The Big Stone Gap post. [volume] (Big Stone Gap, Wise County, Va.) 1892-1928, 1894-07-19
QUEUE LOST, CASTE Losr.
Sing Sing Means 90 Geo Sing Perpetuas
Exile From the Faowery Land.

shay Sing Meana 90 Geo Sing Perpetual
Exile From tho rfowcry Land.
When Gee Sing was sentenced in the
general sessions the other day to four
years imprisonment for stabbing his
cousin, Gee Kee, no sign of emotion
stirred his placid features as he was
lied into the prisoners box. and ne sat
down on the bench, leaned back, and
closed his eyes composedly. To all APP
/ pearances, he was the most uncon-
I ccrned of the prisoners. Another pris-
! oner who had been sent up for robbery
| was bewailing his fate. lie was a
! good-loozing young fellow with head
of curly brown hair. Running his
fingers through his hair he said sor-
rowfully:
/ "ThatIl all have to come of now"
4 The Chinaman suddenly sat bolt up
Y right and looked at the speaker with
4 interest.
l ..What you say?' he demanded.
| 81 said that the Sing Sing barber
will bo after all of US" returned the
[ young man. There won't be enough
hair left on our heads to stuff pillow
for Aea."
I Gee Sing clutched his queue with
both hands and walked over close to the
speaker.
"They cut off that?" he demanded
!hoarsely. tapping his pigtail.
Certainly" was the reply. "Cut it
off short and throw it away"
The Chinaman walked back TO has
Iseat, buried his face in his hands, and
rocked to add fro for moment. Then
the courtroom was disturbed by the
most unearthly sound that ever echoed
from it's walls. Gee Sing was crying,
When Chinaman cries. and there are
! few men in this country who
have seen a Chinaman In tears,
The cries hard, and the sound OF his
fermentation is weird. The court OIL
Gals rushed into the prisoners pen and
latter a little succeeded in quoting the
weeping man. Asked what made him
iburst out SO suddenly he replied that
he was forever shut off from friends
| and relatives and his native land, bav-
ing been sentenced to have bis queue
cut off.
81 thought it was only to go to jail, y
! he walled. "The judge did not tell me
it was to cut my queue off"
| He was taken asvay still weeping.
| Inquiry in the Chinese quarter Showed
that Gee Sing had not oyerrated the
weight Of his misery. An intelligent
tChinaman said in regard to this:
/ 'In China full-blooded Chinaman is
! nothing without his queue. If in any
wav he loses it he loses his caste with
| it. His family drive him out. his friends
repudiate him and he becomes an out
cast had friend whose uncle had
his queue torn from his head by an
accident. Rather than bring dis
grace on himself and mia family
he seized it. tied it about his throat
| and strangled himself to death with it.
So great is the regard in which it Is
held We have M old Chinese proverb:
These are reckoned RI the dad; the
blind, the lepcr and the chiidless.' aad
| the present generation might add to
this the man who lost his queue. When
| q Chinaman comes to this country it is
usually his intention to amass sum
of m oney and retnra. Ifby any chance
he looses his queue he is not allowed 10
return, but must always be an exile.
Gee Sing has been shut off from the
hope of his life He had hoped to re-
turn rich and honored and take his
place at the head of his family. Now
he must always stay here. There is a
society of Cinnamon in this city who
call themselves the Mo Bin Tong; that
is, the No Pigtail club. They arc
EAmericapized Cinnamon, and take an
oath always to stay here, and they in
! sure the keeping of their VOW by cut
tinp off their oueues. Y, Sun.