One Japanese soldier was slightly injured in the explosion, The sampan, according to a Japanese Em-bossy spokesman, continued downstream without opening fire on the bridge. The culprit, stated by the Japanese authorities to be "presumably a Chinese," escaped.
The failure of the Shanghai Municipal Police to prevent the incident and to arrest the culprit "cannot but hamper the return to normalcy in Shanghai," the spokesman declared.
While the Japanese Consulate-General had been informed by the Shanghai Municipal Police that attempts were being made to track down the grenade-thrower, the presence of "such subversive elements in the Settlement cannot but affect the intention of the Japanese authorities to reopen the areas north of Soochow Creek to Chine: the spokesman stated.
The Japanese authorities, "confident that the Shanghai Municipal Police would do all in its power to trace down and arrest the culprit," the spokesman said, were adopting "a wait and see attitude."
He intimated, however, that the efforts of the Shanghai Municipal Police would be carefully watched.
The spokesman, by implication, tended to blame the incident on the failure of the Shanghai Municipal Police to take adequate steps to curb such "subversive activities."
The three columns then converged upon Tsinan to carry out the second occupation of the Shantung capital by Japanese troops in a decade.
Before retreating, the Chinese set Are to all important buildings, the communique added. The Japanese Consulate-General, the German Consulate and the Japanese Hospital were burning fiercely this morning. The Provincial Government buildings, headquarters of Gen. Han Fu-chu, were also set on fire yesterday morning.
Press dispatches from Japanese correspondents at the front said the entire walled city appeared to be ablaze, Japanese infantrymen, the reports added, were actively engaged in mopping-up operations among the burning buildings. Japanese flags were seen on top of the city gates. Few Chinese soldiers were reported seen in the unwalled city, the more up-to-date part of Tsinan.
Encountering little resistance, Japanese column occupied the aerodrome, two kilometres west of the city, at 1 o'clock this afternoon—
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.