Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1894-07-05
QUEUE LOST. CASTE LOST.


Sing Sing Means to Gee Sing Perpetual
Exile from the Flowery Land. -,
Vixen Gee Sing was sentenced in tl1e
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
led into the prisoners box, and he sat
down on the bench, leaned back, and
closed his eyes composedly. To all APP
pearances, he was the most uncon-
| cerned of the prisoners. Another pfis-
oner who had been sent up for robbery
was bewailing his fate. He was a
good-looking young fellow with a head
of curly brown hair. Running his
fingers through his hair he said sor-
rowfully: as
''That'n all have to come off now. "
The Chinaman suddenly sat bolt up
right and looked at the speaker with
interest. =
"What you say?' he demanded. -
81 said that the Sing Sing barber
will be after all of u.s." returned the
young man. ''There won't be enough
hair left on our heads to stuff pillow
for fea." -
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. ''Cutit
off short and throw it away" -
The Chinaman walked back to his
seat, buried his face in his hands, and
rocked to add fro for a 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 Chinaman in tears,
he cries hard, and the sound of his
lamentation is weird. The court Off
Gals rushed into the prisoners pen and
after little succeeded in quieting the
weeping man. Asked what made him
burst out so suddenly he replied that
he was forever shut off from friends
and relatives and his native land, hav-
ing been sentenced to have his queue
cut off.
81 thought it was only to go to jail, :"
he walled. 1.-THE judge did not tell me
it was to cut my queue off"
He was taken away still weeping.
Inquiry in the Chinese quarter showed
that Gee Sing had not overrated the
weight of his misery. An intelligent
Chinaman said in regard to this:
I'm China full-blooded Chinaman is
| nothing without his queue. If in any
way he loses it he loses his caste with
it. His family drive him out, his friends
repudiate him and he becomes an out
cast. l had a friend whose uncle had
his queue torn from his head by an
accident. Rather than bring dis
grace on himself and his 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 an old Chinese proverb:
These are reckoned as the dead; the
blind, the leper and the childless,' and
the present generation might add to
this the man who lost his queue When
a Chinaman comes to this country it is
| usually his intention to amass sum
of money and return. If by any chance
he looses his queue he is not allowed to
return, but must always be an exile.
Gee Sing has been shut off from the
hope of his life. He had hoped to res
turn rich and honored and take his
place at the head of his family. Now
he must always stay here. There isa
society of Cinnamon in this city who
call themselves the Mo Bin Tong; that
is, the No Pigtail club. They are
Americanized Cinnamon, and take an
oath always to stay here, and they in,
sure the keeping of their VOW by cut
ting off their queues, IN. Y, Sun. =