At the same time the authorities went out of their way to make things as easy as possible for the Chinese in making first a demand for payment after judgement, without any show of force at all and it is regrettable that only a small minority of those concerned took advantage of this last act of grace and paid up, Early on Monday afternoon a tax-collector, accompanied by a detective: in plain clothes, called at each of the defeuidants' shops, showed the warrant of distraint, explained what it was about and demanded payment, explaining that if the money' were forthcoming all unpleasantness would be avoided. In Honan Road, out of ten shops visited the keepers of only three paid at once, the rest refusing outright with the exception of two or three who indulged in the usual prevarication about the master or accountant being out and there being no money in tne shop with which to pay.
In the cases where the taxes were not paid on this demand, a call was then made by a Potice Inspector accompanied by a foreign constable, three armed Sikhs, the tax-collector and a number of Chinese plain clothes detectives. Payment was again demanded and in case refusal, either the necessary amount of money was taken from the safe, where possible, or goods to the required value were seized and taken away for auction eventually. We are informed that all the shopkeepers in Fokien Road in face of this pressure paid up, but this was not the case in Honan Road.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.