Representation of “Deviant” Behaviour in English and Chinese Language Newspapers

By Zhi Qing Denise Lim

Let any unprejudiced European walk through the native towns of Java, Singapore and China and see if he can find a single native drunk. What he will meet with are numbers of drunken English, Scotch and Irish seamen literally rolling in the gutters, intoxicated, not from opium but from rum and spirits sent all the way from England for the purpose of enabling her worthy sons to exhibit themselves to Chinese and other nations in this disgraceful light.¹

First published in 1846, the above passage by G. F. Davidson was reproduced in the Singapore Free Press and Mercantile Advertiser (SFPMA) in 1909.² Europeans who were publicly drunk, in full view of Asians, were described in the passage as problematic. Extant research on Europeans’ alcohol consumption in British colonies has shown that such perception was informed by European anxieties surrounding white racial prestige.³ The drinking habits of low-class Europeans, such as seamen and sailors, elicited anxiety. Barred from accessing exclusively “European” spaces due to a lack of means as well as class- and profession-based restrictions, these Europeans typically obtained and consumed alcohol in “public” or spaces where they intermingled with Asians. The mechanics of inclusion-exclusion among Europeans operated in part to define “Europeanness”. Its boundaries were often contingent on “deviance”, even as what was considered deviant was unfixed and constantly challenged. Examining the ways in which “European deviance” was defined in different contexts and used as an apparatus to differentiate between Europeans reveals the heterogeneity of the colonial society, which is so often portrayed otherwise.⁴

As the opening quote suggests, the problematisation of some behaviour such as public drunkenness was conceptualised in relation to its visibility to the Asian population. Such exposures, according to colonial rhetoric, potentially lowered European prestige in the eyes of the colonised. Yet, to what extent was this concern justified in reality? Thus, apart from examining the ways in which Europeans constructed European deviance, I am interested in how Asians regarded such behaviour. Reviewing how incidents of European deviant behaviour were reported in English- and Chinese-language newspapers sheds light on the issue. The existing research on newspapers in colonial Singapore helps elucidate the similarities and differences between the two.⁵ was a long-running daily newspaper, I examined one issue per month in order to cover the entire period. Other newspapers, such as the Malaya Tribune, the Straits Times, SFPMA, and Sin Chew Jit Poh (星洲日报), served as cross-references. Examining the press coverage of the inquests into the deaths of two Europeans, Douglas Vincent Gibson and Olvard Wohl Schroeder, reveals varied perceptions of deviance and its role in social categorisation.

European Deviant Behaviour in Colonial Singapore

In colonial Singapore, whether a European’s behaviour was perceived as deviant depended on and marked one’s distance from the ideal “respectable” European. The boundaries of Europeanness, contingent and unfixed, were sensitive to racial tensions in colonial contexts, and were class- and genderspecific.⁶ Respectability was emphasised as a criterion of Europeanness, not only as a justification for colonial rule, but also to keep “potentially subversive” Europeans in check.⁷ In the early 20th century, the construction of Europeanness was closely intertwined with that of whiteness. In colonial settings, whiteness and its privileges were conferred when individuals exhibited a set of behaviour and characteristics that corresponded to the projection of racial prestige, which required prescriptive social rules and the resources to adhere to them.⁸ The distinctions within the European population in colonial settings were dictated by conventions of European middle-class respectability.⁹ As the “exclusionary politics of colonialism” demanded conformity, deviations from such conventions, or displays of behaviour deemed incompatible or contradictory, destabilised and challenged the boundaries of Europeanness.¹⁰

The proximity and visibility of European deviant behaviour to the colonised Asian populations shaped how problematic it was. Colonial authorities and Europeans of higher social status balked when Europeans were found behaving undesirably in “public” or in spaces where they could be seen by people of various ethnicities, as compared to European-only spaces. Such indiscretions were feared to threaten the colonial sociopolitical hierarchy, and contributed to the colonial elites’ anxieties surrounding racial prestige.

Reports of European Deviant Behaviour in Newspapers

The press played an instrumental role in amplifying some behaviour as deviant and reinforced associations of low-class Europeans and deviant behaviour. As a producer of discourse, the press constructed narratives through reportage and advocated for interventions from the colonial authorities and civic organisations towards purported crises.¹¹ The various English-language newspapers often carried similar or reproduced accounts of perceived deviant behaviour of Europeans. The Straits Times, especially, was considered by the residents in Singapore as a “European paper”, pertaining to its readership and perspective.¹² The proliferation of accounts thus illustrates not just anxieties surrounding European deviance, but also their role in cautioning “respectable” Europeans against similar actions.

