“There are six strong Tongs in New York that I know about,” the policeman answered, “and I guess there are a lot more.  But I reckon it’s the same in ’Frisco as it is here, they keep their killings to themselves, and they don’t let any white men get mixed up in it at all.  That’s why you never can tell anything about it.  But right now Chinatown is pretty dangerous, and all the sight-seeing business there has been shut off.  No one is going into Mott and Pell Streets now.”

“Pell Street!” exclaimed the boy.  “Is that in Chinatown?”

“Right in the heart of it,” was the reply.  “Why?”

“Because I’m headed there now,” Hamilton answered, taking from his pocket the schedule he had been given by Burns to check up, and showing it to the officer.

“That’s Chinatown all right,” the policeman said, “just look at the names!”

“I hadn’t looked at it closely,” the boy remarked, “why, yes, so it is.  Well, Tong or no Tong, I suppose I’ve got to chance it, if those are orders.”

The policeman shook his head.

“Looks to me as though you’d have to wait a while.  Take some other district first and come back next week.”

“Can’t,” the boy answered.  “The Census Inspector and I have to go to ’Frisco to straighten out a Chinese tangle over the census there.  The Chinese refused point-blank to have anything to do with the census, and there was a heap of trouble.”

“What was it?” asked the policeman, walking along beside Hamilton in the direction of Chinatown, his beat extending to the limits of that section.

“When the rule for the census was issued, so they told me in Washington,” Hamilton answered, “in order to make sure that the Chinese would not place any obstacles in the way, not only was a copy of the President’s proclamation in Chinese pasted all over the walls of the city, but, in addition a decree was made by the Chinese consul-general that it was the wish of the Chinese government that the population in the city be properly numbered.”

“That was a good idea,” said the policeman approvingly.

“It would have been,” said Hamilton, “if the Chinese had paid any attention to it.  Instead of that, some of the Tongs got together and had a brief threat printed and pasted across the face of the President’s proclamation, as well as that of the consul, that no Chinaman was to give any information to a census officer, unless he wanted to come under the displeasure of the Tongs.”

“The nerve of them!”

“At this,” continued the boy, “the consul put out a second order, sharper than the first, not only commanding obedience, but pointing out that refusal would lay the person refusing open to fine or imprisonment.  Over these second orders again was pasted the former threat of the Tongs.  A few days later the enumerators, each accompanied by a policeman, went through Chinatown.  The Chinese wouldn’t understand any language, not even their own.  They didn’t refuse to give information, they simply answered, ‘No understand’ when any question was asked.”