What is laughingly ridiculous about these murders—if laughter is permissible in the face of such dreadful tragedies—is that, as the "Asahi" states, the soldiers of Japan became panic-stricken over the presence of a few Socialists and agitators, especially when they had these people practically under lock and key. In a bitter editorial, condemning the murders and demanding a full inquiry with drastic punishment to the guilty, the same paper calls the fear of the soldiers and the disgusting assassinations an "insult to Japan." It is now known that many of those killed under the pretence that they were dangerous Socialists were just mere workmen or students, who were seeking a place of refuge. The Socialists of Japan may have been strong, but it is the height of absurdity to pretend that they are stronger than the forces upholding authority in the land. Such incidents seem to be a natural, though painful, corol-k in a country where the people regard the police as their enemies and! the police adopt a similar attitude towards the citizens,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.