Los Angeles herald., 1891-09-27
CHINESE CRIME AND ITS COST.

During the past two months the
amount of Chinese criminal litigation
has been greater than usual. At all
times it constitutes more than one-half
the business that the criminal machin-
cry Of the city and county has to deal
with; but in the past month it SUR
passed its usual volume. The crimes
have ranged from vagrancy to kidnap-
ing and murder, some four different
murder cases having been tried at least
once, and one twice. Then we have
had two or three of those ever-recurring
infamous cases in which the machinery
of the law is used to kidnap women in
one part of the state under the false
charge of larceny so as to get them to
another, where they can be efectu-
ally spirited away. 1t would
be difficult to get at the exact
amount the taxpayers OF this
county have to pay in the matter OF
Chinese crime. During the past month
it must have reached an enormous sum.
From the time policeman or sherif's
officer makes an arrest until conviction
is secured or mistrial takes place, there
is constant stream of costs going on.
Perhaps $4,000 would not more than
pay all the bills incurred by the city
and the county during the past month
in this class of criminal business.
The Wong Ark case gave us an idea OF
the tortuous and cimmerian courses
that have to be followed in Chinese
criminal matters. In the first place you
are never certain about the truth
of any statement a Chinese wit
ness may make. The whole story
OF the difficulty was pithily let out
by one shlewd Chinese witness. He
said: "Chilamen he tellee lie allie same
tluth; he no have God to makee him
haid. Mclean man have God, he
faid tellee lie." In other words the
Chinese are not troubled with conscience
and perjury costs them nothing.
We know that there is always more or
less gambling going on in Chinatown.
We could not prove it perhaps; but we
know that with this people there is a
great deal of profit in gambling, and
where there is money to be made the
Chinese will take any risk and resort to
any device to make it. The vigilance
or laxity of the police will render it diff
cult to get at or easy to expose. But
all the same gambling will be
going on to a greater or less extent in
! Chinatown all the time. 1t is the way
-, nh Of hn or,kc md
laborers, and the gains of the vegetable
peddlers are drawn from their purses.
There are no people in the world
who have a more absorbing pas
sion for gambling than the Chi
nese; and where everybody is will
ing to play, and there is money to
be made at it, we may rest assured that
the opportunities to play will be fur
nished. We are assured by one who is
in position to know that there are now
twelve fan tan games in full blast in
Chinatown. M aa ssatA ...
There is perhaps one efectual way to
break up Chinese gambling in this city,
but it has not yet been tried. Some
three or four hundred of the denizens of
Chinatownlive by gambling. They either
run games themselves or hang around
them.. Every one of these fellows could
be driven out of the city if the police
would go after them with determined en-
ergy as vagrants. Nearly all the Chinese
criminal business Of the police depart
ment, the sherif7s Office and the courts
has its genius in this class, and to drive
it out of the city would leave compara-
lively law-abiding element in the Chi
nese quarter. But we have no faith in
the sincerity of the genus policeman
when it comes to expect him to drive
away the gambling and criminal Mon
golian. No doubt your average man of
experience in the force who has careful
ly arranged his fences in Chinatown,
has lot of stool-pigeons who keep him
constantly posted about the games that
are in blast. He can at any time either
''pull'' them for the benefit of the pub
lie, or let them alone for the benefit of
No. l. Well, when they don't get
pulled" often enough to show earnest
ness, then it is plain to see that the av-
erage experienced policeman is in bust
ness for revenue, with perhaps a slight
modicum of incidental protection to the
public.
If the Chinese gamblers, who are well
known to the police, were hunted down
for vagrancY, they would soon leave the
city with all their wretched vermin of
retinue. With this element absent
there would be nobody to open games,
and crime would disappear to very
large extent in the Chinese quarter.
With the subsidence of Chinese crime,
there would be vast saving to the tax
payer in the cost of preventing it under
existing conditions.
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A STRANGE DEATH.