CO129-522-1 Illicit traffic in Chinese opium 7-12-1929 - 29-10-1930 — Page 99

4.

IT Swallow pill first before meal. Habit

of smoking 1/10th of a tael.

pill.

Swallow one

"old store situated at Duck Hing Street,

Canton (China).

"Branch Distributing Office,

"Kwong On, Don Shee Alley,

Fatt Shan."

98

REPORT RE FRED BROOKS AND JOSEPH KNOWLES

VANCOUVER, B.C.

Two white men named Brooks and Knowles recently pleaded guilty in connection with a charge of smuggling large quantities of Opium off the C.P.R. "Empresses" and

were sentenced to five years imprisonment and 1500.00 fine or eight months in default of payment, and two years imprisonment and $400.00 fine or six months in default of

payment respectively.

One of the two had been caught with ninety-five tins of Opium in his possession under one of the C.P.R. Piers at Vancouver, B.C., just as he returned from the "Empress of Russia", where he had proceeded by means of a small collapsible boat on the evening of May 18th, 1929. The Mounted Police, however, had found out that both of these men, with their wives, had unquestionably been engaged in this traffic for some months past, and that the women, by using Opium jackets, had undoubtedly smuggled Opium down the gangplank of the "Empresses" though this fact was not susceptible of proof in court, and it was largely to protect the women that both men pleaded guilty.

Oneof

of these men was interviewed in Oakalla Jail, and upon being assured that it was not the intention to prosecute the women, he made a fairly complete statement, several points of which were susceptible of corroboration from outside sources, and promised to arrange that the women themselves would tell all they knew.

As/