Coolies Twist Their Five Feet Of
Pigtail Round Their Heads While They Are At Work, But A Servant Or
Other Inferior, Only Insults His Superior If He Enter His Presence With
His Pigtail Otherwise Than Pendent.
The gaming house, whose open sides
allow it to present a perpetual temptation, is full of tables, and at
each sits a croupier, well clothed, and as many half-naked Chinamen as
can see over each others' shoulders crowd round him.
Their silent,
concentrated eagerness is a piteous sight, as the cover is slowly
lifted from the heavy brass box in which the dice are kept, on the cast
of which many of them have staked all they possess. They accept their
losses as they do their gains, with apparent composure. They work very
hard, and live on very little; but they are poor just now, for the
price of tin has fallen nearly one-half in consequence of the great tin
discoveries in Australia.
Along with Mr. Hayward I paid a visit to the Court House, a large
whitewashed room, with a clean floor of red tiles, a tiled dais, with a
desk for the judge, a table with a charge sheet and some books upon it,
and three long benches at the end for witnesses and their friends. A
punkah is kept constantly going. There are a clerk, a Chinese
interpreter, who speaks six Chinese dialects, and a Malay interpreter,
who puts the Chinese interpreter's words into English. As the judge
does not understand Malay, it will be observed that justice depends on
the fidelity of this latter official.
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