Smugglers Land Thirty Chinese in Puget Sound
A high-speed steamer outruns revenue patrols to land migrants previously refused entry in Portland.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Another smuggling steamer made a successful voyage across from Victoria last night and landed over thirty Chinese on the shores of Puget Sound. The vessel returned to British waters without being detected, although the revenue cutter and two or three steam launches were patrolling the lower sound all night. The exact locality where the group was landed is unknown. The steamer left Victoria last night at dark, loaded with people who had been refused a landing at Portland by Collector Wasson. They came across the Straits in a well-known Victoria steamer, capable of making seventeen knots an hour, and were landed at some unknown point. A telegram from Victoria today conveyed the intelligence that the steamer returned to that port at daylight this morning minus her cargo.
“The vessel returned to British waters without being detected, although the revenue cutter and two or three steam launches were patrolling the lower sound all night.”
This report highlights the historical intensity of the Chinese Exclusion era, where federal attempts to restrict immigration were met by clandestine maritime networks. Today, the geography of the Salish Sea remains a complex border space, though the political focus has shifted significantly from the exclusionary policies of the 1890s.
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