"Afterwards the Japanese authorities sent north and south for reinforce. ments, including artillery. There must have been over a thousand soldiers here. The general idea was that now so many soldiers were collected, an attack would be made on the headquarters of the robbers at Reteng. Quite uncxpectedly they began at the villages to the south-east of Talak (2f+ A) and burnt them right on, destroying steadily for five or six days, Altogether about thirty odd villages have been destroyed.
any village was not quite wholly burnt they returned and burnt it again. The houses that remain in the vi very few. Great quantities of rice, potatoes, and, articles of different. kinds have been destroyed. Some of the villagers are hiding at the foot of the bamboos, some have gone into the hills. The most of them have no place te stay and nothing to eat, and are in perfect misery. Hearing of this we wished to yo and seo them, but nobody ventured to go out or in. On the 21st of June several of us got a pass from the authorities and went to visit them. On seeing their state we were very sorry for them. Some of them have nothing to eat...
A TFRRIDLE picture, Still worse than the burning of villages was the killing of the people. In some of the villages there were two or three killed, in some five of six, in some more than ten, in some twenty or thirty, in some forty or fifty, sixty or seventy, and in some over one hundred. In all they say there have been several hundreds of villagers killed, some say over one thousand. Some lay dead three or four days before any one went to bury them. It is very wretched! When you go out to the villages you hear everywhere weeping and mourning... This affair is not yet at an end. T hear they have gone out again to burn the villages in the hills and the robbers have come out to fight with them. I do not know what the result. wi T do not know whether they are going to burn this town or not. Two or three days ago it was vel dangerous. Everybody: said was to burned. Afterwards the townspeople all went and besought the magistrate, and ithas been spared up till this time..."
FURTHER ALLEGATIONS, Of course for obvious reasons it is necessary meanwhile to withhold this Chinaman's name. Yesterday I had a talk with a Chinaman who quite recently was an eyewitness of a most barbarous cruclty_per-Eid" caught. twenty-one man. "Maat otrated by the Japanese soldiers. They
not all, of them had been caught pretty much at random, probably because they were a little more disreputable-looking nothing had boon proved. These twenty-than other men, but men against whom
one men were dragged outside of the town for execution. They were made to kneel down and wait till the grave was dug before their eyes. Whilst kneeling there the soldiers pulled at or cut of their queues, kicked them, struck them, and otherwise maltreated them. 'Then' the execution began. It was done by bayonets fixed to rifles. In no case was the head severed from the body, and in several cases death came only after the victim had several times been stabbed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.