The High Price of Opium Smuggling
A ship's cook is arrested in Port Townsend after attempting to bribe an inspector to ignore a hidden cache of opium.
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.
Chin Sam, the cook aboard the steamer City of Kingston, was arrested at midnight by Inspector W.F. Learned. Two and one-half pounds of opium were found concealed beneath his berth. After being arrested, Sam offered $100 in gold to secure his release. Inspector Learned refused the offer, and when Sam asked what his price was, Learned responded that he had no price. Sam was released on $250 bond to appear in the district court at Seattle. It has been generally known that Sam was in the smuggling business, but no officer was ever able to catch him before. He had been on the Victoria-Puget Sound route for the last eight years.
“After being arrested he calmly turned to Learned and offered $100 in gold to secure his release.”
This arrest captures the era's aggressive anti-opium enforcement, which was heavily racialized and targeted Chinese immigrants. Today, Port Townsend is a quiet maritime destination, far removed from the high-stakes smuggling tension of the late 19th-century border trade.
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