Of late there have been several interesting eases in the local Court in which Russians were defendants.
They are typical of Chinese Court decisions in thi Special Area, where practically all the eases tried concern foreigners who have lost their extraterritorial rights. It may be mentioned that the Courts are run on quite modern lines and that as there are many Russian lawyers admitted to appear in the Court, the proceedings are bilingular, with efficient interpreters, but occupy a lot of time, with so' much transiating necessary. Two—Russian' gypsies, who are rather numerous in these parts, were charged with having swindled $120 out of two Chinese. The former were in the habit of buying eggs from a certain Chinese, and one day gave him dollar note, saying it was a fake one, and if the Chinese could not dispose of it to bring it back and another one would be given. The Chinese when he came back told the gypsies that he had disposed of the note without difficulty, so this time the latter gave the egg-hawker a fivesdollar bill again warning him it was a false one, but again the Chinese changed it without difficulty. The Chinese became interested so! asked the gypsies how they. got hold of the false notes and they answered "we manufacture them ourselves, and if you want some we will make some for you charging you half the face value, but you must bring us real notes in order to get the imprint." The Chinese went off and after talking over the matter with a friend, the next day the two together brought §120 to the gypsies. The latter then rang the changes on the Chinese and by some little conjuring, handed back the Chinese 12 packet of notes, which when opened up were found to. be only pieces of unprinted paper. The Chinese lodged a complaint to the police and the gypsies were arrested. The! Court condemned them to one year's imprisonment each, but the Chinese! were not even charged though it was clear that they themselves were quite willing to circulate false bank notes.
On the Spree In another ease a Russian youth of twenty whilst on a spree at one
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.