European drunkenness in public, for example, was often reported in English-language newspapers as being accompanied by “disorderly” conduct, such as violence. The perpetrators were typically identified as transient Europeans or Europeans of lower social status, such as seamen and rank-and-file soldiers.¹³ In 1931, the Straits Times, SFPMA, and Malaya Tribune reported that a Private Edward Hayes had allegedly assaulted a police constable in Hill Street while intoxicated.¹⁴ These reports would have reinforced contemporary stereotypes of working-class or lower-status European men as oft-drunk and violent.¹⁵

The case also highlights the spatiality of what constituted European deviant behaviour. Europeans of higher social status and with greater financial resources could afford to consume alcohol at premises that served exclusively European clientele, such as clubs and hotels.¹⁶ Their imbibition of large quantities of alcohol and drunken behaviour were rarely reported in the newspapers. In contrast, Europeans of lower social status, who were typically excluded from these places, obtained their alcoholic beverages from spaces designated as “public”, such as public houses, liquor shops and grogshops. Inter-ethnic interactions took place in these spaces, as the beverages in these places were affordable, fuelling colonial anxieties surrounding the visibility of European drunkenness and disorderliness. According to newspaper reports, Europeans were typically arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct near the docks at Tanjong Pagar, an area frequented by Europeans of lower social status, further illustrating their marginality.¹⁷ As being “drunk and disorderly” in public was liable to criminal charges, the proliferation of reports on such behaviour by Europeans of lower social status reveals the disproportionate impact that the criminalisation of such behaviour had on them. That the Europeans who were deemed to have engaged in deviant behaviour were often of lower social status highlights the relationship between space, social marginality, and mobility.¹⁸

European deviant behaviour was discussed in English-language newspaper editorials, and readers wrote letters to the editors, urging the colonial authorities and social reform organisations to intervene. “Anxious Parent”, for example, wrote to the editor of the Malaya Tribune, calling for measures against prostitution. Brothels in the city centre, he proclaimed, were tempting young British men to step on the “Road to Ruin”. He questioned:

What on earth is the use of preaching morality in our schools,
   churches and chapels when immorality is allowed to thrive
   and flourish almost one stone’s throw from our schools?
   What are the missionaries doing? Why don’t they stir up the
   responsible authorities? Is it not within their purview?¹⁹

The editor concurred, remarking that “surely the authorities have the power to control so degrading an evil flourishing in the very heart of the city.”²⁰ Another letter agreed with the sentiments made, commenting that the Esplanade had been made “the happy hunting ground of ladies of easy virtue and the demi-monde generally every evening of the week”.²¹

In the Chinese press, on the other hand, incidents of European deviance were typically confined to coverage in the “local news” (本坡新 闻) or “important local news” sections (本坡要闻). While evidently deemed worthy of being reported, these cases did not prompt the kind of exuberant discussion found in the English papers, likely owing to the significant demand for news from China because of its evolving political situation, or simply the readers’ lack of interest in this topic.

The Chinese papers’ reports of European soldiers’ drunken and disorderly behaviour suggest that deviant behaviour by Europeans – particularly those of lower social status – was “visible” and noticed by the Chinese population. In Nanyang Siang Pau’s report on the Hayes case, Hayes was referred to as a qiuba (丘八)²² – a derogatory term for rankand- file soldiers who had been in the military for a long time and acquired deviant habits.²³ The use of this term illustrates the stereotyping of lowranking soldiers as disorderly. It also suggests that the Chinese differentiated between “respectable” and “disreputable” Europeans, and that the latter were identified by their deviant behaviour or disorderliness.

In February 1931, when a group of soldiers of the Welch Regiment smashed the display windows of several shops and garages along Orchard Road, they were described in English-language newspapers as having gone “amok” and “behaving like lunatics”.²⁴ In the 20th century, “amok” was a racialised term that connoted “nativeness” and mania.²⁵ Such descriptions of the soldiers’ actions conveyed European disapproval of the behaviour; they sought to establish a social distance between “respectable” Europeans and these Europeans by emphasising the superiority of European rationality – the cornerstone of British colonialism – vis-à-vis “native” irrationality, even as they simultaneously undermined European superiority.

