Dawn on Thursday morning brought to light murder of a terri-re in the Yangtzepoo district of Shanghai. Ina sequestered part of this locality women going to work came upon the body of a man who} had evidently been done to death in the course of the night, and al-ough inquiries have been prorecuted during the day little light has been thrown upon the tragedy. At present the identity of the vi is unknown, but appearances point to the fact of his having been a middle-class Chinere, and the surmise is that the murder wae inspired by motives of robbery.
Every morning towards half-past five o'clock numbers of women make their way along Ward Road to the vilk filatures where they are employed. Yesterday when the women were within about 300 yards of Thorburn Road their attention was attracted to something on the roadway. At*the spot mentioned a small footpath leads into the country, and some twenty-five yarde away is grave-mound. Under the shadow of thie the corpse was discovered. Death had evidently been caused by strangulation and stabbing, for piece of cord was twisted round the neck, and upon the body were sev: r-al wounds. Information was conveyed to the police, who took the matter in hand, and in the course of the morning had the body conveyed to the Mortuary.
From over the Border?
When the corpse was found, the shoes were missing, but a noteworthy fact was that the sooke were perfectly clean, bearing no marks of dust from the roadway. This has led to the conclusion that after the man had been murdered, his aesailanta carried the body to the grave-mound, thus hoping to conceal their crime for as long a time as possible. The most exhaustive search has been made, but no marks of s struggle have been encountered, and it seems more than likely that the murder was committed outside the Settlement. At this point the boundary ie only about 150 yards from the road, so that there is much to support such a theory.
At present the police have very little to guide them in making their inquiries, for no report haa been made of a man answering to the description of the deceased being missing. He was evidently about thirty-five years of age, and from the fact that hie hands were soft and that he wore his finger nolle long, it is presumed that he belonged either to the middle or better classes. The suggestione as to motive include the one that he had been waylaid by thieves on the prowl, while it is also possible that he may been to some of the gambling houres in the country, and having won money had been followed and robbed. At present everything is in the nature of conjecture.
In the afternoon an inquest wan held by Mr. Kuan, Mixed Court Magistrate, and Mr. Gale, American Assessor, and a verdict of wilful murder committed by some person or persona unknown was returned.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.