Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-08-02
Chinese B Vice Consul Al
New York Murdered
By Fellow CountIyman, Who
Is Very Quickly Captured.
No Motive for the Crime Known.
Assassin Alleges SsIf.dsfsnes.

NEW UTk, Aug. ls-LI. Luh VlASi
Chinese vice CONSUL at New York. a
graduate of Lehfgh and Yale Universe
ties, and husband Of an American wo-
man, was MORALLY wounded at his Of
flee in lower Broadway building Sat
urday afternoon by man of his own
race. who gives voluble. but confused
and contradictory reports of himself
in "pidgin'' English.
Dr. Wing died that night in ST. Greg
ory's hospital.
He had been shot in the back with
revolver and the bullet, entering be-
low the shoulder blades, lodged in the
lower lobe OF the left lung. No attempt
to probe for it was made. Mrs. Wing,
who is i'll herself. was driven to the
hospital in time to be at the bedside.
Her husband recognized her and
smiled before the end came, but at no
time was he strong enough to make
an ante-mortem statement.
Michael Mcdonald, who for q years
has ibeen special Waterman at the
Chinese consulate, identified the muir
derer as Wong Bow Cheung, who he
says, was formerly steward on the
United States battleship Indiana. The
| IIldu IIlLISCll, WIN " dS az llIoI lLouGht
to te Japanese, gave his name to the
police as Matuda Woung, and said he
lived at 1915 ButtonwOod street, Phila-
delphia, though until recently he had
been employed as cook at Galen Hall,
an Atlantic CITY hotel. He came to
New York only Friday. he said. He
is understood and crop-haired and
wears American clothes.
No rational motive for the murder
has developed.
Mcdonald says he believes the man is
crazy. During the six years he has been
in this country he has been in and out
Of the consulate at intervals. Emporium
ing whomever he could find for a posi-
ton or for a loan.
Nobody witnessed the shooting. DR..
Wing had offices on the fifth floor of No.
IS Broadway. Tenants on the seventh
floor say they heard a shot and rushed
down stairs to find the vice consul and
his assassin scuff1ing in the hallway at
the head of the stairs.
Men on the fourth floor who were NOV
ing a safe heard someone above them
shout Help! I've been shot,
A dwarfish figure with a convulsed face
rushed past them before they rightly
knew what had happened. He was the
assassin. One of the men launched kick
at him on general principles but he was
not caught until he reached the street.
when two policemen. who knew nothing
of the trouble above but were impressed
by his agitation and haste. gathered him
in. The revolver with one shell exploded
and a mis-fired shell in it. was found in
his coat pocket
Quong Yiick Nam, the Chinese inter-
prefer who figured prominently in the
Elsie Sigel case. quizzed the prisoner at
length Saturday night. He talks freely
to anyone. but his excited and broken
answers to questions seem to bear out
McDonald's theory that the men is de-
ranged.
The residum of fact in his conflicting
statements is that he had grievance
against the vice consul because his ap-
plications for aid had been refused. AL
though he complained of being in want
and had slept Friday night in the mM-
nicipal lodging house. the police found
$14.65 in his clothes. He denied that he
murdered DR.. Wing and asserts that he
fiji ed in self-defence. He asserts he was
being forcibly elected from the consulate
when he resisted and the vice consul drew
a revolver. They fought for the weapon.
he declares, and he got it and fired point
blank
An early theory that the murder was
prompted by the well-known hostility of
the vice consul to the Chinese tongs and
their incessant wars. Is not thus far sup
ported by any Of the findings of facts.
There is nothing to indicate that any
of the complications uncovered by the
murder of Elsie Sigel bear on the present
case.
DR.. Wing married an American girl is
years ago. There were no children of the
marriage.