New-York tribune., 1922-08-14
Not a Shot Fired
AS Tong Escorts
koLow toCrave|
All Chinatown Follows Body
of Slain Hip Sing Head,
but Formidable Police
Convoy Alone Is Nervous
On Leongs Send Flowers
300 MoUrners Given Silver
Tokens; Chinese Woman
Hysicrical Over Coffin

The burial in Cypress Hills Cemetery
yesterday of Ko Low, murdered chief Of
the Hip Sing Tong, was in accordance
with Christian IGeas until the $4,000
metallic coffin with gold handles had
been lowered into it's temporary grave.
Then solemn, shiny faced Cantonese
distributed basketful of small silver
CONS among the 800 persons crowded
about the mouth of the grave.
Bring good luck" promised frankie
Wah' vice-presidcnt of the Hip Sings,
as he pressed one of these paper
wrapped coins into the hand of a per
spring grave digger. Something in his
manner warned that parting with the
charm might bring disaster on the
spender, but that chershing it would
work mutual benefit for the possessor
and the soul of Ko Low.
Chinese Woman Among Mourners
Just how little white men can know
of the affairs of Chinese was illustrated
at 40 Lows grave. The bullets that
killed him-and three Hip Sings say
they came from Tom Yee's pistol
found ko Low escorting two white
women out of Chinese Delmonico's.
After he died in the Volunteer Hospital
his friends just blinked their eyes
when asked about his relations with
these women. Ko Low, they said, mad
a wife in China. But when the first
handful of earth clattered on the coffin
lid yesterday there was a shrek of an
gulsh more shrill than the flutes Of the
Oriental band from a young Chinese
woman who was supported at the head,
OF the grave by two friends of Ko Low,
and but for their restraining arms she
would have cast herself into the pit.
Was this Ko Lows wife? There was
no Chinese among the hundreds in the
cemetery who would answer such a
question, and when the burial &c re-
mony was over she :Tas taken back to
Chinatown and immured there behind
walls where white men never are lin-
vited.
The body os Ko Low lay in state in
the building that houses the headquar-
ters of the Hip Sings at Pel and
Doyers streets Saturday night and yes
terday forenoon, but only Chinese we've
allowed to look upon his dead fea-
lures. The sightseeing bus lecturer
had to lead his tourists through Mott
Street and then convince them they
had seen everything. Blue-coated po-
lice barred the way to the pool room
where Ko Lows body was nested among
hundreds Of floral pieces. The pool
brought him profit had been removed
for the day.
At 1890 o'clock, when the sun was
glinting from the visors and brass
buttons of more than a score of po-
licemen on the roofs of Chinatown, the
Rev. Father r. J. Hutchinson, of the
Roman Catholic Church Of the Trans
fguration, in Mott Street, began to re-
cite burial service in the dismantled
pool parlor In the streets outside
awaited q cortege of seventy-five auto
mobiles, and swarm of policemen,
mounted and afoot, commanded by In
spector William A. Coleman, separated
white visitors from yellow mourners
and listened nervously for the shots
that would signal the outbreak of a
tong war.
Rival Tong Sends Offering
An impressively large floral emblem
from the rival On Leong Tong that
stood near the head of Ko Lows cas-
ket should have treasured the police
guard. If Tom Yee did kill him. he WIS
not acting for any tong, or rhere would
have been blood spilled before the fu-
neral and while Ko Lows dead ears
would hear the shots of vengeance.
When Father Hutchinson had An
ished and six OF the tallest Hip Sings
had shouldcred the coffin into the elab
orately carved and polished hearse of
the Baciglupo undertaking establish
ment the procession began to move
The hearse was first, and then marched
an understood mourner bearing as he
would banner, an enlarged crayon
portrait in colors of Ko Low. Then
came ten coaches filled with flowers
and next the Chinese band in a bus
like those sponsored by Mayor Hylan.
Cymbals and flutes sought for suprem-
acy IN tidal wave Of sound. Next
came $50 marchers and then an Italian
band playing Nearer Ny God to
Thee" in key that enabled them to
compete on terms of equality with
their Chinese opposition. After them
came the automobiles.
The procession wound into Mott
Street from Doyer, then into the Bow
Pell to Mott and once more into the
Bowery. Ko Low was being given his
last glimpse Of the scenes of his tri-
umphs. He was taken past his labor
agency, where he recruited sailors for
Standard Oil tankers and money for
himself; past his boarding house; past
an apartment that was his and which
even now, perhaps, houses the woman
who cried out at his grave.
From the Bowery the procession
moved into Catherine Street, into East
Broadway, to Clinton to Delaney
Street and then over the bridge, halt
ing at the abutment so that the mourn
crs could scramble into the machines.
Then at an increased pace they trav-
eled through Bushwick and Jamaica
avenues to the Cypress Hills Gene
terry, where the Chinese of New York
maintain two acre nlOt annie for
their needs, since once every decade
all the dead are SHIPPED back to the
land of their fathers.
In five years it will be time for Ko
Low to make that trip home to China.