Tongs: What Gives?

The reaction of the white press in Victoria to the presence of the tongs seems odd and equivocal, much like the reaction to the presence of the Chinese as a whole.   The apparent lack of standards in investigative journalism at the time undoubtedly contributed to this inconsistency, as well as the mysterious nature of most of the tongs in the first place.  The Hip Sing Tong was described in a 1884 Colonist article on the opening of their temple a “Chinese society [that] is composed of the worst Chinese in the city” while an article appearing in October of 1898 on the Chee Kong Tong claims that the society has “eighty per cent of the best class of Chinese. . . .[It] has never broken the law.”

This could suggest a more enlightened attitude toward tongs, but a couple of months later, the Colonist reported on a Chinese from Rossland, who, having moved from San Francisco and converted to Christianity, was marked for death by the CKT for “prostituting the secrets of the society.”  El Jay Choo, the unfortunate individual in question, had to be escorted by police guard to the CPR station in Vancouver where he departed for Eastern Canada “where there are no Chinamen.”

None of these articles appears to have had its evidence or claims substantiated or counterbalanced by another perspective.

Source:Daily British Colonist, 20 November 1884 and 1 December 1889.

What do the papers say? Read all about it!