A Servant of Satan: Romantic Career of Prado the Assassin — page 157: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A SERVANT OF SATAN. 149° passing of his luggage throngh the custom-house, he was much amused by the sight of the landing of the five or six hundred Chinese who had made the passage across the Pa- cific with him. If ever human beings were treated like chattels it was on this occasion. ‘The inspectors first of all began by carefully examining the strange-looking bundles and boxes which constituted their baggage; and, having ascertained that there was no opium concealed therein, they marked them with a large hieroglyphic in white chalk, in order to show that they had been duly passed. ‘lhe owners themselves were then taken in hand, and their persons equally minutely searched, after which ceremony their backs were ornamented with a similar large hieroglyphic in chalk. The spectacle they presented as they marched into San Francisco, labeled in this fashion, from the highest mandarin down to the humblest coolie, was Iudicrous be- yond description, and was greeted with many a hearty laugh, Eomicbooks €o |