Laundrymen 's War

CRIME

Laundrymen's War

"HELLO! Chief? Don't forget, chief, that the Chinese murder is a tong killing. . . . We understand each other, don't we, chief? ... All right."

Telephone receivers in the hands of scores of city editors banged down one morning last week and the several gentlemen leaned back in their chairs with a sigh of momentary contentment.

TONG! The magic word. City editors rolled it in their mouths. A sweet morsel.

When, in the ordinary course of events, several Chinese are murdered during a short space of time, a tong war automatically comes into being, under the auspices of news-hungry editors.

However, there are two fighting tongs in the U. S. They are the On Leongs and the Hip Sings.

The On Leongs are the wealthier organization and are numerically stronger than their rivals the Hip Sings.

The Hip Sings, on the other side, are made up largely of small merchants, laundrymen and waiters, at whose head is a small group of leaders, unscrupulous as yellow weasels.

Their wars do not interest U. S. citizens except objectively, for most Americans cannot tell one tonger from another. It is only within the meagre, squalid, Chinese districts that a war constitutes any menace. These are but the wars of laundrymen, waiters.

In Brooklyn last week, at midnight, Li Poy, 45, dishwasher, Hip Sing, was stooping over his sink in King's Tea Garden, finishing cleaning the scum from around the rim of the water. Occasionally from the dining-room came the sparkle of white men's women, such as many a wealthy tong leader keeps in his saffron incensed chambers. In and out pattered the waiters. Then a strange Chinaman swung through the door. He fired two shots into Li Poy's bent back. Poy pitched forward and his face sank like a yellow teacup into the brown dishwater. A scream drowned in the water which had given him livelihood.

In Pittsburgh two On Leong laundrymen crumpled up dead on the sidewalk with blood bubbling from wet bullet holes. The assassin faded smoothly back into the blue, gone.

In Chicago three humble Hip Sings and two obscure On Leongs disappeared from society.

In Cleveland Jim Yee, of the On Leongs, was riddled with gunfire as he slept in his laundry basement.

In Newark a Hip Sing yellow-man made the error of invading a Chinese quarter settled almost entirely by On Leong Tongmen. There were 26 bullets in his body when the police found it, like a blood-stained yellow tabloid, in the gutter.

In Manchester, Conn., a leering jaundiced visage greeted Ong King with four shots into his quavering belly and one to the mouth.

In Washington, D. C., a waiter met a similar man.

Police authorities in the above named cities, under the able direction of city editors, herded droves of the inscrutable Orientals into local station-house bull pens for questioning. All declared they knew nothing, their leaders asking in reply, "What tong war? There is no war!" Disgusted lieutenants turned the droves loose. Flags with Chinese characters, denoting peace, after three days' absence, perhaps because of the inclement weather, were seen flying over all Chinese headquarters buildings. The TONG WAR FLARES disappeared from the headlines. The war, if any, therefore ended.

The previous war that ended two years ago (TIME, Oct. 5, 1925) claimed over 50 lives and was stopped only after Federal promise of deportation to all Chinamen unless their nasty practices were stopped. By way of emphasis, 59 were shipped back to the land of dragons and lilies.