CHINESE COURTESANS.

NZ Truth, Issue 81, 5 January 1907, Page 5

CHINESE COURTESANS.

TWO TARTS AND FOUR CHOWS. Ginger Annie and Carrotty Eva. Hot Articles from Hellish Hairing Street* At the S.M.s Court on Monday morning last, before Messrs Kernot and Arnott, J.'sP., two young women, sisters, named Annie and Eva Courtney were charged with being idle .and disorderly persons having insufficient means of support. Both tarts denied the soft impeachment, and lawyer Cook defended, though, truth to tell, there did not seem much 1 . of a defence.

Both tarts are Chow courtesans, and Constable O'Connor told the Court tbat he .had known the younger Courtney, Annie, for six months and she was a reputed prostitute, .of drunken, dissolute habits. She resided at Tinakori Road, 'but her residence was apparently only a temporary sort of abiding place as she was a frequenter of the Hainingstreet Chinese dens. Both young women were roped m at midnight, Saturday. In the company of four yellow "hay tens" the two red-haired hussies were making night hideous ,m Tory-street, 'after coming ' out- of a near-by laundry, and O'Connor, with Constable Cummincs, promptly pinched the pair and "shocd" the Chinese off about thair- •business.

Mr Cook, m doing his best for Annie, endeavored to make it appear that she had only recently come down from Napier, v?here she had resided with Eva, who was the lawfully wedded spouse of Lo Mong Shimg, a gardener outside Napier. The constables who gave evidence did not seem' to place much reliance on Mr Cook's story and stuck to the fact that Annie was a pretty hot member," hotter than Eva, who had not graced Haining-street. and that tonev locality so frequently with her auburn appearance. Constable Cummings corroborated O'Connor's evidenoe of the midnight jinks m Tory-street, and Constable Stewart added fuel to the fire by stating that the pair were prostitutes who frequented the highways and the byways of this fair city soliciting every likely-looking man who came their way. Annie, with great reluctance, then went into the witness box and said she had only come down from Napier cm the previous Wednesday week. She had resided at Napier with her married sister.

When tackled by Sub-Inspector 0'Donovan, Annie said that Eva and Lo Mono- Shine; were made one m May r 1906. It was not true that she was out at midnight on Saturday, and she further gave as a reason for being out at all that she visited a Ohma-man with ber sister because he was a relative of her brother-in-law. Sorrowfully she admitted that the other day she was so drunk that the police put her on a tram car and sent 'her home. ' This proceeding had been witnessed by Jay Pay Arnold, who went into- ecstasies about the kindness of the police m sending a drunken "tart" home rather, than imprison her. Annie stood aside while the case against Eva was heard, i The evidence was much the same as that against her sister. Constable McKelvie said he had koiown the pair ever since, he had been stationed m Wellington, which was about three years. He had always known them as Chinamen's molls, who were always haunting Haining-street, and who were ever to be found m the hotels of that locality. They had! no means of sup* port except prostitution. Eva went into the box and characterised most of the police evidence against -her as lies. She was married 1 to a Chinaman and lived with him. Her husband gave her plenty of money and supported her. She had come to Wellington on a holiday and before she left her husband gave her £&. She had 'several holidays since« she was spliced, and this statement brought from Mr Arnold, J.P., the comment that her 'husband must be m a very profitable business if he could give his wife three or four holidays m nine months. Eva, however protested that such was the case, and tfoough she said her sister lived with her at Napier, she did not say that Lo Mong Sh-ing gave her a holiday as well. Probably one of them was required oh the premises for domestic purposes. s Both stories of sufficient means had no. effect* upon the Bench, though Mr Cook said he failed to see how the beaks could properly convict Eva, who was a married woman and had means of support. As an alternative however, m view of the season of th-et, year, Mr Cook thought that a lenient view might be taken of the sisters' ictPSCS Both were convicted and discharged on the condition that they left Wei-; lingtdn within-, 48 hours. . .;..