Robert Neff has authored and co-authored several books, including Letters from Joseon, Korea Through Western Eyes and Brief Encounters.
Keeping crime at bay: Chinese constables of Jemulpo
Jemulpo in the early 1900s.
By Robert Neff
William Franklin Sands, a young American employed first with the American legation in Seoul and later by the Korean government, described Jemulpo (modern Incheon) in the mid-1890s as “an unattractive entrance to a great adventure.”
It was filled with opportunities and many Westerners flocked to the port seeking them.
Some were in government service ― sailors and diplomats, others were there to convert the masses, but most were there to make money ― legally and illegally.
Maintaining law and order was not an easy task. Jemulpo was divided into four distinct areas: Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and General Foreign settlements ― each with their own police force.
At one time, the General Foreign settlement employed former sailors to keep the peace but they were not very efficient and instead of the crime rate going down, it actually went up.
In the mid-1890s, the settlement's chief of police was Henry William Ragsdale, a 42-year-old miner from Louisville, Kentucky. Ragsdale was a good choice for the job.
He had lived in the Far East for several years, had a Chinese wife named Kitty and presumably spoke Chinese fairly well.
His duties were to supervise the three or four Chinese constables that made up the foreign settlement's constabulary.
But Ragsdale was not the most effective deterrent to crime. That honor, according to Sands, belonged to a “very old and respectable Chinese night watchman with a huge sleep-dispelling wooden clapper.”
It was thought that the sound of the approaching clapper startled would-be thieves and forced them to flee before they could commit their crime. It was fairly effective when the offender was Chinese but not so when the criminal was a foreigner.
The Chinese settlement found this out the hard way.
A Chinese merchant caught a Korean thief and summoned the Chinese constable. When the constable arrived, the Korean thief suddenly broke away and jumped over a stone wall not realizing that on the other side was a 20-foot drop. He fell on an anchor and a few hours later died from his wounds.
A group of the thief's friends soon gathered at the home of the Chinese merchant and accused him of murder. They beat the man severely and even tore out one of his eyes, demanding revenge.
His life was spared by the timely arrival of the Chinese police. Inexplicably, the thief's family was later given restitution of $150.
Alcohol was frequently a problem. Jemulpo had several establishments that catered to the vices of men.
On December 12, 1886, an African-American named Walter Laws was involved in an altercation in Daibuts Hotel ― a Japanese-owned establishment. Laws, who recently arrived in the port from Nagasaki, was described as “a destitute American” looking for an opportunity (employment) and was accused of committing “a brutal and unprovoked assault on a peacable [sic] Chinese storekeeper.”
He was promptly arrested by the Chinese constables and temporarily confined at the Chinese consulate, before being transferred to the American warship USS Omaha for trial and punishment.
In his sworn statement to the commander of the warship, Laws claimed he merely made a remark to one of his friends that was overheard by an unknown Chinese man who felt aggrieved and dared Laws to repeat it.
“I repeated it,” testified Laws, and “he shoved me, [so] I struck him. Feeling ashamed at the result of my hasty action, I apologized. He refused to accept the apology and caused me to be arrested. I was kept in jail 22 hours without a hearing.”
Commander Selfridge, after hearing the testimony, declared Laws “an inoffensive young man” and that at most he was guilty of simple assault. What became of Laws is unknown but undoubtedly he was declared persona non grata in Jemulpo and removed. Often these moneyless drifters were placed aboard the next steamer and sent to a distant port ― to become the problem of that port's consul.
Fights were fairly common among the drunken revelers but seldom did they result in death. But, in the early hours of February 24, 1902, Rabec, a young French mining engineer, “in youthful and alcoholic exuberance,” forced his way into a Chinese wedding and so outraged the wedding guests that they rose up against him in murderous rage.
“He fled to his hotel hotly followed, got a revolver and killed the leading pursuer, who unfortunately proved to be a Chinese head constable, a man of excellent reputation and discretion, who might have arrested him lawfully, but who in his zeal had gone beyond the boundary of the Chinese quarter into the general foreign quarter, where his authority ceased.”
Rabec was arrested by the General Foreign settlement's constable and transferred to Seoul, where he stood trial at the French Consulate.
Sands testified that Rabec was “a steady and reliable” man ― even under the most trying conditions.
According to Sands, an arbitrary commission gave Rabec “the benefit of the Loi Beranger, by which in 'crimes of passion a man's previous character is taken into account, and if good, the sentence is passed but suspended until a second offence.'”
A monetary award of 275 yen (about $135) was made to the Chinese policeman's family.
The Chinese policeman's mistake cost him dearly ― his life ― but for Rabec, the sum probably equaled only a month's pay.