Post by NZBC on May 1, 2007 20:49:50 GMT 12
The quaintest little recompense for prison cell life that exists in New Zealand is the compensation paid out by the pakapoo bankers and agents' fund to the unfortunate Celestials caught in the act.
Pakapoo provides a lot of innocent fun for the police, and meant a big money turnover a few years ago, when many of the Chinese in Wellington and Auckland were spending up to ? a day on this recreation. Agents are as thick as blackberries even now, and trade is brisk, for ?0 can be won for six-pence, whilst it is possible to break the ?00 bank if you have real four-leaf-clover-black-cat luck.
Usually pakapoo (which, by the way, isn't regarded by the Chinese as anywhere near so interesting a diversion as fan-tan, dominoes or mah-jong, the real Celestial gambling games) is absolutely fair.
?211 ?
The crookedest syndicate ever run in Auckland was started by white men in Grey Street. A suspected murderer was one of this little gathering's warmest backers. The Chinese banks have become better known to whites since the depression, which has, of course, meant an inevitable increase in street loafers, all more or less “on the make.?
To prove that all is fair, it is an old Celestial custom to call in a complete stranger to draw the winning “characters”—marked down on green slips of paper—from the four bowls in which these are placed. Key numbers are drawn first, then ten out of the eighty possible characters marked down. Score seven characters you win ?: eight brings in ?0, nine ?0, ten ?0. The agent who sells the winning ticket is in luck's way, too, for he automatically gets a prize a character below that with which his client collects.
The ?00 always has existence in actual fact, and is kept in cash by the bankers. Paying out was stopped on one occasion, when it was found that an extremely “cute?European had faked the tickets. The agent was reported to the police, and went blandly to Mount Eden. He didn't have to worry. During his incarceration ?/10/-weekly was put aside for him from the bankers' and agents' fund mentioned above, and a nice little nest-egg was waiting what time he emerged from his dungeon.
Chinese only worry about gaol, as a general rule, when they are opium smokers. Opium-smoking, whilst not the omnipresent vice usually associated with the words “Chinese quarter,?goes on frequently enough in New Zealand cities. Wellington has the larger Asiatic population, but few dens have been better fitted out than the steel-doored one in Grey Street, Auckland, which had to be smashed open by police axes last year.
It is absolutely untrue that Celestials “lure?whites into opium smoking. On the contrary, the
?212 ?
white drug-trafficker who goes too far not infrequently has a spoke put in his wheel by some quiet little yellow man, who drops a word in official quarters. Smuggling in plenty goes on. Only two years ago, the Customs Department is said to have quite accidentally intercepted a large consignment in Auckland: a big bundle of newspapers had safely crossed the main, hollowed out inside to make room for the drug consignment. Another popular way is for the smuggler to carry the flat oval tins of “twang”— molasses-like stuff which brings a market price of close on ?0 per lb.—in the small of the back. A surprising bulk can be carried in this way.
Hindus were just as deft in one opium smuggling attempt which surprised New Zealand police officials not so long ago. They used four vegetable marrows as their receptacle.
An occasion when the Chinese turned out to help the police was rather funny. A Chinese ship was manned by two rival Canton tongs—a gross error of judgment on somebody's part. The headman of each tong acted as treasurer for his supporters: to the righteous indignation of one gathering, it was found when the ship berthed at Auckland that Tong A had got down on Tong B's money-box. The tong headman of the outraged clan joined in the police search, and an Auckland detective officer told me he would never forget the sight of the little yellow man, lithe as a mongoose, wriggling under the coolie mats which act as mattresses, delving into every secret cache and corner. The moneybox wasn't recovered, for the thieves had very sensibly dropped it overboard: but Tong B was avenged. Next trip out the police found, to their helpless mirth, that Tong A's money-box had also done the disappearing trick.
Pakapoo provides a lot of innocent fun for the police, and meant a big money turnover a few years ago, when many of the Chinese in Wellington and Auckland were spending up to ? a day on this recreation. Agents are as thick as blackberries even now, and trade is brisk, for ?0 can be won for six-pence, whilst it is possible to break the ?00 bank if you have real four-leaf-clover-black-cat luck.
Usually pakapoo (which, by the way, isn't regarded by the Chinese as anywhere near so interesting a diversion as fan-tan, dominoes or mah-jong, the real Celestial gambling games) is absolutely fair.
?211 ?
The crookedest syndicate ever run in Auckland was started by white men in Grey Street. A suspected murderer was one of this little gathering's warmest backers. The Chinese banks have become better known to whites since the depression, which has, of course, meant an inevitable increase in street loafers, all more or less “on the make.?
To prove that all is fair, it is an old Celestial custom to call in a complete stranger to draw the winning “characters”—marked down on green slips of paper—from the four bowls in which these are placed. Key numbers are drawn first, then ten out of the eighty possible characters marked down. Score seven characters you win ?: eight brings in ?0, nine ?0, ten ?0. The agent who sells the winning ticket is in luck's way, too, for he automatically gets a prize a character below that with which his client collects.
The ?00 always has existence in actual fact, and is kept in cash by the bankers. Paying out was stopped on one occasion, when it was found that an extremely “cute?European had faked the tickets. The agent was reported to the police, and went blandly to Mount Eden. He didn't have to worry. During his incarceration ?/10/-weekly was put aside for him from the bankers' and agents' fund mentioned above, and a nice little nest-egg was waiting what time he emerged from his dungeon.
Chinese only worry about gaol, as a general rule, when they are opium smokers. Opium-smoking, whilst not the omnipresent vice usually associated with the words “Chinese quarter,?goes on frequently enough in New Zealand cities. Wellington has the larger Asiatic population, but few dens have been better fitted out than the steel-doored one in Grey Street, Auckland, which had to be smashed open by police axes last year.
It is absolutely untrue that Celestials “lure?whites into opium smoking. On the contrary, the
?212 ?
white drug-trafficker who goes too far not infrequently has a spoke put in his wheel by some quiet little yellow man, who drops a word in official quarters. Smuggling in plenty goes on. Only two years ago, the Customs Department is said to have quite accidentally intercepted a large consignment in Auckland: a big bundle of newspapers had safely crossed the main, hollowed out inside to make room for the drug consignment. Another popular way is for the smuggler to carry the flat oval tins of “twang”— molasses-like stuff which brings a market price of close on ?0 per lb.—in the small of the back. A surprising bulk can be carried in this way.
Hindus were just as deft in one opium smuggling attempt which surprised New Zealand police officials not so long ago. They used four vegetable marrows as their receptacle.
An occasion when the Chinese turned out to help the police was rather funny. A Chinese ship was manned by two rival Canton tongs—a gross error of judgment on somebody's part. The headman of each tong acted as treasurer for his supporters: to the righteous indignation of one gathering, it was found when the ship berthed at Auckland that Tong A had got down on Tong B's money-box. The tong headman of the outraged clan joined in the police search, and an Auckland detective officer told me he would never forget the sight of the little yellow man, lithe as a mongoose, wriggling under the coolie mats which act as mattresses, delving into every secret cache and corner. The moneybox wasn't recovered, for the thieves had very sensibly dropped it overboard: but Tong B was avenged. Next trip out the police found, to their helpless mirth, that Tong A's money-box had also done the disappearing trick.