In the meantime, another gruesome murder was being committed in another room of the Gendarmerio headquarters, a private named Kamoshide, trying his hand murder and choking the life out of the innocent, seven-year-old nephew of the Ohsugis in a manner similar to that whereby his superior officer despatched the poor lad's aunt and uncle. Opinion varies as to why the Jad was murdered. Some advance the theory that the soldier thought the boy was a son of the Ohsugis, while others believe that the motive-for the murder of the child was in order to obliterate all evidence of the crimes. The secrecy with which the red deeds were done and the fact that the clothing of the victims were afterwards burnt andthe bodies thrown into a disused well and covered with debris lends color to. the supposition that the latter was very probably the cause of the murder of the child. Kamoshida, whose manly arms crushed the life cwt of the seven-year-old boy, claims that what he did was for the greater glory of Japan, just as his superior officers now plead that the conspiracy to lay hold. of and murder Ohsugi and his wife was prompted by motives of pure patriotism. When it is borne in mind that the murders were committed on September 16, more than a fortnight after the quake and that at this time Tokio was fairly normal so far as police supervision and order were concerned, there seems to be hardly any justification for the secret assassinations, and certainly none at all for. the cold-blooded and brutally barbaric manner in which they were conceived and carried out.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.