The San Francisco call., 1909-07-29
WHITE CHILD IN
AN OPIUM DEN
Little Maiden Is One of the Mysteries Of
the Chinese Quarter

Nah Ho. years old, with great
brown eyes round as the walnut, rather
than like the almond. and distinctly
European features, was taken yester-
day morning from basement opium
and gambling den at 81 Spofford alley,
Chinatown, and is now in the Juvenile
detention home. Miss DonaldRe Cam
eron of the Presbyterian rescue mission
home. who found the child, said that she
is white and without strain of Chinese
blood.
The childs history instantly became
one of the inscrutable mysteries of
the orient and of San Francisco's S
Chinatown The Chinese surrounding
the child told varying tales. One was
that the little girls mother was a
white woman. the WIFE of a Chinese,
who had passed the child on to Tun
See. wife of Nah Joy Lin. Another
tale, which was supported by vague
document, was that the child had been
given into the custody of the Nah
Juy Lin family by a home finding asso-
citation of Beulah.
This paper purported to be signed
by George Montgomery and a Mrs.
Bradbury. Although the police saw
the paper, they did not take it, but
the Chinese second mother" promised
to bring it into court next Friday
afternoon, when Judge Van Nostrand,
sitting in the juvenile court. will hear
the merits of Miss Cameron's petition
to have the child declared a public
charge.
BUT 3 YEARS OLD
The child is but years Old at the
susceptible age, and the fact that she
was facing the shame and degradation
of oriental woman slavery aroused the
police and mission authorities. China
town will be searched for other cases
paralleling the story of the white
blooded child known as Nah Ho.
Expert ethnologists would be put to
the test to determine that white blood
did not flow in the veins OF the little
one known as Nah Ho, whose lavender
blouse and pantaloons somehow do not
harmonic with the long, thin face, the
brown hair with vagrant high lights,
the great, round hazel eyes and the
prominent Hebraic nose.
The child was kept in close confine-
ment in her prison basement, her only
playmate being a puppy, and scarcely,
II seems, did she ever see the sunlight.
Word of the infants predicament was
sent to Miss Cameron first by two
dlAoAiA AAiOhS lSlAciS, GSl6IudN
ing she was told by friend that a
white child was held by Chinese in a
dark dungeon of an opium den
LIVING IN OPIUM JOINT
The den in which the child was
found by Miss Cameron and Policeman
Luke Livingstone, specially detailed
for the Juvenile court. was a basement
opium joint and the room in which
the child slept was never reached By
sunlight or heat In an odor OF the
gas burner and the demoralizine
opium the little child. whose face and
body give every trace Of white parent
age. was being reared
The girl Is an anomaly. Her tongue
is Chinese; her feet and eyes and haiI
are Caucasian. she can not speak a
word OF English, but her feet, at the
age Of 2, are as large as the feet o
the mature girl who acted as inter
prefer at the Chinese mission for the
child and her newly found guardians
All day in the bright sunlit rooms
Of the mission at go Sacramento street
the child played and blinked with eyes
unaccustomed to the glare of day.
THOUGHT FOOD POISONED
She would not eat at the mission, be-
cause her second mamma" warned
her. in the Chinese fashion, that hel
food would be poisoned there, and she
stoically forgot her childish craving
and declared that she was not hungry
although but a moment before she had
4 oh hun