The paragraphs which we reproduce this morning from the Chinese Press in connexion with atrocities in Shantung give the coup de grice to the anti-Japanese stories circulated in Shanghai at the commencement of the operstions against Tsingtao. Similar incidents of robbery and violence took place during the last few weeks of the siege in the neighbourhood of Changtsun, They were traced to Chinese, and now comes this fresh evidence showing to whom the worst sufferings of the people in Shantung were due. They were inflicted by their own kith and kin, ready as ever to make o living in illegitimate ways. It was a golden opportunity for these so called pirates to make a big haul and to escape punishment by disguising themselves as soldiers while trusting that their depredations would be ascribed to the Japanese. Anti-Japanese foreigners readily fell into the trap and China was regaled with stories which might have done a great deal of harm.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.