Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a derog. term for a Chinese person.

1865		H. Kingsley Hillyars and Burtons (1870) 102: Two Blacks and a Chinee seen him a-doing on it.
1866		Wild Boys of London I 128/2: Go it, crusher! go it Chiney! give it him pig-tail!
1869		B. Harte Heathen Chinee n.p.: The heathen Chinee is peculiar.
1876		Besant & Rice Golden Butterfly I 193: You may grub for money like a Chinee.
1877		Sporting Gaz. (London) 1 Sept. 834/3: ‘He’s a Chinee, you know, an’ lies like thunder’.
1885		J.S. Borlase Blue Cap, the Bushranger 16/1: The heathen Chinee performed a grotesque dance.
1889		H. Smart Long Odds I 196: ‘We know all about the Heathen Chinee and the game “he did not understand”’.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 8 July 1/3: Yes, We are Syndey’s ‘Daily T,’ / And we adore the bland Chinee.
1899		R. Whiteing No. 5 John Street 245: Way for the yellow men! – Chinee and other.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 15 Dec. 168: Threading their way through the thick undergrowth, the lieutenant [...] and Chinee leading.
1905		S.F. Call 22 Jan. 5/3: She’d think we was a game lot [...] to bury her son near a Chinee!
1918		E. Pound letter 18 Apr. in Paige (1971) 58: Bret Harte merely advised the virtuous American to beware of the dangerous oriental Chinee.
1930		R.E. Howard ‘Winner Take All’ Fight Stories July 🌐 We seen a girl struggling with a big Chinee.
c.1939		B. Bennett ‘The Street of a Thousand Lanterns’ in Billy Bennett’s Third Budget 29: In the street of a thousand lanterns, / To the east of Limehouse Reach, / Lived a bland Chinee, who loved the sea.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 145: The Chinee is unsurpassable in gambling.
1961		(con. early 1950s) J. Peacock Valhalla 181: You ain’t a Chinee.
1975		K. Willey Ghosts of the Big Country 177: I saw a buffalo and a fat Chinee.
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso 153: He could iron a shirt so it would look just like the Chinee had just turned it loose!