The Man who Poasted Forty-two Murders before he was Twenty-three, and how he was Brovght to Book Piuthorities of his Wanted by. the
own native district for upwards of 30 murders by gun and knife, and sought by detectives of the International Settlement and French Concession for at Toast 12 murders and armed robberies, including the killing of Chinese police constable and the Berious wounding of foreign detective, Wong, Siao-di sat on one side of a table in the dingy detective's office and, while behind him otood—well-armed guards, calmly gave the story of his life to. the impassive police stenographer calmly ang with the same cal-
Tousness as he had Wrought the death of his victims.
He was a small man, about 6 ft. 1 ins. in height, well set up though slim. ied In complexion he was, pale with the ppallot of the student, an effect which was increased by the gold-rimmed spectacles through which his small, hard eyes gleamed. A touch of fatalistic humour about him, too. When the police had taken him in lightning raid on a house in Pakhoi Road neither he nor the comrades who were with him had been armed; and as he surrendered to the alert, armed detectives he had Inughed'and told them that hho had been armed, they would not ayo captured him' so easily. And there was more than one detective In that raid-who remembered a year or 80 before another raid on a hous in the same road in which the police had been mot with a hail of bullets, the raiding party had been nid' Tow, and Wong Siao-il and his! gang made their escape. So the detectives were not inclined to dig believe him.
On His Own Confession curiously enough, this hastened murderer seemed to dread physical violence to his person. He knew the police had grudges against him, many debts to pay off and revenge take for comrades he and his gang had dropped. Interpreting their spirit by his own, he imagined what tortures awaited' him before he went to the court and, as he admitted Iiust follow, to the execution ground fat Lunghua, If he were spared Physical violence, he told the Uetectives, he would give them the history of his murders, so-far as he remembered them. And thus it happened that, after a meal in the fealls partaken of heartily, he sat on ne side of the table and xecéunted the story. whick would be "used in evidence against him."
Though one of the most notorious; robbers and. murderers Shanghai jas ever known, Wong Siao-di, spittle Younger Brother" Wong, was only 23 years of age when he Was captured, He looked a little older. The police in their deseription of him called him about 20 years of age, the leader of a "secret Society of assassins". None of. his dozen of more followers was over 80 years of age, but in callousness their leader excelled them all. One faring, distinguished mark he bore, mark of the beast—a round fivid sear like @ burn, the size of copper coin, beneath his left ear.
Wong Sino-di was born in 1809 ina country district near Shaohsing; Chekiang, the son of a peasant farmer, who died when he was 13 years of age. For four years Wong "fived with his mother and small sister, until, when, she was seven {years old, he joined the local gen-Tarmerie." He was then 18 years of age. For four years he served with the gendarmerie, but in 1921 was tone of those who were dismissed Vihien, for a number of reasons, the Birength of the force was out down, hen he bought a Browning: pistol from a soldier and; to the terror of alias Tsang Vong-pio, Born 1922 at Lunghua, Murderer of 42 persons, the nelghbeurhcod, commenced to Msew lif
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.