Mr. Wu to Mr. Hay.
Washington, December 16, 1901.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note No. 192, of the 14th instant, informing me that the Treasury Department has directed that Tong Tseng, or Tong Chong, a Chinese student, who arrived at Honolulu by the steamship Gaelic in last October, be permitted to land, in a decision given on the 10th instant on his appeal. I beg to express my appreciation of the justice of the course pursued by the Treasury Department in this case, and to request that you will kindly convey my thanks to the Secretary of the Treasury.
As to the slight confusion caused by the different spelling of the boy’s name, referred to by the Secretary of the Treasury, this is due partly to the dialectic variation in the Chinese pronunciation of the name and partly to the imperfect representation of the Chinese sounds by English letters. The Secretary of the Treasury is right in assuming that it is one and the same boy, whether his name is given as Tong Tseng or Tong Chong.
Accept, etc.,