332pp. Profusely illustrated. Original decorative cloth covers. First Edition. Inscribed by Beck on flyleaf to Joe Heidinger, Nov. 24, 1898. 

Beck’s informative narrative, while attempting to be even-handed, is often condescending and racist. Despite its bias, it is a comprehensive view of Chinatown social life, from laundrymen and artists and barbers to farmers and actors and Tong criminals, with chapters on Opium smoking, gambling, prostitution and other forms of “vice” prefaced by the assurance that most “Chinamen are a frugal, industrious, docile, honest class of people, practicing many virtues which should commend them and which might be well emulated by their detractors”. An important study of the principal Chinatown of the East coast.