Shortly before noon on the "Double Tenth," French police patrols in the busy Avenue Joffre heard a loud explosion which sent them at double speed to 655 Avenue Joffre, a jeweller's store from whose open door clouds of smoke were pouring into the street. Cursory examination of the scene at first failed to reveal any victims but on more detailed examination the proprietor and his wife were discovered under the counter suffering from fright. When reassured that they were out of danger they told the following strange story to the authorities, Two well-dressed Chinese entered their establishment and asked to see some good watches. When these were produced the two began to examine the goods. Meanwhile, one of them placed on the counter a package wrapped up in newspaper. Inethe course of the bargaining the two suddenly moved away from the counter and almost immediately a loud explosion rocked the room filling it with smoke. Fearing that a bomb had been tossed into the shop, the proprietor made a flying dive under the counter, while the "customers" walked off with three watches valued at $500.
Detailed examination of the premises revealed remains of the missile which proved to be a large firecracker reinforced by extra layers of paper tightly bound with string. The cracker was fired probably with the aid of a cigarette which one of the visitors was smoking at the time of the accident.
This incident recalls a similar story which was reported November last. In that case, the victim, also a jeweller, was leaning out into his show-window when the explosion occurred. His reaction to the shock was both strong and spontaneous and the axkiving police party found him sifting outside his broken window which he cleared through the glass taking the shortest way out of the premises.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.