The Weekly Journal. — 1903-07-10 (Hartlepool, Cleveland, England)

VISIT TO CNINATOWS.  HOW STRANGERS ARE DECEIVED IN THE CHINESE QUARTER OP NEW YOR.R.  By. far the most interesting part of New York in the eyes of visitants is Chinatown, which is invaded by thonaando of sightseers every year. Ninety per cent. of them go at night, and are bent on seeing all the dreadful things Chinamen and their Caucasian 11180Ciatea are popularly supposed to dn. As a result of this ittinoeity. a euatrim of working of frauds of the visitors has grown up in Chinatown, and it has proved to be a highly profitable business all round. . .  Almost everything that visitors to Chinatown now-a-days is more or less fraudulent. Whether the visitors go by night or by day, the greater part of the entertainment provided by their guide,: is fraudulent, although they sever know it. and go away :Atisfied that they liave seen the real thing. The Chinamen who use in Chinatown are not fools, neither are the white women who Resodats with their nor the white men who pick up t living in more or lees questionable ways in ihe quarter. None of the Chinamen, and eert•inly very few of the women, could be induced to mike public display of their private lives for money, but they are Vet at all AVerSe to tartaring little exhibitions tor the edification of visitors. who pay well, thinking they ere seeing Ow real thing. There ore fnlly a score of men who call theirs:lves Chin-town guides. They have Fved in the quarter for :term know every man and woman in it. know the gambling dens. jr+s bowies, the opium joints: in fact, are a part of the quarter and we!! qnalied to chow people about. . .  The initiate a visiting party arrives in Chinatown it is taken in tow by one of these guides. Sometimes the guide meets the party by appointment, for near of them have connectinnx with hotel clerks ap-town who tout for them. but oftener the party wanders about until a guide pieta it up and trilkes a bargain to show it Chinatown. Of course, the pArty wants to see opium smoking, game of fantsn in operation. the quarters of white women who live with Chinamen. and all the other things that ere part of the quarter. The guide leads them up dark alleyways, through winding hallways, where they cannot see their hands before their faces, and finally into little box-like roams where white women and Chinartmn smoke what is seprosed to he opium for their amusement. All conversation is carried on in whispers, a good deal is maid ahem, the police and other tiongers of the expedition, and the visitors are worked lip to a proper state of excitement. • What the Chinamen and women smoke is not • opium at all. Generally a small piece of was is cooked over the lamp and inserted over the pin-hole of the pipe bowl. :1 convenient cigarette in the end of the pipe's broad stem supplies the smoke. A for 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 eery quiet. Next he finds a Chinese gambling den in full operation. Cantsn. Chinese dominoes and games with the long strip of cardboard covered with Chinese characters, are being played. The table is covered with money, the banker hauls his coins from the oentre of the table with his srarp-pointed Mick, and the players suck away at their gurgling water pipes. A carefully arranged protest is made when the visitors enter. hut the guide arranges matters and the play is resumed. _ .  This is just ns somplete a fake at the opium smoking. The supposed gamblers are juat play-acting for the benefit of the visitors, hut they do it very well, and the visitors, especially the women, for there are women in all of these parties, go away properly awed. Visits to joss houses, reetauraats, and alleged delis are made, fake fights occur, dramatic *relies are enacted, and by the time the trip is over the visitors have area shout all they can stand. _ .  For along time there was a Chinatown woman who used to commit suicide every night for the benefit of •iaitors. She was a goodlooking girl and had a room at the top of a Dover Street tenement. For a long while the fake opium smoking took place in her room. A romantic and 'toueliing tale of the girl's downfall used to be told confidentially to visitors by the guides, so ,Ithat she was an object of special interest. At a certain stage of the exhibition each night she would startle the visitors by tossing her pipe aside, crying out, "I am tired of all this ' and then taking a hasty swallow from a bottle labelled " carbolic acid. she wield fall groaning to the flacr and the guide would, hustle the visitors away so they wouldn't be arrested as witneews. The fake suicide wits a bowling anoriese and al great money-maker tor the woman who did it. The police, however, eventually pot the perforinance under the hau, and the guides had to rot it out of tlieir repertoire. The programme described iii gone through as many as a dozen tin,e.c some nights, and the strange thing iv that visitors never seem to detect the imposition. They swallow it all with perfect confidence and pay as much alt five dollars • bead sometimes for the evening's entertainment.