Additional official information made available here confirms the report that two sailors aboard the Monocacy were wounded during the attack and that both the Alice Dollar and the Monocacy were struck by rifle and machine-gun bullets a number of times In silencing the fire, the Monocacy is officially reported to have discharged 41 six-pound explosive shells. The number of Chinese troops killed and wounded cannot be obtained from Chinese official sources, but observers estimate the number killed at between 50 and 100 and the wounded, many of whom are in military and private hospitals here, at near one hundred.
The gravity of the incident cannot, in the opinion of foreign officials here, be in any way underestimated. Tha troops who fired upon the two vessels, clearly with deliberation if not' by express command, were not brigands; they were umifermed. soldiers under the control of the "Peking high military authorities." They fired directly at the ships and not at some other real or imaginary target. They continued the firing until the return fire of the Monocacy drove them to cover.
It is expected that Peking officials and General Wu Pei-fu, under whose general command the offending troops are enlisted, will disclaim responsibility for the incident. It is hoped, however, that they will afford some effective guarantees. either by making examples of the commanders responsible for the attack or by other measures, against a recurrence of the affair. Complete information concerning the matter has been despatched to Peking and to Washington by local consular end navel officials Failing satisfactory guarantees from Peking or from local military officials, foreign governmental representatives here feel that they must at once, themselves, provide for the protection of their nationals against trouble from this new quarter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.