ordinance allowing any white citizens to petition to remove them. There were twenty Chinese prostitutes on the Comstock in 1880, while there had been seventy-five in 1875. The majority of prostitutes worked in public establishments in mining towns such as the Comstock. Brothels were distinguished by both class and race, and the best Chinese brothels in San Francisco, and probably on the Comstock as well, catered only to Chinese, because Chinese men believed that the most degrading thing a Chinese woman could do was to have sexual intercourse with a white. High-Status Asian women often dressed in silks and jewels, as did other Chinese prostitutes who catered to whites with a taste for the exotic. By and large, however, Chinese prostitutes dressed in plain cotton and worked for fees ranging from twenty-five to fifty cents a customer. In Comstock, Asian women were always segregated in Chinatown and none of them lived in brothels also housing whites. This segregation reflected the anti-Chines prejudice. In the system of stratification within prostitution Chinese prostitutes had lower status than any other group of women. A few Chinese immigrated to the Comstock as free-agent prostitutes or the concubines of rich Chinese, The majority were either indentured for about five years or were the lifetime slaves of brothel keepers with ties to the secret societies headquartered in San Francisco The harsh life of a Chines prostitutes in the mining towns were commonly disrespected in the white communities there. The enslavement of Chinese women was common knowledge on the Lode, whites simply accepted. A newspaper even ran articles reporting the kidnapping of a prostitute urged readers to treat it lightly, noting that among the Chinese women stealing was comparable to horse stealing among Americans. It was a serious crime against someones property, but not a grave offense to someones person. For some prostitutes, suicide, madness or a ...
