Filipino Sailors Arrested Over Card Game
A festive dinner in a Chinese chop suey house ended in jail time for nine sailors when police mistook a casual game of cards for gambling.
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.
Nine Filipino sailors from the cable ship Burnside, who were arrested in a Chinese chop suey house last night by plain clothes Policemen McCormick, Jones, and Following, and locked up with the charge of 'gambling' placed opposite their cognomens, were released early this morning by Chief of Police Duley and allowed to return to their ship. The men were having a little off-shore feast, the guests of B. Molaker, one of their number, and one of the men had pulled a pack of playing cards from his pocket and was unconsciously shuffling them when the officers happened along. The Filipinos proved that they had not the least intention of gambling.
“one of the men had pulled a pack of playing cards from his pocket and was unconsciously shuffling them when the officers happened along.”
The incident reveals the heavy-handed policing of immigrant social spaces in early 20th-century Tacoma, where harmless social activities were frequently criminalized.
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