The Chicken-Head Oath Was Not Used in This Seattle Courtroom
Chin Chew was acquitted of beating and robbing a fellow Chinese laborer, but the case is remembered for a judge's refusal to repeat a rival jurist's 'chicken oath' experiment.
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 Chew, accused of beating Chong Quelong with an iron bar and robbing him of $65 last June, was acquitted by a jury in Judge Osborn's court yesterday afternoon. This is the case in which Judge Glasgow, at the hearing, permitted the chicken-head chopping Chinese oath to be administered to the witnesses. Judge Osborn, not caring to infringe on Judge Glasgow's patent for extracting truth out of a Chinese witness, confined himself to the customary mode of taking evidence.
Quelong told of Chew endeavoring to borrow a few dollars from him in the afternoon. That same evening, while Quelong was lying in his bunk, Chew came up to him and assaulted him with an iron bar, cutting his head and generally rendering him a fit subject for the hospital. While he was in a semi-conscious condition, he says, Chew robbed him of $65, which he carried in his right-hand pocket. Chew made a firm denial.
“Judge Osborn, not caring to infringe on Judge Glasgow's patent for extracting truth out of a Chinese witness, confined himself to the customary mode of taking evidence.”
The 'chicken oath' was a racist courtroom spectacle fastened onto Chinese witnesses, treating their testimony as suspect unless sealed by a foreign ritual. That Judge Osborn declined to repeat it is a small but telling episode in Seattle's long struggle over who gets believed in court.
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