Nanyang Siang Pau adopted similar language in its headline: “Drunk? Crazy? Welch soldiers create trouble in Orchard Road, glass windows smashed”.²⁶ The report continued: “according to rumours, the soldiers had lost their composure and caused a commotion because they had consumed excessive alcohol”.²⁷ Such postulation about whether the soldiers were drunk was absent in the English reports, which suggests that the association between soldiers, perceived inherent disorderliness and drunkenness was so entrenched that the reporters of the English papers did not find it necessary to state that the soldiers might be intoxicated. By attributing the soldiers’ disorderliness to intoxication, the Chinese-language press stopped short of accusing these men of being crazy or irrational, which would have directly contradicted the colonial rhetoric of European superiority and rationality.

The headlines of the Chinese-language newspaper reports of European deviant behaviour were typically descriptive and at times sensationalised, although such sensationalism was certainly influenced by the papers’ overall editorial and presentation style. In comparison, the English papers’ headlines were typically less descriptive. In January 1939, a soldier by the name of James McAlister was charged with “disorderly behaviour in public”. A member of the Loyal Regiment stationed at the Gillman Barracks, McAlister was spotted by a policeman allegedly harassing passersby while intoxicated in Waterloo Street. Thereafter he assaulted the policeman as he resisted arrest, and damaged furniture in the Beach Road Police Station lock-up. He was charged in the Second Police Court, and the news was reported in the papers over the following two days.²⁸ The articles in the English papers generally had short and sometimes vague headlines. The Straits Times reported, “Soldier charged with disorderly behaviour”; the SFPMA similarly reported, “Charges against a soldier”; and the Malaya Tribune printed, “Policeman’s nose broken: Loyal soldier charged”.²⁹ In comparison, Nanyang Siang Pau descriptively reported in its headline that “McAlister, soldier stationed at Changi [sic], having been drunk and disorderly, injured police and destroyed property, was charged on three counts, and a hearing has been scheduled”.³⁰

The hearing on 13 February was also reported in newspapers of both languages. This time, the English papers had more descriptive headlines than in their earlier reports of the case. The SFPMA wrote, “Loyals private breaks nose of policeman: Was chasing pedestrians”, and the Malaya Tribune quoted from the hearing that it was “A case of being violently drunk”.³¹ The Morning Tribune (the morning edition of the Malaya Tribune) reported that it was a “‘Case not for leniency’ says magistrate”.³² The two Tribunes published similar reports detailing the hearing, with subheadings highlighting that McAlister had “punched” the police constable after having drunk “cheap wine”.³³ All three articles reported that a Lieutenant H. M. Miles of the Loyal Regiment had testified that McAlister “bore a good character in the army”, and implicitly posited that the violence that took place was a consequence of his consumption of “cheap wine” of seemingly dubious quality.³⁴ In particular, in the two Tribune articles, Miles’s testimony was printed in bold under the subheading “Cheap wine”.³⁵ Such presentation reiterated a contemporary perceived correlation between “cheap” alcohol and disorderly conduct among European soldiers.

In comparison, Nanyang Siang Pau carried the headline, “McAlister, who committed violent assault in Waterloo Street, found guilty on all three charges”, while Sin Chew Jit Poh subsumed McAlister’s case under an article reporting the court hearing of three British soldiers with a general headline, “Three English [or British] soldiers violate the law again”.³⁶ Both reports narrated an account of what happened on 30 January and the sentence McAlister received, without mentioning Miles’s testimony or the type of alcohol McAlister had allegedly consumed.

Specifically attributing low-class European disorderliness to the “cheap” alcohol, the English-language reports legitimised broader European perception of “cheap” alcohol – typically sold by Asians – as dubious and nefarious. In his memoir, the English merchant W. H. M. Read described the liquor sold in grogshops that were predominantly run by Chinese and Indians:

Brandy was defiled with tobacco juice, and red chilies were
   inserted to give the spirit pungency. I know the case of the
   boatswain of a man-of-war, who drank only one glass of one
   of these concoctions, and was rendered mad-drunk, it being
   more than a week before he was again fit for duty.³⁷

In contrast, the type of alcohol McAlister had consumed prior to the assault was not mentioned in the Chinese papers, suggesting that the editors regarded such information as of little significance to their readers. It also suggests that the Chinese-speaking population did not perceive a link between cheap alcohol and European disorderliness.

