Shocking Murders Attributed to Addicts: Every Day Tragedies From Our Own Correspondent, Taiku, Sha., Jan. 22.
The curse of Shansi is the "golden pill," (chin tan). It is the source of trouble and poverty and the mother of crime. Practically every day furnishes illustrations of this fact. Two serious crimes in this locality within the last week may be cited in proof.
In Mengkao village, in this district, a young woman was a victim of the golden pill habit. She had disposed of all the portable property in her home, and had reached the extremity of want. The other day, a child of one of her neigh-hours was playing about her door. The child was wearing one of the heavy silver necklaces common in this part of China. The woman tore off the necklace and threw the child into a well. Later, the body of the child was found by the parents, and finding the necklace gone they at once suspected robbery as the motive of the crime. Watchers were stationed at the pawnshops and in a little while the woman who had committed the crime came in person to pawn the necklace. She was at once arrested and the case is now in the hands of the local magistrate.
Three days ago, in the village of Changchuang, in Kihsien, a man who had been arrested and fined for selling chin tan, in order to be avenged upon those responsible for his arrest, attacked first the family of the. village constable. His weapon was a knife. With this he illed the constable and his wife and an eight-year-old daughter. The murderer then went to the home of the precinct president, attacking that individual and wounding him so severely thu he later succumbed to his wounds. The murderer is still at large.
A terrible tragedy is reported from one of the middle schools in Shansi. A student, evidently deranged, attacked three of his fellow-students with a vegetable knife. One of them was killed outright and the other two are lying at the point of death. After committing this crime, the murderer delivered himself up to one of the teachers in the school. The school, which enrols nearly 900 pupils, was at once. dismissed after this tragedy and will not re-open until after the Chinese New Year.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.