The Royal Italian authorities have issued the following statement:
"From an investigation on the part of the Royal Italian Naval Command in the Far East regarding the wounding of a Chinese by an Italian sentry on duty at the chemical works at 630 am. on January 11 the perfect and correct behaviour of the sentry in question has been ascertained.
"The sentry fired only after having for three times challenged the man, in Chinese language, to halt.
"The man had stopped in the immediate vicinity of the sentry post io satisfy a physical need and when ordered to leave committed the grave offence of hitting the sentry and then running away."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.