Chinese Voting

TALES OF THE TOWN

            In Toronto Chinamen have the right to vote in municipal elections.  One Sam Kee was on the list used last January and the poll record showed that a ballot had been issued for him.  “Sam Kee,” however, was only the nom de plume for the wash-house bills, and was sold along with the tubs and clotheslines between the time of voting and the investigation of election frauds.  So when a policeman called and asked the new claimant to Sam Kee if he had voted, and was assured to the contrary, he subpoenaed the Chinaman to give evidence of supposed impersonation.  Sam being busy with his wash, and not up on legal etiquette, hired a countryman to impersonate him in turn; and this bogus Sam Kee duly appeared in court, and with owl-like gravity detailed his movements on polling day to prove that he could not possibly have voted.  The judge, says an exchange, complimented him on his intelligent appreciation of the proceedings, and sent the mystified Mongolian away to ponder on the white man’s vagaries.  The story appeared in the papers, and Sam Kee’s landlord having explained the change of tenants the edge of the inquisitor’s wits is perceptibly dulled.