STRANGE HAPPENINGS IN CHINATOWN.

Shannon News, 3 July 1925, Page 4

STRANGE HAPPENINGS IN CHINATOWN.

A MURDER STAGED NIGHTLY. Strange things happen in Chinatown. New York, but in many cases simply for the benefit of the sightseer! For a consideration one is shown into a room of a house, where are to be seen rows upon rows of beds on which stupefied opium-smokers lie. Most of these men, and sometimes women, however, are hired by the hour to act the part. The author of the book. ‘‘Around the World in New York,’’ Mr. Konrad Bercovici, tells how there used to be one place in Chinatown where a murder was staged nightly. It was done with such realism'that guests would fly in panic a iter having paid. for, but not eaten, their dinners. A while woman would begin to execute an Oriental dance, end pay marked attention to the pianist. One of the Chinese, sombre-eyed, supposedly her lover, acting as if he were halfstupefied with dope, would rise from another fable and (ear her away from the pianist. There would be a scuffle. A knife would flash in the hand of the yellow roan. There would be a loud scream, and the woman would fall to the floor. Then the attendants of the place would drag her into a back room. And the visitors, thrilled, scared, horrified, would run io the doors, not without, leaving their watches and wallets in the hands of the expert pickpockets. Yet outwardly the Chinese quarter remains the quietest part of the city.