The San Francisco call., 1895-08-01
NO LONGER MANS SLAVE.
A Chinese Wife Adopts the
Caucasian Custom and
Gets a Divorce.
One of the Child Women of the
Mongollan Quarter and Her
Story of Rescue.

Tung Vow, alias All Mooie, alias Pong
Now Low, has got rid of her husband and
one of her names.
She is no longer Mrs. Low All Sing.
The divorce was granted yesterday by
Judge Trout and the plaintiff is allowed
to resume her three maiden names, already
described.
Little Tung Vow, alias All Mooie, alias
Pong Now Low, is young, gentle, and in
no manner a match for the willy All Sing,
whose christian name, if the heather can
be said to have one, is Low. The mans
first name is Low, and his general reputa-
ton as presented in court may be repre-
sented in the very same letters.
Chinese divorce cases are rare in this
country, even in San Francisco, for it is
the law and the practice of the Mongolian
quarter that if a man chooses to put awav
his vile he may put her away behind
wooden bars and commercially profit by
so doing. Low All Sing followed the usual
custom, but his wife, Tung Vow, alias All
Mooie, alias Pong Now Low, escaped to
Miss Culbertson's mission, and to save
herself from being returned to slavery she
followed the example of the frequent
American lady, and applied for relief in
the divorce courts.
Low Ah Sing was worse than the aver
age American husband. He took the little
woman as his wife two years ago last
January and before the time of an or
dinary honeymoon had passed he placed
her in the vilest durance OF the colony.
Accepting her as his slave, he sold her
For two years the little woman was held a
prisoner, but one day she saw an oppor-
tunity to slip out into the air of the free
people. She stole quietly along until the
danger of immediate detection seemed
passed, and then she ran. Little Tung
Vow, alias All Mooie, alias Pong Now Low
ran to her sisters in the Chinese mission.
There she was safe from her husband, safe
from her owners, and safe from tie whole
Chinese nation if it should try to take her.
She told to Miss Culbertson the story of
her slavery, and to Miss Culbertson it was
not a new one. The mission matron gave
the needed care and protection, and to
make the protection permanent she hired
a lawyer, Henry E. Monroe, to sue for
divorce.
The attorney went about his work in the
usual prosaic way and he filed a COM
plant, saying:
The plaintiff above named, complaining of
the defendant, alleges as follows:
That plaintiffs true name is Tung Vow, and
that the names All Mooie and Pong Now Low
have been given the plaintiff at different times
according to a Chinese custom.
That plaintiff is and for more than a year
Immediately before the commencement of this
action has been resident of this State and of
this city and county.
That on the 10Th day OF January, 1898, in
this city and county, defendant ana plaintiff
intermarred and ever since have been and
now are husband and wife, and plaintiff ever
since the said time has been the wife OF de-
fendant.
Then he related in quite as matter-of-
fact way how the little woman had been
sold into just the life that she should ex-
pect husband to shield her from. The
next step was to serve the summons on
the defendant, Low All Sing, but that was
impossible, even with the assistance of an
improvised Chinatown bailiff, one Wang
Lang.
S45 Clay street, but, said Mr.. Monroe in
his affidavit, "there they always slammed
the door in atlantis face, and to the at
torney's courteous questions they gave
"evasiye and non-committal replies"
This statement of the facts was readily
accepted by Judge Trout, who declared
the summons legal on newspaper publica-
ton and the mailing of notice.
Low All Sing defaulted the case, whether
allegations of the complaint were sup
ported by the testimony of Miss Culbert-
son, Attorney Monroe, Howard Badger,
All Ching and the plaintiff; and Judge
Trout decreed that little Tung Yow alias
All Mooie, alias Pong Now Low, should no
more be Mrs. All Sing. The technical
ground of the divorce was desertion on the
part of the husband, though it was, in fact,
the wife who had fed.
Commenting on the place OF the little
woman's enforced residence, Judge Trout
expressed himself mildly. Said he: cit
was unreasonable and grossly unfit"