In one of the most spectacular armed robberies committed during the past few weeks, six or seven Chinese, one armed with a pistol and another with a knife, made their way into the offices of the Henningsen Produce Ca., at Rooms 145-146, in the Hongkong & Shanghaj Bank building, at about 830 o'clock last night and after intimidating the two Chinese employees who where there at the time, locked them up in the office and made good their escape with approximately $4,000 in cash.
Police parties under Detective Sub-Inspector J. J. Ross dashed to the scene from Central Police Station, Foochow Road, whilst uniformed parties searched the building thoroughly and finger-print experts went to work in the offices of the Henningsen Produce Ca. in search of possible clues.
Neither the search of the building or the fingerprints found at the cone gave investigating officers anything to work on. Three suspects, believed to be Chinese members of the staff of the American company, were however taken to the police station for questioning, it being presumable that the robbery must have been perpetrated with the assistance of one or more members of the Chinese staff.
Rome, Dec. 23.
It is understood that the Italian Government's view that the Franco-
Italian Agreement of 1935 is no longer valid has been confirmed to the French Government in writing.
It is suggested that the Italian object behind this move is to induce France to produce fresh proposals for fulfilling a clause in the London Treaty of 1915, whereby Italy was to receive colonial compensation for her part in the Great War.
The Agreement of 1935 dealt principally with the status of the Italians in Tunis, the French cession of the Tibesti region of the Sahara, the cession of the Red Sea Island of Doumeira, with a strip of the neighbouring coast, and of a number of shares in the Djibouti railway. The ceded territories, it is learned, are already marked on Italian maps as Italian, although the frontiers have not, hitherto, been demarcated.
The Italians generally, it is gathered, hope that Great Britain will use her good offices to prevent France from rejecting the Italian view out of hand, without giving it the consideration necessary if Franco-Italian relations are to be smoothed out, and peace is to be consolidated in the Mediterranean, and in the Red Sea.
Keuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.