The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 19, 1903, Page 12

F t crime in Chinatown s on the decrease that sounds like a bold you who read of mur ries and feuds in the f you hark back a twenty-five—and recal was then u wili see century ago 1 plete study of the capacity of d by Chief of Pol ice in and about tweer an utter disregard for f & fellow being and he has a s & common ey all look allke. 1 efore I could f: features, hounded t passageways, by cellar rned but a smatter drewbacks were of assa in factlitat- scape, especially as their cou trymen are not prone to assist the officers in making captures. Blackmail was rife and to protect themseives the merchants we call high killing e ings wee societics w gan those associate at from active m ears ago. 1 believe that inatown fairly we n esperate characters. We k e gunfighters imported ed difficul apturing r quarry when k € and this lesse ¢ & e mur we ha & - « . r wards net w tha N passed. us : longer an « ¢ fear 0 the high- , binders ; i schou a r » meeting r L ting- with frie p the stree o the olden times this wse a hecessary pre- caution, as t isetops all over China- town wer ed with rice bags full of bricks, said bags and bricks being there to ar n the heads of the police. Glennon and I got so that we generally made a tour the housetops first be- fore & our usual tour. We would & cks and do the drop- ping ourselves into alleyways and back yards. That wis safer and more to our liking There are few subterranean passages in ¢ but the houses are honey- vet puzzling fashion. It is safe 10 say that a man can enter a house on an alley and traverse forty other @wellings above the second floor, landing SUNDAY CALL CHRIS COX, FOR FIFTEEN YEARS A SECRET SERVICE DETECTIVE IN CHINATOWN AT ITS WORST. on the street a block farther away. to my quitting here nine years ago I fur- nished Chief Crowley s perfect diagram of all the “get-aways,” as we called them, in Chinatown. I likewise, under instruo- tions from the Chlef, Sharp and Reeves through all these mys- passages. But whether this dlagram would be of much service now, as the Chinese arrange and rearrange their escapes to suit the occa- placed under arrest by Captain John Mar- tin, present head of the detective force. It was no easy capture at that. Chuck made a running gun fight that lasted He stumbled and fell near Brenham place, and Martin, who was close upon him, secured his prisoner. At the City Prison Chuck was found to have upon him a perfect arsenal of ugly weapons and his body was protected by Lee 'Chuck was hanged struggle in the courts, “Little Pete"” o'clock, as she was preparing her hus- easily have given me ‘the slip. English perfectly and gt band’s breakfast, they entered the place, large shoe manufactu; delved into all sorts of illegitimate deals. He was mixed up in the Chinese certifi- cate scandals and the landing of women. But he will probably be best remembered as the wily fellow who bought up a num- ber of jockeys at the old Bay District He controlled them and their mounts, thereby making enormous win- nings against the pool sellers. Neither the jockeys nor “Little Pete” were dis- after playing their roles In the greatest race track scandal of business he 1 had him on the last roof, but there was gagged their victim, and, passing her out g parapet a foot high upon which rested a through the window, bundled her into a hack bound for South Ban Francisco. She gide of the alley. Wong took to this in ‘was to be sold to people in the interior when Corporal Avon and I rescued her. About the reward offered for our heads. plank leading to the house on the other twenty minutes. elegant shape and got to the other house before I could reach him. at a good gait and was golng to follow This fellow Wong, Kit's partner, was the him when he reached down and pulleG in first 1 heard 'of as being bent on deliver- ing the goods. He had many suspicions di- rected toward him, but nothing substan- tial upon which I could bring him before Same the court and secure a conviction. took Sergeants I was running hardly know his end of the plank. to the pavement below and I caught my- self barely in time to avoid doing It went crashing a coat of malil. after a protracte his employer, many thousands of dollars in his effort to have him acquitted. Some years later ‘was assassinated shop as a covered for month: ‘We sent “the window smasher” to San was prior to the kidnaping case~ Wong_Quentin for fourteen years and later to saw me about as soon as I saw