VERY strong protest will be lodged by the British Consular authorities with Mr, Y. Miura, Japanese Consul-General in Shanghai, in connection with the death on Wednesday morning of Mr. Richard Maurice Tinkler as the result of wounds received during a fight with Japanese sailors at Pootung premises of the China Printing & Finishing Co.'s Lun Chang mill, where he was employed as labour superintendent, on Tuesday morning, the "North-China Daily News" was informed last night by a British Consular official.
In connection with the situation at the mill and in Pootung where anti-British demonstrations are prevalent and where China Printing & Finishing Ca. employees have been threatened by armed bands, strong representations were made to the Japanese authorities yesterday, he stated, but no protests had been entered yet in connection with Mr. inkler's death.
In connection with Mr. Tinkler's death the Japanese naval spokesman at yesterday's conference stated that certain persons believed that the man was stabbed after his removal to the Japanese company headquarters and that therefore he wished to make the following facts known:
"When Tinkler pointed a Mauser pistol es an officer standing in front Of him," the spokesman stated, "a Petty Officer standing on his right, hit Tinkler's fore-arm with his rifle butt causing the former to drop his gun. Tinkler thereupon proceeded grapple with the petty officer, knocking him down from behind. Seeing this, the section commander who was at the scene at the time. hit Tinkler with the scabbard of his sword but at the same time the man held by Tinkler, shook off the latter, by hitting him in the leg with his rifle. Other sailors then surrounded the scene with bayonets fixed to their rifles but the petty-officer gave orders that Tinkler should not be bayonetted, which order was heard by all the sailors in the group. Tinkler continued to fight, however, and a general scuffle ensued, during which one sailor remembers that Tinkler came into contact with his bayonet."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.