William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 2

[263] wrangling or fighting is allowed within the house. So far as order can be made by rules, order is said to reign among Lee Si Tut's tenants; and the Globe Hotel in Jackson Street may be regarded as the royal khan and summer-palace of the Chinese empire in America.

Pass in. Oh, Lee Si Tut! A sickening odour greets your nostrils on his steps. A reek comes out of every door, and dirt lies heaped on every landing-stage. The dust of years encrusts his window-panes. Compared with this Globe Hotel, under Lee Si Tut, a Turkish or a Spanish prison is a desert place. The bannisters drip; the passages sweat. A black and fetid slime runs down the walls. And then what press and multitude of tenants on the stairs and in the rooms! Men swarm at every door, and crowd down every stage; each pale and melancholy wretch vomiting his narcotic poison in your face. A nameless horror seems to brood in every corner of the house, for out of every corner glare the spectral eyes of beings fevered by tan and stupefied with drugs.

Each room, arranged for the accommodation of a single guest, is either parted into six or seven sections