him, and®his home in China. It's hard to remem- a race began that nearly cost me my life. Up he darted into one of the ‘‘get away” passages and I after him. We were so memory, {8 about the only man to close that he had to take to the roofs in- stead of the corridors, in which he might excepting on the eve of the departure of 1n looking over the fleld I do not see any highbinders to-day like those we used to Such another villain as Lee Chuck seldom can be found. He was the yguard of “Little Pete.” more than one man, but he was captured red-banded on I think the most daring highbinder T ever knew was Chung Ah Kit. not a murderer, but a kidnaper. ‘Wong Ah Chee had their eye on a young and pretty girl, the wife of a hardwork- One morning about § ‘Washington-street sequel to the Lee Chuck feud. That same “Little Pete” was the most cunning little yellow man of his day in He was quite wealthy, spoke ber these fellows' name: brige, 1 suppose, with his phenomenal Chuck killed ‘The “smasher” never did his work Washington street and ing Chinaman. \d vessel. He'd been smash- for months in stores along agton and Montgomery grab clocKs, of no great China ar ar this town alwa night he over tood a Glennon and (Portsmou are) w the big win- e e We got him that time remember Miss C You will probab! P ck Maste bertson 1 the R now b ead, and M ! ter of the late Police Ju: of that name. These pe: >od than almo any others f Chinatown's moral ton: at this time dren and se good peopls nd assisted them to res lodge ourts handled Besides “the window smasher,” we had also “the silver ef,” Chee Ah Qui. He held fifty burglaries to his credit. The strange thing a t him was his perfect nowledge of silver goods—real and sha He'd break into stores or houses and in ort order pick out all the genulne and leave the bad. He would then plant his booty close to the pl 2 d get his swag was, e was given fifteen years 1 when liber: e reason we nev “1 cookum F as He w in the pe remain X entiary There are, as [ said before, men in Chinatown who will not hesitate to sacrifice life for a paltry sum. Leong AQ Sing, for instance, killed his uncle for $5. The old uncle had cared for his im provident nephew for many years and when the youngster came to him flushed from the excitement of the gambiing table asking for more funds there was an absolute refusal. There was an ax handy and the old man’s head was nearly severed from his body. The murderer might have escaped but for the wild rush he made down Ross alley from Washing- ton street, as the murder was not dis- covered for some hours. Sing's wild flight was noticed by Special Officer M Laughlin, who subsequently described the man and assisted us to capture him In one of the deep cellars, where he was picked out among some twenty highbind- ers of bad caliber. Sing was duly hanged. Lee Sam was one of the mean and petty criminals we deported after he served his term in the State prison. -He was about > —~ one of the first to { troduce Cayenne pe per among his p ple. You know th. the women of China- town are as vain as most of their sex all over the world, and on gala nights at the theaters they glory in a display of pe: sonal adornme have seen them fr quently with sands of dollars’ worth of gems about them. Usually these women were wives or daughters of rich merchants, and at- tended by white men as guards. Som « times, however, wo- men were unprotect- ed and on several of these occasions Lee Sam dashed the pep- per in t es and ats and Sam is work- it a long tern tentiary now One could never finish with these sto- ries. There are a % thousand more to | tell. Such crimes were dally and nightly occurrences in the olden days, but they are not so now. That is why I have come to the conclusion that there is a wave of reformation in Chinatown. You will natice that in all I have told you I have not mentioned any violently criminal assaults by Chinese on ‘the whites. These have always been very rare and it is noticeable,that those Mon- golian princes who have hired white body guards have never been assaulted ex- cepting when ur nded. In Cloverdale many years ago Ang Tal Duck, a Chinese servant, proved an ex- ception to the rule. He foully murdered both of his employers, Mr. and Mrs, Wick- ePsham. He came to this eity and left on the steamer Rio de Janeiro while he was being looked for throughout the interior of the State. We located him finally in Hongxong, where I went and arrested him. He managed to cheat the gallows when he hanged himself in his cell.