Suicide as Deviant Behaviour

Even as both English and Chinese-language newspapers represented European deviance as a low-class European problem, deviance was not confined to those Europeans. We can examine the shifting parameters of European deviance by looking at another behaviour: suicide. This section examines the ways in which European suicide was articulated as deviant within the European population in colonial Singapore.

Suicide has long been regarded in Western societies as deviant. By the early 19th century, with the rise of the medical profession, suicide was promulgated as the result of insanity.³⁸ By the end of the century, suicide had become increasingly associated with degeneracy and immorality, and was regarded as representative of national decline.³⁹ These tropes of European insanity, degeneracy, and immorality were at the heart of colonial anxieties surrounding the maintenance of racial superiority and the vulnerability of colonial rule. Rationality and morality were ostensibly characteristics that distinguished the coloniser from the colonised; European suicide thus potentially undermined racial superiority and colonial rule. Considering that reputation and respectability were closely intertwined, and that deviance was associated with lower social status, this section posits that European suicide elicited acute anxieties particularly when Europeans of higher social status took their own lives. Hence European deviance was not a static construct confined to specific groups of people, but rather an articulation of colonial expectations, manifest in the inclusion and exclusion of certain Europeans within the category of “European”.⁴⁰

This section examines the newspaper coverage of the coroner’s inquests into the deaths of two Europeans, Douglas Vincent Gibson and Olvard Wohl Schroeder, who were arguably of relatively high social status. As the respective inquests proceeded, it became apparent that the two men’s perceived social status contributed to the press coverage. Especially for European men of arguably higher social status, the boundaries of Europeanness were premised upon the financial resources to appear “respectable”. The newspaper articles, in reporting the proceedings of the inquests, reinforced perspectives of suicide as deviant and illustrated the importance of reputation and respectability to being “European”.

Douglas Vincent Gibson

Douglas Vincent Gibson was the division manager of United Exporters Limited for Malaya, British North Borneo, Siam and Northern Sumatra. On the morning of 8 November 1930, he was reported missing by the assistant division manager, and his body was later found drifting in the waters off the beach at Changi. An inquest determined that Gibson had died of drowning, though the exact circumstances of his death remained unclear.⁴¹ Rumours ran rife that Gibson had taken his own life by shooting or poisoning himself. The circulation of such rumours and the authorities’ efforts to disprove them during the inquest – especially considering Gibson’s prominence and high social status – attest to the categorising of suicide as unbecoming for “respectable” Europeans in colonial settings.⁴² That the efforts to counter the rumours were reported extensively in the newspapers illustrates not only that the circumstances of Gibson’s death were of interest to readers, but also that the press played a role in shaping the discourse surrounding Europeans’ deviant behaviour.

According to the Straits Times, Gibson was a “well-known resident” of Singapore.⁴³ His funeral was “well attended” by “a large number of mourners”, and many wreaths were sent by prominent companies and associations in Singapore.⁴⁴ The coroner’s inquest was attended by a number of Europeans, demonstrating “unusual interest” in the case.⁴⁵ The assistant superintendent conducting the inquest noted that “the tragedy had caused quite a lot of talk about town”.⁴⁶ The question of whether Gibson had committed suicide was significant, as it potentially undermined the basis of racial superiority and colonial rule. The deviancy of suicide and its detriment to one’s reputation and respectability were best illustrated at the conclusion of the inquest, during which Mrs Gibson’s legal representative implored the jury not to “inflict… the stigma of suicide” on Gibson, an “honourable and highly respected man”.⁴⁷

The authorities sought to prove that Gibson had not taken his own life by establishing that he had no motives for doing so. They first posited that as Gibson was not “in any financial embarrassment but was as a matter of fact well off”, there appeared to be no possible reason for him to commit suicide.⁴⁸ That the absence of financial embarrassment was equated to the absence of motive to commit suicide is telling of the significance of wealth for European men of higher social status in maintaining an appearance of respectability.⁴⁹ The alleged shame from a lack of financial resources was presumably a sufficient impetus to take one’s own life. It also suggests that financial embarrassment was one of the few, if not the only, causes for suicide among European men of higher social status that could be publicly discussed. The authorities also relied on the medical evidence to counter rumours of Gibson having shot himself before entering the water, stating that “there were no external marks of violence either about the mouth or body”.⁵⁰

