The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-08-21
CHINATOWN TRICKS.


 ling.
 l By far the most interesting part of | New York city in the eyes of visitors from out of town in Chinatown, which ia invaded by thousands of sightseers every year. Ninety per cent. of them go at night and are bent on seeing all the dreadful things which Chinamen and their Caucasian associates are popular | ly supposed to do. As result of this curiosity. a custom has grown up in Chinatown, and it has proved to be a highly profitable business all around.
 Almost everything that visitors to Chinatown see nowadays is more or less fraudulent. Whether the visitors leone by night or by day. the greater part of the entertainment provided by their guides is fraudulent although they never know it and go away satis- fled that they have seen the real thing.
 The chinamen who live in Chinatown are not fools. neither are the white women who associate with them nor the white men who pick up living in more or less questionable ways in the quarter. None of the Chinamen. and certainly few os the women, could be induced to make a public display of their private lives for money, but they are not at all averse to arranging little exhibitions for the edification of visitors who pay we'll thinking they are seeing the real thing.
 | There are fully score of men of the Chuck Connors type who call then- lselves Chinatown guides. They have lived in the quarter for years, know every man and woman in it, know the gambling dens. the joss houses, the opium joints; in fact, are part of the | quarter and well qualified to show people about. ...... ... The minute visiting party strikes Chinatown it is taken in tow by one of these guides. Sometimes the guide meets the party by appointment for many of them have connections with hotel clerks uptown who tout for them, but ostener the party wanders about until a guide picks it up and makes a bargain to show it Chintown. | Of course. the party wants to see opium smoking, a game of fantan in | operation, the quarters of white women who live with Chinamen, and all the other things that are part of the quarter. The guide leads them up dark alleyways, through winding railways l where they cannot see their hands be- fore their faces, and finally into little box-like rooms where white women, and Chinamen smoke what is supposed l to be opium for their amusement. All conversation is carried on in whispers, l a good deal is said about the police and other dangers of the expedition. and l the visitors are worked up to proper state O. excitement.
 l What the Chinamen and women 1 smoke is not opium at all. Generally q | small piece of wax is cooked over the lamp and inserted over the pinhole of l the pipe bow. A convenient cigarette in the end Of the pipes broad stem sup plies the smoke.
 l A few puffs and the smoker rolls over in what appears to be deep slumber. The guide leads the shivering party out, and warns all hands to keep the matter livery quiet. <.
 Next he finds Chinese gambling den in full operation. Fantan. Chinese dominoes and games with the long strip O. cardboard covered with Chinese | characters are being played. The table is covered with money, the banker hauls his coins from the center of the 1 table with his sharp-pointed stick and the players suck away at their gurgling l water pipes. A carefully arranged pro- test is made when the visitors enter, but | the guide arranges matters and the play is resumed. This is just as conn | plete fake at the opium smoking. The supposed gamblers are just play-acting | for the visitors, but they do it very we'll and the visitors especially the women flor there are women in all of these parties-go away properly awed. Visits to joss houses, restaurants and alleged dens are made. fake fights occur, dramatic scenes are enacted and by the time the trip is over the visitors have seen about all they can stand.
 For long time there was a China town woman who used to commit sui- eide every night for the benefit of the visitors. She was good-looking girl and had a room at top of Doyers street, tenement. E ..r's
 For a long while the fake opium smoking took place in her room. A romantic and touching tale of this girls downfall used to be told confidentially to visitors by the guides, so that she was an object of special interest. At certain stage of the exhibition each night she would startle the visitors by tossing her pipe aside, crying out. T am tired of all this!" and then taking a nasty swallow from a bottle labeled "carbolic acid" she would fall grooming to the floor, and the guide would hustle the visitors away so they wouldn't be arrested as witnesses. The false suicide was a bowling suc- cess and great money-maker for the woman who did it.. The wardman from the Elizabeth street station put the performance under the ban, however, and the guides had to cut it out of their repertoire. The program described is gone through as many as a dozen times some nights. and the strange thing is that visitors never seem to detect the l imposition. They swallow it all with l perfect confidence. and pay as much | as $5 a head sometimes for the eve ning's entertainment--NewY York Sun.