There was an extraordinary development in Hongkew Park, on Saturday, of the Bolshevist campaign of propaganda which has been proceeding in Shanghai and other parts of China for some while past. The outcome is that the police now have in custody, for trial at the Mixed Court, six persons who are alleged to have been circulating Bolshevist literature in the park, whilst one is further accused of having fired seven pistol shots. It is an unsolved question for the moment whether the man fired into the air, in order to attract attention, or whether he deliberately fired at anyone. He says himself that he fired directly at a Japanese who tried to arrest him, in which case, for there were quite 50,000 people in the park at the time and was the centre of a big crowd close to the stands, it seems most extraordinary that not a single person was hit.
A number of young men—the eldest of those arrested is only 24 years of age, all dressed alike, in what is described as students' uniform, had apparently been distributing circulars for about an hour when, at 2.30 p.m., matters took a more serious turn. As already stated, the story is somewhat confused, but, to take the statement of one of the prisoners, a Japanese tried to arrest him, which he resented, knowing the Japanese was not a police officer. He, thereupon, whipped out a 32 calibre Browning automatic pistol and fired seven shots at the Japanese (the empty cases are all in the possession of the police), fortunately without hitting anyone and then ran for the shelter of some trees near the round pond. Dr. H. Morris happened to be near by and immediately jumped for the man and secured his pistol. The man broke away and Dr. Morris, dropping the pistol and calling to a friend to get it, went for the man again and held him.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.