At the opening of the inquest, the assistant superintendent asserted that there was no need to read out Gibson’s letter addressed to his wife, which was found on the desk in his room at the Europe Hotel, where he was staying.⁵¹ As the inquest proceeded, a member of the jury sought to eliminate any conjecture of Gibson’s letter as a suicide letter, suggesting that “it might allay outside gossip” if it was made known that the letter “was also really a statement of activities written in diary form, and though addressed to his wife, did not constitute a finished letter”.⁵² As rumours persisted, the assistant superintendent suggested that “in order to dispel rumours in town and the belief that certain things were suppressed it was advisable that the letter found in Mr. Gibson’s room at the Europe Hotel be read and made public”.⁵³ The shift in position regarding the necessity to make public a private letter illustrates not just the persistence of rumours of Gibson’s suicide. It also shows that such allegations were considered to be highly damaging to the reputation of elite European men, and that suicide was perceived as significantly deviant.

Mrs Gibson’s letters that were received after her husband’s death were also read out in open court. Her legal representative had asked for some parts of the letters be read out to “dispel some gossip that had been going about”.⁵⁴ The two passages that were read out were “I really don’t care what happens till I come back to you once again” and “Oh, how I long for you.

I shall never, never stop telling you all I have to tell you about how much I adore you, with all my heart, when we are together again”.⁵⁵ By showing the affection between the couple in the letters, both the authorities and Mrs Gibson’s lawyer sought to demonstrate that his marital relations were not a possible motive for suicide. The newspapers subsequently published the first letter in its entirety and extracts of Mrs Gibson’s letters that were “written in very affectionate terms”, in an effort to counter the rumours circulating around town.⁵⁶ Nanyang Siang Pau, which had been covering the inquest closely, similarly published the extracts and used one of them in an article headline – “I shall tell you that I love you with all my heart” (“我将告诉你, 我整个的心儿爱你”).⁵⁷

The public constituted a space in which ideals of European respectability could be challenged, and transgressions of the private-public boundary brought about anxieties among European elites.⁵⁸ Hence, making the private letters public showed the great extent of anxiety and consternation among Europeans elicited by the possibility of a European man of higher social status having committed suicide; the imperative to prove that Gibson had not committed suicide overrode potential anxieties that could have arisen from making the private public. The portrayal of Gibson as honourable, respectable and loving – thus determined to be impossible to have committed suicide – marked him as an ideal European in colonial settings and emphasised that suicide was considered by Europeans as deviant behaviour, especially for European men of prominence and higher social status.

Olvard Wohl Schroeder

Olvard Wohl Schroeder was a Norwegian businessman who operated a ship chandlery business in Singapore. He was found lying motionless in a room at the Europe Hotel on the morning of 18 December 1925 and subsequently died from opium poisoning. After a lengthy inquest, the coroner returned the verdict that Schroeder had committed suicide.⁵⁹ Both English- and Chinese-language newspapers in Singapore reported his death, framing it as a “mystery”, as the circumstances surrounding it perplexed police investigators.⁶⁰ The inquest garnered “considerable interest”, not least because of the questions surrounding how Schroeder came to his death, but also because of his appearance as a respectable European man.⁶¹ But while Schroeder appeared to be a wealthy man of high social status, he was not prominent. Subsequent allegations of opium smuggling, indebtedness, drunkenness, and an extramarital affair set him yet further apart from the ideal European colonial, and allowed for sensationalistic reporting of the inquest, which included speculations of suicide and murder.

