As a result of the San Francisco earthquake and fire many scores of Chinese who were driven from their ruined homes in the stricken California City have sought and found refuge in Chicago. The influx of the Celestials has been very steady, but the number who have come to this city has not been realized either by the authorities or the Chinese themselves until within a few days.

Being in most cases almost penniless after their railway fare had been paid, these immigrants were forced at first to depend for subsistence on the charity of their friends and countrymen, but now the majority of them have again become independent. These refugees are scattered far and wide over the city, their presence not being confined to Chinatown, although at first almost all of them drifted there.

So steady was the coming of the Chinese that their arrival was hardly realized at first even in the districts where they made their temporary homes.

2

Coming by two's and three's from the stricken city, they immediately made their way to the South Clark Street district, where they soon were given help until they were able to take care of themselves.

MANY HAD MONEY

A great many of the refugees were well enough provided with money to carry them over the period until they could find work. Those who were destitute, however, were immediately taken care of by individuals.

There was little organized work of relief among Chinamen, either for those of their countrymen left in San Francisco or those who came to Chicago. Chinamen sent individual donations to their suffering kinsmen and friends in the California towns, but they did little for the men of their own race by organized effort. The same was true of the aid which they rendered in Chicago. They were very liberal, but all of the giving was personal.

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Until the living quarters in the Chinese section became filled with the refugees they remained in the downtown district, at least until they secured work. Then they scattered throughout the city and suburbs, many of them finding employment in towns as far away as Elgin, Aurora, and Joliet. When the South Clark Street houses could hold no more the Chinese began drifting through the city. Laundries, restaurants, and every other sort of an establishment run by a Chinaman became a refuge. From merely giving shelter in case of need these same establishments soon offered regular work, and so, instead of working for nothing but their board and lodging, many of the refugees became regular employees.

MANY BECOME HOUSE SERVANTS

The fact that Chinamen are skilled in the preparation of dishes other than those characteristic of their race is just beginning to dawn on the owners of many "American" restaurants throughout the city, and even upon private families.

4

A few of the sophisticated, and those addicted to Chop Suey and similar incongruities, have long employed celestials, but before scores of unemployed Chinamen were turned loose in the city their general adaptability was unknown to but few.

In good restaurants very good cooks with very good wages have been employed from the ranks of the "Frisco sufferers, but other places of less pretense have secured less expensive cooks, and so down the line, until many a place, which has nothing to say about chop suey, which advertises a "full meal for 15c" has a Chinaman presiding at the range. And in the point of cleanliness and skill the change has generally been one for the better.

SOUTH SIDE HAS MANY

As a natural consequence of this the Chinamen so employed have secured places for their relatives and friends as dishwashers and porters until now there are certain sections of the city which, as far as the restaurants are concerned, are overrun with Celestials.

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A particular example of this is in the neighborhood of 63rd, Street, from Woodlawn to Chicago Lawn.

None of the refugees has as yet become a public charge, and it is very unlikely that any ever will. The majority of them have quietly settled down here to amass the fortune which will make them and their relatives happy when they return to the land of their ancestors.