(Continued from page 5)
The main reason why the bandits got away with holding up, the various cars, in the opinion of Mr. Inniss, was the fact that the Columbia Road is rather poorly illuminated and constant traffic made it necessary for drivers to dim their lights. Giving an instance of what he meant, Mr. Inniss said that for a distance of about 440 yerds from the intersection of Columbia and Great Western Roads, there are only two street lamps "and even these are very poor," Mr. Inniss concluded.
While the hold-up was being perpetrated, quite a number of cars and even a bus passed the scene but did not stop, presumably thinking that a police search-party was at work.
Mr. Howell, who is understood to have passed the scene last and who saw the pistols being pointed at the various victims, dashed through at a rather high speed and informed a Chinese policeman on point duty at the intersection of Great Western and Columbia Roads that armed gangsters were at work further down the road.
The Chinese constable said that he had already informed Bubbling Well "0líce station and at the very moment, a number of police vans were racing ty the scene. Mr. Howell is understood to have remained at the intersection for another few minutes, to see whether the police would actually be able to catch up with the men. He then drove along Great Western Read when to his stupefaction, he found that the same gangsters were actually crossing that thorough-fare near the Lucerne Dairy Farms presumably having taken a short-cut across the fields after the police arrived where they had actually perpetrated the hold-ups. They attempted to stop his car again, but he stepped on the accelerator and drove on, subsequently informing the police of what he had actually witnessed.
Mr. J. E. Perkind, Far Eastern Manager of "Paramount Films of China, Inc. and Mrs. Perkins, are also understood to have been passing the scene at the time and are said to have ignored the threats of the gunmen who wanted to stop them at the point of a pistol. Thus, in view of the fact that Dr. Dunn had three passengers /in his car, a total of \twelve foreigners were involved in ihe hold-up, of which four actually managed to proceed without stopping, preferring the risk of being shot to hat of having to hand over the valuables that they had on their persons at the time.
Dr. Collins had doubtlessly the most interesting experience of all for when he was requested to hand over all the money that he had, he naturally attempted to search his pocket trouses but at this point found 1 pistol pointed at his head, his aggressor presumably being afraid that he was actually trying to draw a pistol.
It appears as a whole, that no panic prevailed amongst the victims at any tine and that they thought that it was much safer to hand over their belongings than to risk being shot at.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.