Chapter 625 “Hotel California”

Mark Twain once said that the coldest winter is the summer in San Francisco.

In fact, San Francisco is never cold in the summer. Many people don't understand why Mark Twain said this.

Mark Twain was just a pseudonym. His real name was Samuel Langham Clement. Mark Twain was originally a term used by Mississippi River sailors to indicate the depth of water measured on the waterway.

Life's circumstances are ups and downs, and no one knows when he will be unlucky. When Mark Twain was still a reporter, he bought shares in a silver mine based on the information and experience he collected.

In his mind, he had already repaired a "pipeline" and just needed to wait for it to continue to "flow" money. However, what he didn't expect was that the stock did not rise to the position he expected. Nevada law

It has not been changed.

In 1873, in order to pave the way for a return to the gold standard, the United States abolished the legal tender status of silver, which aroused opposition from silver-rich areas. In 1890, a new silver bill was introduced, the price of silver plummeted, and Samuel Langham Clement went bankrupt. In order to pay off his debts

Mark Twain had to go back to work. In 1894, his investment in manufacturing automatic typesetters failed and he went bankrupt. In order to repay his debts, he traveled to give lectures and visited places such as Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, India, and South America.

Fortunately, he was still famous and his speeches were still listened to. Around the time "Idiot Wilson" was published in 1894, his family suffered misfortune: one of his two daughters fell ill and died, and his wife's health also deteriorated.

There are records in the library of London's Chinatown that from May to October 1894, the plague in Hong Kong killed more than 2,000 people, becoming the plague with the most deaths since the opening of Hong Kong and even recorded to date. One-third of

People are fleeing Hong Kong.

The plague began to spread around the world. In 1896, plague broke out in Taiwan and Mumbai, India, and later became a local endemic disease.

In 1899, plague broke out in Egypt, South Africa, Hawaii, San Francisco in the United States, and Northeast China. There were also cases in Japan. In 1900, it broke out in Australia and Russia, and eventually spread to all continents except Antarctica. It was not until the 1950s that the global pandemic

end.

After the plague broke out in Hong Kong in 1894, some ports took measures to prevent the introduction of plague. However, these measures ultimately failed to completely prevent the spread of plague.

Before 1898, Western medicine still did not fully understand the role of rats and lice in the spread of plague. Many Chinese workers still left Hong Kong as smugglers. The environmental sanitation conditions in which they lived were extremely poor. If pneumonic plague was spread,

, it is more likely to spread in a narrow cabin.

San Francisco's Chinatown is very dirty and messy. Many hotels are "single rooms", that is, there is only one room that can only accommodate a bed, and there is no independent bathroom or kitchen. Many "piggy" rooms are unaffordable, and they are in an old warehouse.

Inside, it can be tied up with a rope, which can be used to dry clothes and serve as a partition.

The dense population and the unclean appearance of Chinatown are in sharp contrast to the wealthy areas of San Francisco. The city of San Francisco has been expelling Chinese since 1885.

In 1900, suspected cases of bubonic plague were discovered in San Francisco's Chinatown, which gave the San Francisco Health Department an excuse to expel the Chinese.

In 1898, Mark Twain paid off all his debts, and his family returned to the United States in October 1900. At that time, Chinese and English newspapers were arguing endlessly about anti-Chinese and plague incidents. The Chinese and Western Daily was tracking the progress of the plague every day. Chinatown in San Francisco

It has become a place where conflicts between Chinese society and mainstream American society intersect.

Before the boycott of American goods in 1905, the Chinese still had a favorable impression of the United States because they reported the events of the Eight-Nation Allied Forces fairly fairly in 1900.

But when it came to the San Francisco plague incident, Americans had a different attitude.

On February 16, 1900, health officials burned down Honolulu's Chinatown in order to disinfect it.

On March 6, 1900, the first "suspected" plague death occurred in San Francisco. Without waiting for the results to come out, the health officer cordoned off Chinatown overnight to separate white and Chinese shops.

Within Chinatown, the health department neither quarantined the building where the Chinese tenant lived, nor searched for people who had been in contact with him, nor restricted the business and external traffic of white people in Chinatown. They blamed everyone

Chinese residents.

At that time, the San Francisco consul sent people to investigate the death cases and issued an announcement to clarify the facts. The Chinese Chamber of Commerce recognized the announcement and then donated money to hire a lawyer to petition the federal court to lift the ban.

The deceased, Huang Zhijing, had been ill for a month. It could not be a malignant infectious disease like the plague that would kill within a few days.

After Huang Zhijing's body was dissected at Angel Island, quarantine personnel injected the extract into rabbits, monkeys and mice, but no symptoms occurred.

So the first "encirclement" was lifted.

However, the Health Bureau did not give up. Whenever a Chinese died of illness, they would have the body taken away, dissected and burned, and even slandered it as a plague without any basis.

At that time, the Chinese believed that burying the body in peace, and that dissection and cremation were considered disrespectful to the body. Therefore, the Chinese Chamber of Commerce hired white coroners and lawyers to examine the body before the health department personnel, so as to avoid the end of "death without a complete body".

Later, when the smallpox vaccine came out, the health department required the Chinese to vaccinate. The vaccine at that time was not as safe as it is now. The vaccination would be life-threatening. Moreover, the smallpox vaccine could not prevent the plague, and it was only for Asians. The Chinese in San Francisco were furious and gathered at the Chinese Business Center.

Complaint to the club.

The San Francisco consul contacted the U.S. Ambassador Wu Tingfang and requested exemption from vaccination, and the merchants went on strike in protest.

On May 28, the federal court ruled that vaccination against Asian residents was discriminatory and suspended it. However, the California Department of Health instructed the San Francisco Health Department to fence Chinatown again.