According to the historian Satoshi Mizutani, having the financial ability to afford a “European” way of life was crucial to appearing “European” in colonial settings.⁶² During the inquest into Schroeder’s death, witnesses were asked for their opinions of his financial status, and their responses were reported in detail in the newspapers. Many witnesses thought Schroeder was wealthy, as he had “spent money lavishly”.⁶³ Schroeder’s widow testified that she had thought her husband “a wealthy man” and that they had “lived in an expensive way”.⁶⁴ Harold Larsen, who was with Schroeder the night before his death, similarly thought that Schroeder was “well-todo”. ⁶⁵ Soh Cheng Watt, a trader managing a ship chandlery business that had dealings with Schroeder, attested to Schroeder’s successful portrayal of himself as a man of wealth and status, and stated in his testimony that “he had been told that Schroeder was a wealthy man”.⁶⁶ The Europe Hotel was considered by the European population as the “exclusive one for the best people in the European community” because it enforced strict exclusionary practices along class divisions.⁶⁷ Thus, that Schroeder was found critically ill and subsequently died in the Europe Hotel would have impressed upon newspaper readers from the outset that Schroeder was a man of means. This image might have helped him to obtain funds from acquaintances with which to sustain his lavish lifestyle, thus Soh opined that Schroeder must have killed himself because he could no longer obtain any money from others.⁶⁸ Similarly, Schroeder’s secretary testified that Schroeder had been trying to swindle others by promising non-existent goods, and opined that he had committed suicide because he had been unsuccessful in doing so and had no money left.⁶⁹

The newspapers also reported on Schroeder’s drinking. The type of alcohol and venue where it was consumed were factors that determined if said imbibition was regarded as deviant or acceptable.⁷⁰ According to the reports, at tiffin the day before he died, Schroeder had consumed gin and bitters, and a small bottle of wine. At night, he drank whiskey and soda, gin and bitters, white wine and champagne at various hotels such as the Europe, Adelphi, and Grosvenor. Not only was he drinking in “European” spaces, but he also paid for his drinks and those of his companions. Afterwards, he drank several bottles of beer at a public house in Balestier Road.⁷¹ An empty bottle of champagne was on the table in his hotel room when he was found there unconscious, which was published as part of the headline of an article by the Malaya Tribune.⁷² These details largely corresponded to the types of alcoholic beverages and spaces where European men of higher social status were expected to drink, thus feeding into an image of Schroeder as respectable and elite.

Schroeder’s wife testified that although Schroeder was partial to white wine, he had never drunk excessively and that “when it was suggested that he was intoxicated at the hotel [she] thought it was impossible”.⁷³ Larsen stated that Schroeder was sober when the latter left for the Europe Hotel after their drinking session.⁷⁴ The assertions that Schroeder remained sober despite consuming multiple alcoholic beverages aligned with contemporary tropes of middle-class, European, male self-discipline and control, in contrast to the perception of oft-drunk European men of lower social status who consumed cheap alcohol to excess. Yet the Europe Hotel’s night watchman testified that Schroeder had appeared at the hotel in the wee hours “a little drunk”.⁷⁵ Another hotel staff recalled that Schroeder had asked him for champagne at 3 am and took an extra glass for a “lady friend”.⁷⁶ This drunkenness and the allusion to an affair were inconsistent with how respectable Europeans were expected to behave in colonial settings. That a doctor postulated during the inquest that Schroeder could have overdosed on opium while intoxicated suggests that drunkenness and drug consumption took place in “respectable” spaces. Yet this was not considered to be problematic, considering the absence of newspaper reports featuring drunken European elites.⁷⁷

Both the English and Chinese papers typically referred to Schroeder as a “Norwegian” (挪威人) rather than by his surname, suggesting that he was not well-known in Singapore.⁷⁸ By way of contrast, the reports of Gibson’s death and inquest included his name in the headlines, suggesting that he was known to the readers of both the English- and Chinese-language papers.⁷⁹ Gibson was also referred to as a European (欧人), instead of English or British.⁸⁰ According to historian John G. Butcher, in British Malaya, whether one was European carried greater social significance than being British.⁸¹ The identification of Gibson as European reflected his perceived embodiment of the ideal European male in a colonial setting. It furthermore suggests a hierarchy of European nationalities, with the British seeming to have a greater claim to Europeanness – and hence a higher status – than the Norwegian. In this light, the repeated references to Schroeder’s Norwegian identity can be understood as an act of conferring him a nominal European status, yet simultaneously marking his distance from the ideal. That Schroeder mostly socialised with Norwegian steamship captains and had few other friends, and that he was previously a Second Officer on a Norwegian steamship, reinforced his distance from the construct of the ideal European.⁸²

