Maritime Labor Violence at the Slip
A Chinese cook is brutally assaulted on a schooner at the Spring Street slip after complaining about unsafe working conditions.
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.
A Chinaman named Hou Sing appeared at the police station last night with his face bruised and covered with blood, his clothes torn and bloody. He said he was the cook on the schooner Norma, now loading lumber at the Spring Street slip, and that the mate and two others had thrashed him. Hou Sing has a very nimble tongue and talks English well and rapidly. From his own story, he had threatened not to give the crew 'any hash' because the lumber had been piled so as to block all the doors to the cabin and galley. The result was that owing to the disciplinary inclinations of the mate, he looked like the last survivor of a bloody war. He was told at police headquarters to come around in the morning and enter a complaint against his assailants, which he concluded to do.
“Owing to the disciplinary inclinations of the mate, he looked like the last survivor of a bloody war.”
This incident exposes the brutal hierarchy of maritime labor in the 1890s and the specific vulnerability of Chinese laborers. Despite the casual racism of the original reporting, it documents a clear instance of workplace safety advocacy—blocking doors to galley and cabin—that resulted in violence.
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