Yusrerpay's "Municipal Gazette" will have recalled to the public mind the case of irregular arrest which has occupied the attention of the Council and Consuls since last August, and will in part have prepared the community for the somewhat dramatic development that took place on Wednesday afternoon. The particulars of the case may be briefly recapitulated. On August 22, 1909, some runners from the City' Magistrate's yamen entered the Settlement and in Markham Road arrested a rice-dealer, who is also a tipao, and took him across the Soochow Creek to the native yamen in the locality. The Council drew the attention of the Consular Body to this irregular arrest in a letter dated August 28, and on September 22 the Senior Consul stated that he was addressing the Taotai that day on the subject. As the Chinese authorities maintained that Ng Ah-dau had been arrested outside Settlement limits, the Senior Consul's representations were of no avail. In the first week of November, however, it came to the knowledge of the Council that the man had already been severely handled in the Magistrate's yamen and was being threatened with further punishment if the Municipal police showed any further interest in his case, The Consular Body still pressed the matter, and on December 16 the City Magistrate inflicted two thousand blows upon Ng Ah-dau, because a foreign Consul was causing trouble on his behalf. This punishment was repeated two days later, and on December 31 he was ordered to receive another two thousand blows, because a formal request for his release had been received from the Mixed Court, Magistrate. When nine hundred blows had been inflicted, however, the man's condition is stated to have been too serious for further punishment and the brutal treatment was stayed.
On Wednesday a meeting of the Consular Body was held and it was decided that, unless the three Assessors of the Mixed Court were allowed access to this unfortunate
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.