Continuing with our series of unusual court cases from Salford’s history over the past 100 years, this story of an illegal Chinese betting syndicate had even the most hard-bitten reporters scrambling for their pencils in disbelief.
December 1915 saw 23 men, including several from Salford, traipse into the dock at Manchester Assizes Court to give evidence in one of the city’s largest ever gambling busts.
Police had been trailing a suspiciously large number of workers going in and out of a Chinese laundry on Rusholme Road in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester.
Their suspicions were further aroused by an undercover operation led by the intrepid PC Wainwright.
The enterprising officer – in plain clothes of course – took a number of shirt collars to the laundry on the pretense of getting them cleaned. While there he sneaked a look in the back room to find a number of Chinese men playing with dominoes a game of what turned out to be Hi-Cue, a version of peg solitaire.
Damning evidence on which he would later rely in court came in the form of English money laid out on the table, and bizzarely an egg cup (it was never mentioned exactly what role the egg cup played).
A second visit to the Chinese laundry by wily Wainwright found the men playing a card game called Fan Tan; this was enough evidence to support an arrest and along with his colleague PC Kellep the officer raided the premises – once his shirt collars had been cleaned of course.
Money was found on the table along with cards, dominoes, dice and Chinese money, a tin box containing 2 shillings and 11 pence which was allegedly the ‘kitty’ for Mr Wing Sang, the owner of the laundry.
All of the men were arrested and taken to the police station, however there were so many that two ambulances had to be commandeered to bring them in!
At the time gambling in Britain fell under the Gaming Act of 1845, which was instituted to discourage what was seen as harmful betting among the populace.
It wasn’t until after the end of the Second World War that daily gambling in Britain – popularised by soldiers – led to the establishment of the 1960 Betting and Gambling Act.
Mr Wing Sang was charged under the Gaming Act for allowing his premises to be used for illegal gambling. In the dock along with him were 22 other Chinamen described as wearing ‘the dress of English people’.
To confuse the issue even more, none of the defendants spoke English and had to be represented by an interpreter
Those from Salford were: Mr Wong Chou of Newbrown Street, Joe Hop of Goodiers Lane, Mr Chan Sai from Bury New Road, and the unfortunately named Wong King of Lower Broughton Road.
At the police station the defendants were searched and had money on them ranging from one shilling to £8 whilst one enterprising if presumably lopsided man had concealed £7, seven shillings and ninepence in his shoe.
Defending the 23 men, Mr C Jackson asked PC Wainwright exactly how many Chinese coins he had found, to which he replied “About 200.”
Cuttingly, Mr Jackson said that he believed it took a thousand Chinese coins to make up two shillings, to which P.C. Wainwright replied: “Yes, but there were beans on the table as well”. I should imagine that would make all the difference then.
Mr Jackson made the point that these men played their own games in their own premises and that it was nothing but harmless recreation on their only day off work, and that nobody made a profit.
In the witness box Mr Wing Sang told the court through an interpreter that he allowed the men onto his premises for their own amusement and that if they went anywhere else they would not be welcome and if a dozen of them went into a public house there would certainly be trouble.
He added that they were all respectable people and “not such outcasts that they deserved to be dragged into court because they had met together for a little harmless amusement”.
The Magistrate, Mr Heath, listened to all the evidence given and then – to my astonishment – fined Wing Sang the staggering amount of £10 and to add insult to injury ordered him to pay the interpreters fee of £1, eleven shillings and six pence.
The other 22 defendants were each fined 12 shillings and the card games and dominoes were confiscated.
The Chinese population of Salford and Manchester in those days was only several thousands and as is traditional was incredibly tight-knit.
They were a common sight around the area of Salford docks where they opened laundries and cafes, but in all my research I have very rarely come across a court case involving drunkeness or violence from this community, could there be a hint of possible racial discrimination in the courts?
I really think that the fines doled out to these working men were incredibly high and as for Wing Sang being fined at total of £12 that was an enormous amount 100 years ago, today, at least several weeks’ pay for the common man.
