Ching Chow was a one-panel cartoon that was created by Sidney Smith and Stanley Link. It first appeared on January 20, 1927 and ran for at least 50 years, under a variety of different creators. It was distributed by the Chicago Tribune/New York Daily News Syndicate.
The title character was a stereotypical Chinese man with slanty eyes and a big, toothy grin. He offered pearls of Confucius-style wisdom, like "Beware of silent dog and still water."
As one critic wrote about Ching Chow, "It wasn’t as much a strip as it was a daily fortune cookie."
In later years, Ching Chow was viewed by many as a secret tip sheet for playing the numbers -- the panel would appear far in the back pages of the New York Daily News. In a 1978 Village Voice article, one believer is quoted as saying, "Why you think Ching Chow has been in the newspaper all these years? Because it's funny? Hah, hah." The strip was discontinued on June 4, 1990.