Chinese Letter to Chief of Police The prevalence of armed robbery in Shanghai with an occasional lapse into murder has created a certain amount of apprehension in the minds of Chinese residents, and a letter has been addressed to the Commissioner of Police asking for more protection. The text of the letter, drafted by nine Street Unions in Sinza district, is to the following effect:
"The number of robberies and murders committed in the Settlement has recently increased, and although you are making strict inquiries and punish persons for committing such offences, the desperadoes concerned are not afraid of the law and continue their activities as previessly. In the Markham Road murder case, it was due to the failure of a police constable to render protection that the murderer was able to carry out his project. Reports are continually appearing in the papers of cases, such as that, in Boone Road, where one Zee was shot in his own house, and the result is that residents in the Settlement are becoming alarmed.
"In recent years, there has been a great increase in the population of the Settlement and in the number of houses, but there appears not to have been a corresponding increase in the number of police, the consequence being that the police are not in readiness when required. The number of mounted police is also insufficient. One hardly comes across a mounted policeman late at night in Sinza Road, Carter Road, Weihaiwei Road, and North and South Chengtu Roads.
"At present. the robbers are active and the people are alarmed. Only a small portion of the police force is armed. The rest carry no weapons of any kind, and thus are themselves at the mercy of desperadoes. You are hereby requested to increase the number of policemen and send men to patrol lonely places in order to frighten the robbers. We write as residents of the Settlement and ask you to take greater precautions for the maintenance of public safety, and we trust that you will see fit to increase the number of police on point duty, mounted men, and plain clothes constables."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.