day the manager will go to Tanjong Pagar, the next day to Serangoon, and the day after to Teluk Ayer Street. The lottery is never opened in any place more than once at a time. In fact these places change every day.
The places selected are chiefly houses with some means of escape through a back door into back streets or by drying lofts on the roofs into adjoining houses. The occupiers of the houses lent for the purpose of holding these lotteries usually received from $5 to $10 as a fee for lending this accommodation. Further, the male lottery managers managed to keep themselves well informed of what the police were doing by paying gambling informers to protect them. The greatest care, too, was taken to avoid being raided by the police after going out into the streets.
The managers and collectors had assistants regularly employed to act as spies and follow behind them, and give the alarm one or two streets ahead if they saw a suspicious looking gharry or rickshaw following, for, of course, if the collectors were arrested in the streets, all the cards and packets with the stakes were found on their persons.
It is wonderful how long this Chap-ji-ki lottery was carried on with complete immunity. It was excellently organised, and reflects credit on the skill of its promoters. The executive part of the lottery was left almost entirely to Chinese women. A few Chinamen kept in the back ground and controlled their operations.
The distinguishing feature between this Chap-ji-ki lottery and all other forms of gambling of this kind that have hitherto prevailed in our midst is that it was a close one. It was only open to one section of the public, i.e., to woman. It was also confined practically to the Hok-kien and Teo-Chin Straits-born Chinese women.
The women who supported this lottery, too, were mostly the families of the Chinese trading classes of position and standing here. The staking amongst the female members of the very many wealthiest Chinese families here was very large, and in several cases was attended with unpleasant results. It was very difficult to get evidence against the promoters of this lottery. Only collectors were allowed to be present at the opening of the lottery; no one except trustworthy and tried women were accepted as collectors by the manager.
