Charged with "Assaulting Peking' Octroi Official:
Formal Trial at British Legation in Presence of a Chinese Observer Peking, June 19.
Except for those actually concerned in the case, three or four foreign correspondents and about the same number of Legation officials were the only spectators present when the hearing of the assault charge preferred against Mr, D'Arcy Weatherbe was begun in the British Legation Theatre at 10 o'clock this morning.
Mr. W. P. W. Turmer, British Consul in Peking, heard the case and he had on the Bench with him Chinese observer. The complain. ant, Lin Kun-kuan, a member of the Octroi police, conducted his own ease and the defendant, who enter-fed a plea of "not guilty," was de-'Tientsin, fended by Mr. P. B. H. Kent, of
The complaint against Mr. Weatherbe, as read out by his Honour, was that at about noon on April 23. last_he committed an assault on Liu Kun-kuan, a Chinese citizen, by striking him violently on the face and the body. His Honour said at the outset that the ease appeared to him to be one that could be properly dealt with under summary jurisdiction and it, was, ihe' took it, generally understood that that course would be applied.
"Mr, Kent agreed to this, mention~ ing' that he did not think there would be much controversy over ths rmain facts. The defendant intend tad; he said, to call only one technical
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.