public instruction. Our 
political and social organization is now the reverse of that of 
ancient times. Then education and power were allied in the 
Imperial Court; and as in that was associated the idea of the 
God-head, it comprised the unbounded influence of religious 
faith. The chief of the nation was its divinity, and all laws for 
the happiness of the people founded on justice, and consolidated 
by idolatry, emanated from the throne. While the throne re- 
mained pure in principle and virtuous in act, the nation governed 
progressed in enlightenment, flourished in its institutions and 
population, was influential in peace and invincible in war. Its 
world-renowned monuments, the admiration of every age, attest 
the riches and grandeur of such states. The moment corruption 
and licentiousness penetrated the palace, the nobility caught the 
rapid contagion. They quickly contaminated the public mind, 
and from that hour commenced the ruin and downfall <*f the 
nation. own Republic the wisdom of the public councils 
reflects only the knowledge of the people. As they arc instructed 
in virtue and science will they select the representatives of their 
mind in Senates and Assemblies. From degenerate and ignorant 
sources cannot emanate the lofty principles and excellent laws 
which win the admiration of rival powers, and perpetuate the 
nation. Hence it is in the deficiency of education, which should 
be all-pervading, that may be found the incessant routine of in- 
operative laws, unconstitutional enactments, time-wasting appeals 
and decisions reversed. The greatest feature in the art of 
creating an enduring nation is in the radical education of its 
youth. Where and how shall this cultivation of youth com- 
mence ? It is in the education of women. The matrons of a 
state form its heroes. Therefore should the cultivation of 
women embrace not only beautiful and graceful accomplishments, 
but substantial education, the acquirement of physiological in- 
struction, and the care of the physical development of the form. 26 
The vigorous constitution begets the energetic mind. To quote 
a recent writer : “ Specially should females be taught the respon- 
sible duties of maternity, in order that a race of better developed 
beings may bless the world ; one of fewer excesses ; one of more 
harmoniously developed natures; one of more healthy progeni- 
tive or hereditary influence. When women are thus taught, no 
fear need be had for the youth.” Says Michelet: “ Woman is an 
altar, a pure and holy one, to which man, shattered by the vicis- 
situdes of life, repairs, day by day, to renew his faith, and restore 
his faltering conscience, preserved more pure in her than in him. 
Woman is a school, from whom truly generations receive their 
belief. Long before the father dreams of education the mother 
has profoundly implanted her own, which can never be effaced.” 
In the cause of public instruction a state cannot appropriate its 
funds with too great liberality. There is more economy in 
founding institutions of public instruction than in building pri- 
sons and houses of refuge. Their growth decreases the never- 
ending expenditures on hospitals, asylums and alms-houses. 
Prominent in all education should be that of the physical develop- 
ment. Especially is the remark applicable to that of females. 
The institutions devoted to their instruction are neglectful of the 
appliances to improve their physical strength and health. Pre- 
occupied in the rivalry of precocious minds, they forget that all 
their success is compromised by neglect of physical health and 
vigor. Great precocity in youth is seldom followed by health- 
ful old age. It is in the well proportioned development of both 
body and mind that the true progress of the people may be 
discerned. 
The health, vigor and beauty of the rising race of California’s 
children might make these observations appear unnecessary. In 
San Francisco at least 10,000 youth, the fairest of Heaven’s crea- 
tion, appear to prove the favorable auspices under which we live. 
The same ratio prevails throughout the State. To foster, improve 
and exalt these by every care in mental and physical development, 
by every legislative enactment thereto conducive and by any 
expenditure which can promote the object, is a worthy labor. If 
in my views I have taken a wide range, it is because the interest 
of our State has an equivalent magnitude ; for the conservation of 
our race comprises centuries in its limits.