CHINESE GAMBLERS IN ST LOUIS. Free and Easy Murderers.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 110, 11 July 1885, Page 5

CHINESE GAMBLERS IN ST LOUIS. Free and Easy Murderers.

The good people of the East who are so much in love with the Chinese will learn something that will be of service to them from the trial of Tung Sing and his confederates at St. Louis. The facts are quite simple. A Chinaman named Jo Gong was arreoted for keeping a gambling-house. The principal witness against him was another Chinaman named Lou Johnson. To get him out of the way, Jo Gong offered $1,200 to four Chinamen, one of whom was Tung Sing, to kill him, and they agreed to do so. All four secreted themselves in the cellar of the house where Johnson slept, and as soon as the other inmates of the house had left ran up to his bedroom, hacked him to death with knifes, stuck his head in a bucket, and left him there. As often happens in such cases, after the deed was done the contrive of the murder cheated his tools. Tung Sing, instead of getting §300 for his share of the bloody work, only got $15, whereupon he determined to be revenged, and turned State's evidence against his confederates. So now the other murderers stand a fair show of being convicted and hanged. The case will not surprise any old-time resident of San Francisco. It has long been known here that it was quite easy to hire a Chinaman to commit a murder. They have no feeling which teaches them that murder is intrinsically wrong. With them it is a mere matter of calculation whether tho reward is sufficient to make it worth their while to run the risk. They think it fair to get a man out of the way by killing him if they believe that his continued existence imperils their safety or their money Jo Gong probably thinks he did nothing immoral in hiring accesso ries to kill the witness whose evidence would have convicted him of breaking the law against gambling. He knows that he will be hanged if the crime is brought home to him. That is the risk he ran, and lm reckoned that it was worth his while to run it in order to get the witness out of the way. Chinese look upon these matters in a business light, and do not allow their actions to be governed by abstract considerations of right and wrong. They have no conscience, and are not troubled by scruples. When Tung Sing was making his confession in open court Jo Gong warned him of the danger of the course he was pursuing. The warning was probably well-founded. If Jo Gong and his confederates are hanged, Tung Sing will find St. Louis too warm to hold him. That is the risk he runs, and he has probably reckoned that it was worth his while to run it in order to be revenged on tke man who cheated him. It is all a matter of calculation. And in such matters Tung Sing and Jo Gong are types of their countrymen. — San Francisco "Chronicle."