At first, the image that Schroeder had maintained as a member of the upper echelons of society with no financial difficulties influenced the reporting of his death. The Malaya Tribune initially ruled out the possibility of suicide, stating that “his actions on the day previous to his mysterious death [did] not show that they were those of a man who was contemplating suicide”.⁸³ It suggested that Schroeder’s death was the result of “a clever plan”.⁸⁴ During the inquest, however, there was a shift in the Englishlanguage newspaper reporting over whether Schroeder had taken his own life. Articles covering the first day of the inquest reported that the coroner had stated that “medical evidence suggests suicide”.⁸⁵ As further revelations emerged, the papers started carrying headlines highlighting Schroeder’s perceived disreputable behaviour, and became more sensationalised and speculative. Some of these headlines included “Who is the mysterious Mr Loon Wong?”,⁸⁶ “Was it suicide?”,⁸⁷ “Suicide or murder?”⁸⁸ Thiis shift in framing suggests that public discussion of European suicide was considered less anxiety-inducing when the suicide was committed by a disreputable European. The sensational headlines can also be understood as a reflection of European interest in incidents of deviant behaviour carried out by Europeans of presumed higher social status, which was undergirded by the imperative to maintain the façade of European respectability.

In contrast, the Chinese papers, from the earliest reports of the inquest, carried headlines prefiguring the coroner’s verdict that Schroeder had “committed suicide by poisoning” (服毒自尽).⁸⁹ Although the reports in Nanyang Siang Pau were detailed, their publication did not correspond to the days on which the inquest was held. This suggests that while there was presumably interest among the paper’s readers, the interest level was not enough to warrant keeping up with the inquest proceedings too closely. Though Chinese-language reports on European deviant behaviour have been seen to be attentive to its association with social categorisation, the use of “suicide” in the headlines of articles covering the Schroeder inquest suggests that the colonial imperative of maintaining European respectability was not shared among the journalists and readers of the Chinese press.

Conclusion

In the examination of how European deviance was constructed in colonial Singapore, newspapers provide us with an invaluable lens. At the same time that they are a mirror of the times, newspapers are also agents that shape public discourse, social mores and identity. While both Englishand Chinese-language newspaper reports reinforced the stereotype that European deviant behaviour was typically carried out by men of lower social status, such narratives were complicated when European men of higher social status engaged in deviant behaviour. Examining the ways in which these cases were reported has shed light on how Europeanness and respectability were constructed and contested.

The interrelationship between space and social respectability is clearly seen. Newspaper reports of both languages associated deviant behaviour with Europeans of lower social status in public areas. As access to Europeanexclusive spaces such as hotels was controlled, Europeans of lower social status predominantly mingled in spaces where people of other ethnicities were also present, thus increasing the visibility of deviant behaviour to the colonised populations and potentially undermining the colonial rhetoric of racial superiority. The discussion of Schroeder’s alcohol consumption shows that perceived deviant behaviour also took place in spaces that were designated respectable, yet was not perceived as problematic. That drunkenness and disorderly behaviour in “respectable” and racially exclusive spaces were not considered problematic suggests that the construction of European deviant behaviour was contingent on the spaces it took place in and the presence of Asian persons in these spaces.

Finally, the examination of suicide as deviant behaviour among Europeans in colonial Singapore illustrates the malleability of the category of deviance. As deviant behaviour was associated with Europeans of lower social status, suicide was considered problematic when it was committed by a European of high social status. Thus, the colonial authorities and the press sought to dispel rumours of Gibson having committed suicide to protect his reputation, while details of Schroeder’s alcohol consumption and his “outsider” status were highlighted in the press in relation to his suicide. The construct of European deviance, therefore, was an articulation of colonial expectations that determined the inclusion and exclusion of certain Europeans within the category of “European” in colonial settings.

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to Associate Professor Jessica Hinchy (Nanyang Technological University), for her comments and guidance prior to and over the course of the Fellowship. I wish to thank Joanna Tan, Lee Meiyu, and staff of the National Library for their kind assistance. My sincerest thanks to Soh Gek Han of the National Library for her invaluable comments on the manuscript and patience with a young researcher in her first foray into research publishing.

About the author

Zhi Qing Denise Lim is a PhD candidate at ETH Zürich, Switzerland. She is currently working on a project on “ European deviance ” in colonial Singapore, c. 1890–1940.