CHINESE GAMBLERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6938, 30 October 1900, Page 3

CHINESE GAMBLERS.

♦ \ RAID IN WELLINGTON. TWENTY-NINE CHINESE CAPTURED-. A DISREPUTABLE DEN. Hauling Street is the most disreputable quarter in Wellington city (says the " New Zealand Times"). It is the home and the haunt of the Chinese gambler and the prostitute. There vice flaunts itself day and night. Its' houses are dens, and its surroundings insanitary and evil-smelling. It is a disgrace to the city, and a menace to its inhabitants. The place, and those who reside therein, are well " known to the notice ";. and the', municipality 'which widens and cleans out other streets and leaves Hainiiig Street, severely alone is a municipality which leaves 'something'" to' be desired from its ratepayers and the general public. Haining Street was raided by the police en Sunday night. It ' was' known that a gaming school on big lines was being carried on there,' and the result of the raid confirmed this . knowledge. At nine o'clock the thoroughfare 1 was unusually quiet. JBeyond a few. furtive-eyed Chinamen gliding 'quietly from house to house,; arid here arid' there a woman exchanging small-talk with groups of youths smoking cigarettes, there Was no sign of life or movement about the' street. Three minutes after Haining Street was convulsed and agitated as it "has not' been for months. A large body of detectives and police swept round a "corner, and, coming along with a" great rush, divided, and dashed into two houses right in the centre b£ the street. The largest section, headed by Detectives M'Urath, Neale, Brobergj and Nixon, entered tho domicile of Ah Bing. There, in one room, they found fan-tan playing in full swing. The instinctive desire of - the Chinese present—about, twenty in all in a room about 10ft by 10ft, lighted bt- a single electric globe depending from the centre of the ceiling— was to flee, but- as the police blocked the only aperture, the doorway, they were, frnstratcdr One or two wildly dived at the legs of the constables, hoping to overturn them, but the majority, after the momentary terror induced by the suddenness of the assault, had worn off, accepted the situation with characteristic stolidity .. in fact, it was not long before a broad smile spread itself over the features of the captors and captured ' • The room was destitute of furniture except a central table on which the fan-tan apparatus and a quantity of coins were spread. The players and spectators either sat on empty fruit cases or stood around and watched the progress of the nlav bing Kee, the banker, was captured wand m hand. Ho had some £16 in notes and gold .m his pocket-book, and an order on one of the city banks for £800. - He is said to be a merchant of considerable means, and with a number of shops in * be country. If his face could be taken as an indication of his mind, he regarded the whote transaction as a huge joke in ll 7T n Arere Pl^ed u nd e r arrest InJS? I n room > ,? n d handcuffed ES2^a£_r^ to - th r iVlount Cook tiH^f^' ™ a room at the *»r of the fan-tan den a. section of the police had laid SSfr-^—*? 1 ° f foUrteen Chinese, who were participants- or -onlookers of a came played with, dice: At the moment of- entrance Wong Dobn, of Otaki, a gardener, .had the dice : box m his; hand. Foong Wan, of Adelaide Roßd, made an ineffectual, grab for the,£2 13s 6d which was ly-*' ing on the table. The^raen. too,- were' handcuffed and,marchpd off to- Mount- Cook •; In, the room,. opposite. to the fan-fair den a large number of men were engaged in a mild game of dominoes, and °thoueh there were some Chinese coins on the table no special significance was attached to the fact. One Chinaman was lying on a sort of settee, smoking opium, but the . others were indulging in nothing stronger than cigarettes. At the moment of the police entrance a white opium smoker who had been lying in the room sprang, out of a -window, which was protected only ; by a curtain, and disappeared into the night. On the arrival- of the' Chinese at the Mount Cock Police Station, their names were recorded and they we're released from the handcuffs. At a later stage the majority of them were bailed out by opulent compatriots. One of the men identified himself as an ex-cook at the police station at Dunedin - another proved to be the cook at the Shamrock Hotel. ' Several of the Chinese are men with -" goo-d ■ business connections in the city— storekeepers, market-garden-ers, cooks, etc. Sunday was a Chinese festival, and •there had been a Chinese funeral in. Haining Street, which had 7 been a great source of joy to. the = neighbourhood. A number of Ghinamen had come in from the country for the double event — from. Otaki arid Wai-: rarapa and Mirumar — and were just having a quiet gamble as an appropriate wind-up to the day's proceedings; While the fan-tan and dice house was being raided, a party under Sergeant Briggs and Detective Cox rushed another tenement on the other side of the road, in which it was suspected a lottery was being drawn. This detachment was, however, doomed to disappointment. . They were "half-an-hour too soon," ajid there was not a single Chinese in the room where the anticipated lottery was 'to have taken , place. ' '