During the second siege, doctors hired by the Chinese were not allowed to enter. Only people from the health department were allowed to enter. Chinese were not allowed to enter places other than Chinatown. Later, they said they would burn Chinatown. It seems that they are planning to follow suit.

In the Middle Ages, people were burned at the stake.

Wu Tingfang met with the President of the United States this time and accused the San Francisco Health Department of violating the Sino-U.S. contract by enclosing the area. The president sent the governor of California to inspect the area, but after a few days the ban was still not lifted.

The second time Chinatown was besieged, when the ambassador complained to the president, the Chinese in San Francisco also began to actively clean up their hygiene, which made the health situation in the area much better.

Although the siege was finally lifted, the siege left many people unemployed and hungry. The Chinese Merchants Association distributed the donated food to various branches and churches as usual.

At the same time, the Chung Hwa Association informed all townships that after this incident, they should clean their houses and maintain hygiene to prevent people from the Health Bureau from making excuses to surround the town again.

San Francisco is the largest and most prosperous city on the West Coast. Mark Twain, who was debt-free after traveling around the world, may have returned to San Francisco to see the place where he once stayed when he was wealthy and had a complete family.

His works did not cater to the public; he criticized irrational phenomena or the ugliness of human nature. The year 1900 was the era of the magicians Houdini and Sherlock Holmes at the end of the century.

Perhaps, the cold that Mark Twain said was not referring to the weather, but to the people's hearts. Among the many equatorial tropical cities he traveled to, the coldest was the summer in San Francisco.

Today, in Chinatown, where dragons and snakes are mixed, there are still "single room" hotels with poor conditions, as well as five-star hotels such as W Hotel.

Hotels with a flashy appearance are not as clean and bright as they appear on the surface. There are many so-called five-star hotels where the "snow-white" sheets are never changed. But for people who sleep in the same clothes, as long as they have a

You can fall asleep quickly if you have a bed you can lie on.

Hermione was currently lying on the double bed in the bedroom, fast asleep. She had no interest in the gorgeous decoration of the hotel, so she opened the door and went straight to the bedroom.

This girl not only wandered in the wild for a long time to destroy Horcruxes, and knew what it was like to go without a bath for a long time and to be hungry, she also experienced the Battle of Hogwarts. She survived such hardships, what else is there?

She couldn't bear it.

everything will get better.

Looking down from the floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room, not far away is the archway of London's Chinatown. Mr. Lin, the president of the Chinese business community, is negotiating with the police in the "encirclement" below the archway.

Tourists wanted to go into Chinatown, but the police said there was a gas leak and were investigating, so no one was allowed in. Mr. Lin had a heated argument with the police superintendent in charge of the siege.

The person sent by Scotland Yard should be a very good-tempered person. No matter what Mr. Lin said, he kept smiling from beginning to end, but he refused to give the order to remove the police cars blocking the entrance.

"Tiaozi" is really harmful.

"What are you looking at?"

A familiar deep voice came from behind Pomona, and then a pair of hands wrapped around her waist from behind. In the reflection of the glass window, she saw a face as pale as a vampire, which looked nothing like a vampire.

The unattractive half-blood prince was kissing her neck, looking like he was sucking blood.

"A demon that I wanted to kill but couldn't." She didn't look back and whispered, "Why are you here?"

"I miss you." He lowered his eyes and smelled her scent with his hooked nose.

"I didn't wear perfume today."

"I know." He kissed her earlobe, "I like your smell."

"We are working." She closed her eyes and tried her best to avoid his entanglement.

"Stop talking." He ignored her resistance and continued to unbutton her coat.

"Please...Hermione is in the bedroom."

“The presidential suite has many other rooms.”

"She needed information. She asked me where I got the night-calling information from!" Pomona finally broke free from his entanglement and spoke to him a step away.

His hair was messy and greasy, his upper lip was pursed, his wide eyes were bloodshot, his back was bent, and his black robe was dragging on the soft carpet, and he looked like he was angry.

"Teach me what to tell her, Professor." Pomona quickly added tactfully, "Now I'm at your command."

"I don't like your spy game!" He bared his yellow teeth and growled fiercely at her, raising his hands in front of his eyes as if he wanted to strangle her to death with his bare hands. "Don't play tricks on me!"

"I didn't." She said timidly, "I listened to you and didn't betray you."

The roaring beast suddenly put away its ferocious face and regained its human features.

"I'm afraid Kingsley will lose his patience if he keeps denying it like this. How about you let him make up for it?" Pomona clasped her hands together and begged, "We need his power now, especially in cities with sufficient electricity."

"I hate werewolves." He said in a daze. "It almost killed me."

"I know." She shed tears and choked up. "I'm just worried about Teddy. He didn't do anything wrong. Once humans and werewolves start a war, all his father's efforts will be in vain. Oh, what should I do, West?"

Fleurs."

She cried profusely, her eyes blurred with tears, and soon she felt like she was surrounded by a warm embrace.

She smelled sage on him and a hint of blood.

"Has the werewolf been recruited?" she asked.

"Yes." He said in a hoarse voice, "Stop talking about this, do you want to dance with me?"

"Yes," she whispered in his arms, "but we don't have music."

"We can imagine it in our heads."

"Can't you sing to me?" she scolded her new husband. "You never sing to me!"

"Waltz or tango?" he asked her in a strong tone.

"I don't want to jump anymore!" She was so angry that she broke away from the place that gave her temporary warmth, and was immediately pulled back.

"Don't ever think about leaving." He said with a proud smile, and then pulled her black robe and wrapped her in darkness.
Chapter completed!