Outrage on a Chinese

John Sizemore was almost certainly a troubled youth.  When he was eight years old his mother died of consumption, thereby gaining the dubious honour of becoming the first person to be buried in St. John’s Churchyard Waikouaiti.  Three years later when his father Richard died, John and his three sisters were left parentless but not without wider family support.  John’s father may have been an ex-convict and whaler with a fondness for Maori wives, but he was also well connected. His sister Sarah had married a streetwise Sydney Water-man who had done very well for himself.  John Sizemore’s uncle was Johnny Jones – arguably the wealthiest man in the province of Otago.                                             

The court report described “the boy named Sizemore” as having “mischievous propensities.” His actions certainly started the affray, but he was never called to account for them. On the 27^th of August 1867 another man stood in the dock of the Waikouaiti Resident Magistrate’s Court charged with assault.                                                                                                  

The small group of Chinamen had been eating their dinner near Anderson’s General Store at the northern end of the Main North Road, Hawksbury, when they were set upon by a group of boys led by seventeen year old John Sizemore.  Being pelted with mud and stones had “aroused the Tartar blood of the Mongolians” – the Chinamen gave chase, and John Sizemore was apprehended.   At this point an onlooker named John McClure intervened to prevent the boy from being “severely punished,” which (in the opinion of the Waikouaiti Herald) “would have served him right.”                                                                           
During the ensuing scuffle a Chinaman named Ah Chin was dealt a blow that “rendered him insensible.” With the aid of an interpreter Ah Chin alleged that McClure had struck him with a stick, his companions corroborated his story.  McClure claimed innocence alleging that the blow had been struck by one of the Chinamen.  
The principles of truth and justice were never going to prevail in this case. Local European witnesses, who had seen “more or less” of the affray, confirmed McClure’s version of the events and predictably, the case was dismissed.                                               

They were difficult times; the rush of miners to the province had dwindled as new goldfields were discovered in the West and Dunedin’s economy was suffering.  In 1865 it had been suggested that “painstaking, industrious and energetic” Chinese miners might be invited to travel from the depleted goldfields of Victoria in order to boost the province’s economy.  This proposal provoked hysterical outcries.  One correspondent to the Otago Daily Times countered the descriptors “painstaking, industrious and energetic” with the adjectives bestial, thieving animals. Various other contributors labelled the Chinese as immoral, diseased, cunning thieves.  Local Councillor J.G.S Grant petitioned administrators to “adopt stringent measures to save the Province from a threatened invasion of barbaric hordes of Tartars.” His efforts were futile; the Provincial Government had neither the means nor the desire to prevent Chinese immigration and in 1866, at the invitation of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce, twelve Chinese miners arrived at Port Chalmers.  By the end of that year the Chinese population of Otago numbered twelve hundred.

A Cartoon published in the Dunedin Punch, September 23rd 1865, ridiculing the welcoming of the Chinese by members of the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce.

The Chinese immigrants suffered discrimination and intimidation.  Assaults were not condoned but neither were they discouraged.  Perpetrators went unpunished and until a correspondent of the Waikouaiti Herald wrote an account of an “outrage upon a Chinese” (published in the Evening Star), no official efforts were made to provide the Chinese Community with protection.                                                                                                     

The ‘outrage’ occurred a month before John Sizemore’s mischievous assault and involved an attack on a Chinaman in the township of Naseby.  The man, who had introduced himself as Ah Pak (meaning ‘uncle’ or ‘old man’) had earned a small sum of money on the goldfields and had travelled to Naseby with the intention of settling there and establishing a small garden (“an occupation to which the Celestials are peculiarly adapted” – noted the columnist).  Ah Pak was set upon by a gang of drunken men, who cut off his pigtail, “otherwise maltreated him” and then enclosed him in a large barrel which they rolled about the town.  Ah Pak, greatly distressed was left to wander around the town in the cold, having lost “the greater part of his clothing in the assault.” 
Thomas Sincock, Naseby's police Inspector ‘pursued inquiries’ but “found great difficulty in obtaining any information from the townspeople as to who were the persons principally concerned.” Ah Pak was escorted to the town lockup and allowed him to sleep there while summonses were obtained and subpoenas prepared; a court hearing was scheduled for the following Monday.  
Three days later, in the early hours of Sunday morning, Ah Pak arranged his blankets “so as to appear to be lying down” and fled.  Two men were sent (in opposite directions) in pursuit, but no trace of the Chinaman could be found; consequently the court case was dismissed. 

Perhaps hopelessly lost, Ah Pak wandered about the Maniototo plains until he encountered a sheep station, where someone mistakenly assumed that he was the front-runner of a much larger group of wandering Chinese.  A gun was discharged and a terrified Ah Pak fled.  Eventually he reached the Kyeburn Hotel, where the proprietor, Mr. John Malloch “tended to him as became a Samaritan” and ascertained that Ah Pak had friends in Hyde.  Ah Pak was given refreshments and directions to the township of Hyde but was soon found by a passing bank manager, wandering in completely the opposite direction.                          
A Constable Finnigan was sent to fetch Ah Pak and escort him back to Naseby.  Here he was interrogated by Inspector Sincock, who suspected that he had been bribed to leave town before his case could be brought to court. Pleading innocence, the directionally challenged Ah Pak was released and for his own safety was offered a police escort to his preferred destination.  Passing through the (now vanished) town of Hamiltons, Constable Finnigan and Ah Pak were surrounded by a group of a dozen or so European men and boys who “gathered to gaze at the first Chinese visitor to the township.” 
“Deranged by recollections of former brutal treatment,” Ah Pak made “several attempts to get away, uttering the most piercing shrieks and rather feminine-like cries so peculiar to his race.” 
Charged with ensuring the safety of a hysterically screaming man, Constable Finnigan quite wisely chose to return to Naseby where he reported to his superior that he was “afraid to let the man go, as he feared he was insane.” Inspector Sincock promptly charged Ah Pak with lunacy.  It was two weeks before a magistrate could be found to hear his case.                   

At his trial a local doctor maintained that the Chinaman would be “all right if he was sent down amongst his countrymen” Ah Pak was released and his passage to Dunedin was paid for by the Mount Ida Relief Committee.  In a rather self-serving letter to the Otago Witness Inspector Sincock justified his actions, reporting that the perpetrators of the original assault were “strangers passing through” and claiming that the matter had been “much exaggerated.  The Chinaman was a great liar, and I am strongly of the opinion that a good deal of his conduct was assumed, for purposes of his own."                                                    Soon after his arrival in Dunedin Ah Pak was confined to the Dunedin Lunatic Asylum.  Outraged letters were published condemning his ‘outrageous treatment’ and six months later James MacAndrew, Superintendent of Otago published a notice strictly enjoining the Police to keep a protective watch over the Chinese Population - unfortunately too late to prevent the outrage perpetrated upon the Chinese in Waikouaiti.