Chinese Sailor Shoots Friend Over Woman

Chinese sailor See Lee Wai was hanged in 1909 after he shot his friend in an apparent rage of jealousy over an English woman.

See Lee Wai and Yang Yap were good friends who used to regularly visit Amy Yap Sing, the English widow of a Chinese sailor who ran a boarding house in at 13 Dickenson Street (situated off Upper Frederick Street, near St Vincent de Paul school).

Mrs Sing was in bed with peritonitis when both men visited her on 3rd December 1908, before enjoying drinks in her kitchen and leaving on apparently good terms. The following evening however, See Lee Wai saw Amy then left as Yun Yap arrived, only to return with a revolver to shoot his friend in the stomach.

Yun Yap was taken to the Southern Hospital hospital in Caryl Street, where he was able to make a statement naming See Lee Wai as the gunman. The following night (a Saturday) at 10pm, a Chinese man was seen by a railway guard acting suspiciously at Lime Street station, claiming that he was waiting for a train to Glasgow. When the guard saw the name on the sailor's book in the ticket office, he recognised it as that of a man wanted in connection with a shooting and See Lee Wai was arrested by police.

When questioned See Lee said that the gun had gone off during a quarrel and he had been trying to wrestle it from Yun Yap. Three days later Yun Yap died of an infection to the wound and See Lee Wai was charged with murder, appearing before the Liverpool Assizes on 12th March 1909 before Lord Chief Justice Alverstone. Amy Yap Sing told the court that she had not see Yun Yap with a gun and a doctor said that the he could not have shot himself.

See Lee Wai, who ironically had been a prosecution witness at the trial of Pong Lun five years previously, was found guilty after the jury retired for only ten minutes. He was sentenced to the same fate as his compatriot and when a petition to the Home Secretary failed to reprieve him he treated the news with total indifference, He was hanged at Walton on 30th March 1909.

Chinatown Shooting

A game of dominoes got out of hand at a Chinese lodging house in Frederick Street, leading to the execution of Pong Lun.

On 20^th March 1904 four men were playing Mah Jong, a form of dominoes, at the lodging house at 22a Frederick Street (situated where Maritime Way now is) when 43 year old docks storekeeper Pong Lun appeared and asked the banker John Go Hing to take a bet, but this was refused as it was too late. Pong Lun then left the room and returned with a gun with which he shot twice at Go Hing, who was a laundryman in Rock Ferry.  One of the bullets went over his head but the other struck him in the stomach.

Pong Lun then left and fired some more shots in the street to deter any of the other players from following him. That night he returned to the lodging house where he was arrested by police on suspicion of attempted murder, telling them that he shot Go Hing because he had not paid back some money that was owed to him. Police then searched his room and found a box containing some ammunition.

Go Hing died three days later and on 10th May Pong Lun stood in the dock at the trial which saw a number of witnesses from the city's Chinese commnity give evidence as well as some Malay seamen. Some of the witnesses gave evidence on the Koran while others swore by smashing a saucer. Much of the evidence was given via an interpreter with so many witnesses having been in the room, there was little doubt as to what the outcome of the trial would be. The jury did not leave their box and after returning the guilty verdict made no recommendation of mercy.

Prior to passing sentence of death Justice Bucknill told Pong Lun that he had sent Go Hing 'defenceless and harmless, to his long rest.' At this point Go Hing's widow Martha screamed 'My fatherless child' and fainted, but he retained a stoic composure. There was hardly a dry eye in the court as Pong Lun remained impassive while he was told he would be taken to a place of execution and hanged by the neck until he was dead.

An appeal by a Chinese missionary was made to the Home Secretary, on the basis that Pong Lun had been drinking and that the Chinese community viewed life differently, but this was dismissed. Pong Lun was hanged at Walton on 31^st May in a double execution along with wife murderer William Kirwan.