The first information that ano ganized "gang. was operating In. the western area wax on August 28, 1938, when they participated in an armed! highway robbery in a lane off Kinnear Road. Since that date this gang has been connected, through examination of cartridge eases or bullets, with no Test than eighteen cases. This gang was agsoelated with the assassination of a detective inspector of the Police Bureau of the Shanghai Special City Government on February 2, 1939, and with the assassination of an official of the Joss Tax Bureau on February 1999.
The Chairman, while expressing] gratitude for the ce-operation that had een received from the Japanese] Gendarmerie, emphasized that much renter ce-operation was needed from he Japanese authorities In connection with the western area. He did not profess that Shanghai could ever be freed altogether from armed crime, Dut he felt certain that If the western area was cleaned up the crime sit tion would improve to a vast ext In a large city, especially one that overcrowded and full of refugees, obvious that crime cannot altogether eliminated. The Chairman further pointed ut that pro-Japanese Chinese officials had been warned over connection with the recent protest lodged by the Japanese Consul-General Tsingtao regarding British naval action over the detention of the s. St.
Vincent de Paul, it was revealed at the press conference yesterday.
An Embassy spokesman added that he did not know the text of the protest which had been lodged by the Japanese Consul-General with the British authorities as Tsingtao was under Japanese naval cupation.
Allening that the British Navy had prevented by force an investigation of the vessel by the Chinese Maritime Cus~ toms authorities in Tsingtao, Mr. Denjiro Kato, Japanese Consul-General at Tsingtao, handed the protest to Mr. A. J. Martin, HM. Consul-General on Feb. 6. The St. Vincent de Paul was taken to Tsingtao under armed escort for alleged violations of the Customs reulations. over again by the Japanese Gendarmerie. a1 the request of the Municipal Police. to try to avoid forming regular habits and using the same roads dally, and that they had Also been asked to report all parties and meetings In advance to the police so. that speelat protection could be iven, Neither of these requests had been complied with, Road. They: took aim and fired a number of shots into the building. Then one of them produced a hand-grenade and hurled it at the station. It failed to explode.
Alter dropping a letter outside the place, the men" turned and fled. The letter proved to contain a denunciation of "traitors"" in particular those who were "assisting the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.