Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1909-11-06

4 n for many years existed III
New York under the eyes
and noses of that city's people and
their officials. In this sphere men and
women have moved like the fiotsam
in an eddy, against the stream of the
world without. The secret rules OF
the order provided the only known es-
cape from the arm of the nations
law; they made men secure in the
commission Of atrocities and yelled
the existence of set of moral condi-
tons almost beyond comprehension;
certainly past momentary tolerance.
Over the whole was a hectic fila
ment of romance and morbid interest
which appeared to the chance passer
or the sightseer to make the place
curiously fascinating corner trans
planted from another world-far too
original and alluring to be removed.
They called it Chinatown. 1t is no
place; it is no street in particular,
though it has it's center and its boun-
daries. 1t is rather degenerate state
of the senses.
NSW huoW vi II, vi COui DC,
in a dim sort of way. Now and then
l0here was a brawl, killing of some
Oriental or an opium den raid. These
were matters of course. No one gave
them more than passing attention.
To-day, however, New York knows
Chinatown in it's true perspective. The
Elsie Sigel murder was the first rift
in the cloud that obscured the fact
Now the mist itself is dissipated. New
York knows that Chinatown-the
spirit, not the PLACES one of its
cruel, almost unthinkable problems.
The latest outrage In Chinatown-a
place that brews outrages faster than
a quagmire matches mosquitoes-is the
abduction of a pretty mill girl of
Weehawken and her Imprisonment in
a Chinese den. where she was sub
jected to horrifying cruelties.
This most recent unfortunate is
Christina Braun, Is years old, blue
eyed and inclined to be just a little
wild" Christmas case differs from
that of hundreds Of other girls who
Dhve fallen victim to the lures of Chi
natown only in the fact that she had
the good fortune to escape before she
became slave to opium-the SUI
preme evil of this most vicious hole in
all the vast metropolis.
The girl went to Coney Island with
some friends on a Sunday. She lost
her companions in the crowd and,
finally, after wandering about for a
time, went into chop suey Joint" to
get bite to eat. There she was
drugged, and the next thing she re-
members she was being carried
through the labyrinthal hallway to a
Chinatown den.
The girl fought desperately to get
away from two Chinese who were
dragging her along the floor of the
dark hall, but she was beaten into in
sensibility. When she next recov
cred consciousness she was in a dim
ly lighted room and a hideous China
man was leaning over her. leering into
her face.
q Again the girl screamed and fought
TO get out of the place. but was
knocked senseless. Between beatings
she was made to understand that she
was the slave of her captor and tha
the best thing she could do would BIZ
to remain quiet. But devious, dark ant
dirty as Chintown is, news will trave
there, and the girl had not been in the
den more than "a hours before {
"lobbygow"-a Chinaman who acts a,
stool pigeon and informer for the DO
lice-told two Mulberry street detec
tives that there was a white girl pris
oner somewhere in the colony.
The men set watch and, after
time, succeeded in starving out AM
capturing Joe Wong, an Americanize,
Chinese gambler. The girl was foun,
in Wong's room, her face so bruise,
that her friends had difficulty in rec
,Ssnizing her when they visited her a
CPie headquarters of the Gerry society
Wong was locked up in the Tombs
but he probably will get out of tn
scrape on the ground that the CIR
willingly accompanied him to his lair
A regularly organized traffic ii
white and Chinese girl slaves exists ii
Chinatown and every detective VIII
has worked in that section knows /
now.
IL is true that scores of women fal
prey to the Chinese every year by frs
visiting Chinatown on Summing an,
sightseeing trips. Others are attracte,
there by the gaudy tales about how
kind and gentle the Chine sc are 4
women how well they clcthe then