The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-03-20
Chinese Highbinders and Their Way
OF Eluding Arrest.
DANGER in CHASING THEM
DEADLY TRAPS SET FOR THE
POLICE IN SAN FRANCISCO.
Thrilling Escapes of Officers During
a Ten Years War On the Murder
s'ous Tongs-Lieutenant Price Fin
ally Compelled to Give Up His
Fight On the Ratchet Men.

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After war lasting for ten years
and full of sensational incidents, Lieu
tenant William Price of the San Fran
cisco police force has been forced tc
abandon his crusade against the Chi
nese highbinders. Taking the advice
of INSCRIPTIONS lawyers, the various
longs, or highlander bands in the Pa
CHIC coast city, have organized so-called
merchants clubs secured papers o.
incorporation, and laugh at the efforts
of the police to dislodge them, because,
being incorporated, they are safe from
| police raids.
! The highlander societies are gangs of
| professional murdererS known in the
vea'nacular as Ratchet men," from the
TACT that the Ratchet used to be their
favorite weapon. When a Chinaman
wants an enemy disposed of, whether
! he be a rival in business or love, or a
person of whom he is in dread he gen.
orally let's the job to highlander at a
stipulated sum. That is, he makes a
deal with the head man of the Tor, and
the choice of an assassin is then decided
by lot.
The only way to fight a. pack of de-
mons is to be a demon yourself,
guess" says Lieutenant Price Ten
years ago the highbinders called me
their White Devil If there is anything
in name, all right. L would rather
have them believe I am a. devil than an
angel. l have discovered in my ten
years experience with the hatchet1nen
that there are no angels among them.
They are a pack of deep-dyed devils
every one of them bloodthirsty, and
have fought them as devils from that
day to this.
How do fight highbinders? Never
twice in the same way. If you set a trap
for hatchetman and be gets caught in
1t you will never bag another one that
way. If there were 1000 highbinders
in the quarter, every one would know
all about it in less than five minutes.
When 1 walk down Kearney street and
up towards Chinatown the highbinders
have signalmen, who carry the news
on ahead of me, just as if some one had
my picture on a. banner going on in ad-
vance. And these signals travel like a
flash. a certain wave OF the hand goes
from block to block, and these hands are
well paid. too. But if they should fail
in their duty and some Highlander
should be caught red-handed, all the
punk sticks in Chinatown could not
save the erTing .signalman. a price
would be placed on his head before an
hour.
SYSTEM OF WARNING SIGNALS.
Besides this system, there are secret
wires and alarms leading to attics and
underground dens where the highbind-
ers hold their meetings. [ remember a
big raid we made one midnight in Ross
alley. We had located twenty hatchet-
men in a deep cellar, but the next thing
was to get them handcuffed. ] knew
hay ritpbt ma S~ lie.
we're being used. Little PETE had just
been murdered and over his grave vesl-
geance had been sworn. Our only hope
was to reach the signals or wires. A
block distant from the den was a Chi
neSe butchers stall on the street cor
ner and so located that he could look
in three directions. He had a suspi-
cious look whenever [ came about, and
always began to cut up meat. We
watched him. He always went to the
SAME block and began cutting. Two
minutes before the raid L jumped
around the street corner and into his
stall. He moved toward the block; but
clicked a gun in his face. 1t was not
a block at all; simply a board rounded
to look like one, and the slightest
weight upon it would press a button
below and ring the hignbinders' bell q
block away. That was the secret of his
fully, hanGcuffed my man to an iron
railing outside, and soon had a wagon
load Of men from Ross alley en- the way
to central police station They were
murderous looking fellows, but we COW
cred them all with guns as soon as the
door was opened.
THE only safe way of getting a
is TO make a rush. He al
ways has six or eight doors at his dis
49, IT.
blind doors and windows. 1 have
known some of them to leap into a
dumb waiter or secret elevator and
shoot up to the attic and jump through
a hole in the roof. All this il a few
seconds. Right here is the danger in
hunting the highlander. A policeman
is liable to step upon concealed trap
door in the hallway or the rooms of
the building, and fall into some dark,
foul basement twenty feet below. We
have to look out for this when we do
the rush act Not many weeks ago
Tom Naylor was pursuing a desper-
ate fellow through an old lodging
house on Stockton street, and was just
about grabbing him by the 'pigtaiP
when the highlander ran up a trick
ladder to hole in the roof. Tom
followed him, and when near the top,
the criminal pulled out a nail, jerked
a wire, and Naylor fell twenty feet to
the floor, while his man ran out over
the roof. Naylor then scrambled up
the opening by climbing one
of the sides of the false ladder. He
found the hatchetman with a broken
leg on another roof, and carried him
down to the street, surrounded by a
lot of excited kinsmen. When L climb
a Chinaman's ladder 1 want a white
man at each end of it and a receiving
hospital ambulance handy.
1.-The roof-fght is the most treacher-
Gus of all in raiding highbinders. A
man is a good target in such a place,
and it is impossible very often to tell
where the shot was fired. But that
isn't ALL On all these roofs there are
trap doors. An officer is liable to step
on one at any minute, while the hatch
etmen know them at a glance. 1t is a
bad thing to fall through these doors
You don't know where or how far you
are going to journey, nor just what
kind of company you're going to find
at the bottom. The doors are operated
by cords. or springs.
II have surprised many a gang by
sliding down a rope right into their
midst Anything sudden is always
best. Sometimes a shot fired above
their heads moment before you enter
the room will have the desired effect.
You must show them right from the
start that you mean business. Some
times a squad can surprise the guards