False Floors and Underground Passages: Nine Men Charged An opium raid carried out by the police and 40 special constables at Nos. 17, 24 and 25 in the notorious Toong Ge Bai Ka Alleyway on the 20th instant resulted in the appearance at the Mixed Court last Friday of nine men and a quantity of Indian opium estimated to be worth at least $26,800. The defendants, Mi Tz-eu, Sung Ah-sau, Moo Yoong-ching, Kwok Sing-dee, Siao Tzkung, Poh Sung-ching, Kwok Shang-tsong, Kwok Sungkaung, and Kwok Sung-zien, were all young men described as servants, and with the exception of the last accused, resident at No. 24. "They were charged with keeping opium for public sale.
Mr. E. T. Maitland, Police Prosector, asked for a remand as the police had not had time to examine the books. Further investigations had to be made. The place proved to be honeycombed. with underground passages. There were also a number of false floors. The police asked for. very substantial all.
Mr. F. W. Hadley, who said he represented the eighth accused, urged that the raid was carried out in two houses. In the one in which his client was arrested no opium was found.
Mr. Maitland—The three shops are all one place. Opium was found at every house. The accused were arrested at Nos, 24 and 25.
Mr. Kentwell said he represented eight of the accused.
Proceeding, Mr. Maitland described one of the defendants as a man who had formerly been charged vi selling opium without a licence, and had forfeited his bail. This was why the police desired the bail in the present case to be fixed as high as possible. A The Assessor (Mr. Mead) said that a very large amount of the drug worth thousands of dollars had been seized. In the Court's experience of such cases money appeared to be no object to defendants, therefore the accused would not be admitted to bail in a lesser sum than $500 each.
Before the defendants left the dock, Mr. K. E. Newman said he wished to make an application the Bench on behalf of the occupier of No. 17 in the alleyway. The police had bored a hole in the wall of this house into No. 19. The occubier of No. 17 was a respectable bean cake merchant. Ninety cents and a fan had been taken from his residence in which the police had created a disturbance. They had visited the place without a search warrant.
Mr. Maitland expressed ignorance of the occurrence, adding that he knew there was a secret passage under the floor of one of the two houses.
The Assessor observed that the Bench could not make any order with regard to this matter. It was for Mr Newman io take action against the police without interfering in the case.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.