William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

“Cheapest, you mean,” sneers a gentleman in our circle.

“Best, as well as cheapest, I assert,” replies the first speaker.

Going up Jackson Street we look into Yin Yung's shop, surprised to see so good a show of work; the boots and shoes appearing to be as neat and strong as any you will find in rival stores, yet marked at figures much below the ordinary price elsewhere.

Until the other day Yin Yung had never seen an English boot. A mandarin wears slippers, a merchant clatters down the street in clogs. An English high-low was as strange a mystery to Yin Yung as a Chinese puzzle would be to Giles Hodge. But Yin Yung wanted rice to eat, and reading a notice in Kearney Street that ‘good hands’ were wanted by one Aaron Isaacs, bootmaker, he applied for work; and, as he asked for next to nothing in the way of wages, the worthy Israelite gave him a stool, a mallet, and a ball of wax. A Jew has no objections to cheap labour on the score of race and creed. He knows, indeed, that John will learn his art and steal his trade; but he imagines he can make his