Report of the Special Committee of the Board of Supervisors of San Francisco on the Chinese Quarter and the Chinese in San Francisco

San Francisco: P.J. Thomas, 1885. Original wraps. Very Good +. The 1885 1st thus, the 1st printing offered as a stand-alone publication. Clean and VG+ in its printed beige wrappers, with light chipping to the front panel's lower tip and very light wear along the spine crown. Octavo, 95 pgs. Includes the architectural rendering of a Chinatown tenement but lacks the colored fold-out map of Chinatown as called for (Cowen, pg. 204). Also includes a compendium of testimony and reports concerning the conditions of Chinatown tenements, businesses, gambling houses, brothels and opium dens. The committee claims to have visited every room in Chinatown; a list of gambling houses even enumerates their escape routes. Oftern colorful, overwrought descriptions paint a sordid picture of depravity and illness. Underground organizations are said to pay for murder, posting Chinese-language broadsides offering rewards to killers. Concluding recommendations include the demand to force Chinese immigrants to live at the same standard of living as white laborers, undercutting the "corrosive" effects of their presence. Materials of interest to the modern researcher include detailed listings of manufacturers in Chinatown, with specific addresses.