Opium-Smoking In

Apia.

Police Raid — Chinese Fined £50.

From Our Own Correspondent.

APIA, June 4.

A WALK through Apia’s Chinatown on Saturday nights and Sundays shows that gambling and opium-smoking are practised there quite openly and without interference by the police.

The recent raid on the premises of the Chinese merchant Ah Soon, which resulted in the seizing of some 60 tins of opium, was the first action taken for years by the police to suppress the illegal traffic.

The owners of the premises pleaded ignorance of the existence of the narcotics and one Chinese coolie em ployed by Ah Soon was fined £50 —a mild sentence and one not at all likely to act as a deterrent.