1856: A Double Dose (California CPE)
Just another day at police court–with that other West Coast pidgin.
Hooker & Co. Hardware, one of the victims, we’re told (image credit: Stamp Auction Network)
–and just another day at the newspaper, where there was no need to translate a pidgin language, California-style Chinese Pidgin English, for the American readership:
A DOUBLE DOSE. — Chinaman Ah Tsoi, alias Ah Seng, who was convicted on Thursday of stealing eight Panama hats, was also convicted on Saturday of appropriating a revolver, the property of Hooker & Co., and sentenced to sixty days’ imprisonment — thirty days in each case. John, on finding that he was “gone in,” and being impressed with the idea that be would get off cheap if he tendered a pecuniary recompense, inquired of the court, “How muchee pay!“
— from the Sacramento (CA) Daily Union of June 2, 1856, page 2, column 4
