The Street Brawl Over a Chinese Opium Den
A morning disturbance on Washington Street reveals the city's hidden world of opium dens and the swift, often brutal, efforts to police them.
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.
Yesterday afternoon a confusion of yells resounded from a Chinese domicile on Washington Street and in a moment two Chinese men darted forth with their pigtails set to the breeze, and charged down the street. One had a long carving knife clutched in his fist and was swearing vengeance on the other, who sped before him like a hare before the beagle. But the latter proved more swift, and the violent earring would undoubtedly have ensued but for the intervention of the chief of police who overhauled the intimidator and lodged him in jail. The assaulting party, it appears, is a local Chinese resident, and his friends immediately sought to secure his release. Finally, Justice Selye released him under bail of $500 for his appearance this morning.
“Two Chinese men darted forth with their pigtails set to the breeze, and charged down the street like Trojans.”
This 1877 account captures a volatile mix of racialized moral panic and the rapid development of urban policing in early Seattle. While the language used by the paper reflects the xenophobic attitudes of the era, the story highlights the central, if often invisible, role that local street commerce and private residences played in the city's early development and social control.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.