At 10.30 o'clock on October'
3 the first hearing of the coroner's inquest over the body of Wil-iam Garcia, Filipino citizen, who fied on September 28 as the result of a fight and stabbing fair which occurred at 4.15 at the corner of Range and North Szechuen Roads, was held.—Me. Fred L. Robbins, R. P. Roberts, G.
Lynott, TR. Seanlon, W. G. Turbyfill, and Mark L. Moody were sworn in as the jury.
Foo Chow-tsang, a newspaper hawker, was the first witness call ed. He gave evidence of having seen the fight from beginning to end and stated that he saw the deceased put into a riesha and fall out. Later someone came and took him away in a motor-car. Cedric Arthur Mason, Detective Probation-ery Sergeant, testified that last Sunday monting at the time of the fight, he was riding along the road and saw a number of rieshas crowded together and a group of excited people. He stopped and saw two foreigners, one lying on the ground and the other bending over him and talking to him. The man on the ground was badly' Wounded and Det-Sergt. Mason turned him over to two Japanese Police who came along. He then stopped a motor car and put the two of them into it and ordered them to be sent to the General Hospital.
According to' the testimony of Dr. Cecil Bennett, Superintendent of the General Hospital, Garcia was dying when he entered and only breathed two or three times afterwards. He also described wounds on the body. Dr. William Nance, the coroner's doctor, des-ibod seeing the body at the hospital after death and examining the nds. Both he and Dr. Benne! tated that a man with such woun.ly could not possibly live longer than a half hour.
Mabel Dowd, a friend of the dead man, gave evidence of his birth ard Henry James Stocks, a detective connected with the tion, was the I the box. He testified that he was given the case early on Sunday morning and immediately suspected that Filipinos were guilty, ax all neighbourhood in the early hours of the morning after their work. He visited various lodging houses where Filipinos live and also the Filipino clubs, and thereby hear that a man named Tobias had been mixed up in the fight, Tobias lived at 140 Range Road put witness could not find nim there. He next went to 113 Seward Road and heard a Filipino talking over the telephone and the word "detective" mentioned.
When asked if his name was Tobias the man at first denied it but after he had been questioned considerably he broke down and admitted his identity. as such.
30 stated that he had been mixed up in the fight and had committ: ed the deed. Witness turned Tobias over to Det-Inspr. Schmidt who had the testimony put into writing. This written testimony was not submitted to the court.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.