The spots most favored in Chinatown by the hypos and small beggars were the “cook ovens,” places built in back of Chinese lodging houses where the occupants did their cooking on the community plan. There were warm places around the ovens to sleep in, and always a bite to eat for the asking⁠—no Chinaman refuses to feed a hungry man.

In my experience with the Chinese I have found them charitable, frugal, thrifty, moral, and honest.

In speaking of the cook ovens I may say that it was there the word “yegg” originated. It has not yet been locked in the dictionary, but it has a place in our language and it’s about time its derivation was settled once and for all. It is a corruption of “yekk,” a word from one of the many dialects spoken in Chinatown, and it means beggar. When a hypo or beggar approached a Chinaman to ask for something to eat, he was greeted with the exclamation, “yekk man, yekk man.”