Ingenious though' we know them to be, Chinese thieves in the Settlement' must find it increasingly difficult to earn a living in the face of thy activities of the police. The arbitrary but in every way excusable practice of sending armed patrols around the Settlement at unexpected hours to examine all and sundry has done more to protect "honest and peaceable citizens probably than most of them realize. Silks and satins may clothe a rascal and frowzy rags an honest. man, and the police have no mind to be fooled, so whether a man be outwardly a reputable and wealthy merchant or poor enough to look desperate, up must go his hands should a patrol so choose and he will be searched. How many rogues have been gaded as result of this procedure the police alone know, Dut many of us are well aware that the measure of their success has not been small. The Gazette now tells of another proposal for the further harassing of law-breakers. In due course the police are to be provided with a broadcasting station and the value of that will be a letter purporting to come from 54 officers and men on boatd the ships, urging that they should be handed back to the Soviet. There was nothing to show that this letter had in fact been written last February, as a means of enabling the signatories to get back. to Russia, and we accepted the siatement in good faith. We should have remembered, of course, that trath and fair dealing are words that have no meaning for Bolshe-vis. They are welcome to chuckle over our folly in having for once 30 far forgotten ourselves as to Delieve what they said.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.