On Friday night a fearful tragedy was enacted in a house between Peking and Ningpo Roads facing Honan Road. In this house lived a Cantonese girl, and she had with her her an amah and alittle girl, some eleven years of age, whom she had purchased. On Friday evening (12th) the amah had another amah, a friend of hers, to dinner, so that there were three women and the git] in the house at the time. While they were iting down to their meal, aChineseboy, the servant of a foreigner in one of the hongs, called and demanded $50 of the mistress of the house. She had previously lent him money and given him clothing to pawn, but on this occasion she declined to further supply his wants. This enraged the boy, youth of nineteen and he produced a revolver and pointed it at her. The other people then got up from the table, and throwing their arms round the mistress of the house, endeavoured to protect her, when the cowardly fellow discharged the revolver at the defenceless women, four shots in all being fired, but there were only five chambers loaded when the boy took the weapon from his master's room. The women then finding the ruffian was firing at them, attempted toeseape, and rushing to the window looking out on the Honan Road, one of them jumped out into the street, nearly falling on top of a foreigner who was. passing at the time. Looking up, this foreigner saw another woman in the act of jumping out, and at the same time he heard the cry of Fire, fire." So he called out to the woman at the window not to jump, and he would go to her assistance, lo found the door locked, but he succeeded in bursting it open, and went up-stairs. Up to this time he had no suspicion of any foul play, but when he got into the upper room he saw a woman lying dead, though he did not see anything of the boy. He immediately took a jinricsha and hastened to the Central Police Station, and told what he had seen. Inspector Howard ordered the ambulance to taken to the house, and proceeded thither himself. On the way he met Captain McEuen, and he went with him. Arrived at the house, they found the woman that the foreigner had even fall out of the window, still lying in the road, She was put into the ambulance and taken to the Shantung Road Hospital. She was alive, but it was noticed that her left arm was hanging down by her side as if it were broken. her injuries being examined at the Hospital, it was found that she had been shot through the arm, and that she had a bullet wound in her chest, the arm being broken by the shot.
When the police went upstairs they found a woman about forty years of age, Tying on her back ness the window with hor hands under her. She had been shot in the back, and the bullet had penetrated the body and lodged in her heart. It is Foreigner saw leaning out of the window and.
possible that this was the woman that the
she was the amah of the mistress of the house. Apparently when she found she was wounded she put her hands behind her to feel the wound, and died while doing so. The Police found also that one of the other women was shot through the chest. Still looking about, they saw what appeared to be a bundle of clothes on a sofa, and noticed blood on it, and on further inspection they found this bundle was the little girl, and she had a wound from a bullet which had passed clean through her body. There were no signs of the murderer, he having escaped, probably going out of the door while the foreigner was upstairs. He made his way to a friend's house in Kiangse Road and was there at a few minutes to 7 o'clock, a few minutes after the shooting, and was quite cool and collected. He dic not may log and all trace of him was lost till Saturday afternoon. Having had his photo taken some time ago, a copy in the hands of the Police was reproduced, and was to be circulated, with a view to faci-lirate his capture.
'A foreigner, in the afternoon, soon after 3 o'clock, went to the Central Station and stated that the boy was then at his house, and that his own boy had informed him of the fact. Detective Keeling and a native detective immediately went to make the arrest, and having guarded the back door, Detective Keeling went to the front and entering the room found the boy behind the door. He was then taken to the Shantung Road Hospital and confronted with the woman who had been shot, and she identified himas the person who had committed the deed. Hesaid that while he was passing the house where the murder was committed, the inmates reviled him, so he went back to his master's house and took the revolver with which he did the deed, and that he was drunk at the time, The revolver is one of Eley's carrying a.480 bullet. The Police found this weapon on his person, with one chamber still landed. The boy was taken to the Police Station and is now locked up there. He had been some four months with his last employer, and over four years with his first master, for, he has een altogether five years in Shanghai. When the boy was arrested, he told the detective that he had taken medicine, meaning probably that he had swallowed opium—and asked to be allowed to lio on his friend's bed and die, His request was unheeded, but at the Hospital the stomach pump was applied, though there were no signs of his having taken medicine."
The District Magistrate held an inquest on Saturday afternoon on the woman who was killed, All the wounds on the injured people are serious, The China boy who shot the woman in Honan Road, on Friday night was examined by the District Magistrate on Monday atSp.m, The statement he made was to the effect that he took his master's revolver, intending to go out shouting birds with it in the country, Instead of doing so, he said he went to the French Concession and of drunk. Then he wandered back to the English settlement and went to the house in Honan Road. How: the shooting happened, he did not know. This story being different to that which he gave at the Mixed Court he was put to torture, While he was kneeling down, a bamboo was passed across his calves and two men sat on the ends, but the prisoner made no further statement implicating himself. He was remanded, and the District Magistrate sent the mistress of the house in which the murder was committed to the Mixed Court Magistrate and he ordered her to pay $70 to the relatives of the woman who was killed as the latter had met her death in defending her mistress,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.