'A. large and successful New, Year gathering of the members of the Provisional Court took place last Tuesday night at the Oriental Hotel. Those present were Chief Justice H. ¥, Loo, presiding, Judges K. Hu, Y. 8. Ziar, Lone Liang, Pino Ling, S. K. Chou, W. S, Chiao, Mr. J. E. Wheeler, the Chief Clerk, and others, The Senior Consul's Deputies, Messrs. C. E. Whitamore, C.D. Meinhardt, 'T. Shimizu, L, Burdett, M, gawa, and J. Van den Berg, wer the guests of honour.
After the banquet, Chief Justice Loo made a short speech in which, while thanking all the members of the Court, including the Senior Consul's Deputies, for their friendly cooperation and efficient assistance in the past year, he pleaded for the assertion of independence of the Court in order that it might not be used for other purposes, and for solidarity of Judges and all members of the Court in order to make the Court a success.
Mr, Whitamore, representing the Senior Consul's Deputies, spoke in reply, evlogizing the Court's good work; and, while paying a great tribute to Judge Loo, laid emphasis on the importance of ce-operation between Judges and Senior Consul's Deputies.
Judge Loo's Address:
The following is a renumé of the address of Judge Loo:—It gives me really great pleasure to be here to-night to wish you all 'a happy New Year at this what I may call "the first annual social gathering of the members of Shanghai Provisional Court". On behalf of my colleagues I take this opportunityyto thank our guests or, may 1 say, our collaborators, the Senior Consul's Deputies, for their kind cooperation and assistance in our difficult task—the administration of Justice in this groat city of Chin Looking back today. I think we can all agree that 1927 has been a bad year for our Court as for many other things. You will remember that the Provisional Court, taking the place of the former Mixed Court, commonecd the first year of its life at a time when the crime wave began to flood Shanghai, and the Court was not sufficiently equipped to.deal with the situation for many " reasons. First of all, the government often changed. Daring the early months of last! year no fewer than three changes took place within four months. Then came the Communist terrorism, which has given us a lot of trouble and of which the end is not yet in sight.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.