George Appo

George Washington Appo (July 4, 1856 – May 17, 1930) was a pickpocket and fraudster whose manner of speech in a testimony became influential in depictions of criminals. Appo himself wrote an autobiography, unpublished, and became the subject of a book.

Family Appo's father was a Chinese immigrant from Ningbo City with various names ("Quimbo Appo" or "Chang Quimbo Appo", Chinese name "Lee Ah Bow"), while his mother, Catherine Fitzpatrick, was Irish American. His father spent time in prison, while his mother and sister died enroute to California to visit her brother. His mixed ancestry led Louis Beck to present Appo's story as a warning against miscegenation in his 1898 anthropological study, New York's Chinatown.

Incarceration and crimes Appo served time in various New York penitentiaries including Sing Sing, the Blackwell's Island Penitentiary, and the upstate penitentiary in Dannemora. In a biography by Timothy Gilfoyle, the prison system of New York in the later half of the 19th century is depicted as being based upon the spoils system and largely corrupt. In the description of Sing Sing, Gilfoyle outlines the stove manufacturing operation the inmates were forced to carry out. Gilfoyle describes the penitentiary at Blackwell's Island (now Roosevelt Island) as having lax security, with inmates commonly escaping if they knew how to swim. Appo was also involved in a green goods scam in Poughkeepsie at one point in his life.