Vigilante Raids Target Chinese Vegetable Gardens

At 1 o'clock yesterday morning, a reporter for this paper saw the light of a burning building near Gold Lake, which proved to be the loss of one of the Chinese gardens, where they had been driven away from their homes. Down along the county road at the base of the mountain, north of Gold Lake, are a number of Chinese vegetable gardens and hog ranches, where some 40 to 50 men make an honest living and interfere with no one. Last evening a band of about 30 white men, most of them with faces blackened or wearing masks, armed with guns, pistols, and knives, and carrying lanterns, raided the little settlement. They first visited Li Lui's vegetable garden, broke into the houses, robbed the five inmates, searched them, and forced them to take their blankets and start for the city. They then came to where On Lung had a hog ranch, where ten men were routed out, robbed of what money they had, and ordered to join their countrymen and start for town. At another ranch, they found one man who had a pistol, so they tied his hands before searching him and fired some thirty or forty pistol shots to terrify their victims. At Moo Povey's garden, they drove out nine Chinamen and set fire to the house. The ruffians later abandoned the job and slunk back to their lurks in the purlieus of Slabtown and Ballard.