 The poem became better known by its alternate title, "The Heathen Chinee", after being republished in a Boston newspaper in 1871.It was also quickly republished in a number of other newspapers and journals, including the "New York Evening Post", the "New York Tribune", the "Boston Evening Transcript", the "Providence Journal", the "Hartford Courant", "Prairie Farmer", and the "Saturday Evening Post".Harte was chagrined, however, to find that the popularity of the poem, which he had written to criticize the prevalence of anti-Chinese sentiment among the white population of California, was largely the result of its being taken literally by the very people he had lampooned, who completely misconstrued the ironic intent of Harte's words.