The fire, it may be recalled. broke out at 9.54 am. on Wednesday. At that time, some 33 women were employed sorting out scrap celluloid, thirteen in the room in which the fire occurred. This room. ed, was not usually used for this pur-Pose, but contained tumblers, ma-Chines in which rubber balls are smoothed. These mad were not 1n operation at the time of the fire. Seven workers were in the balloon making room, where the mixing machine was working, preparing a rubber and gasoline solution for balloon cipping. An office opened of this workroom. anyone discharged the rifle the noise would frighten him away. Witness inspected the shed and saw a rifle fixed on a box in front of the main entrance, the barrel of the gun be-ug sighted through a hole in the door.
After identifying a rifle produced in court as the one he had seen witness went on to say that he found several pieces of thread attached to the trigger. some inside and some outside the shed, which was about 300 yards away from the house in a Spacious garden. He was taken to the shed by a servant on instructions of the accused and went in through a side door. not the one through which his arm and stomach from which blood was oozing. Witness immediately reported the matter to his master, who was asleep upstairs and who came down to see the man's wounds and asked him to take Kau to the Paulun Hospital with a letter to the accountant's office. While in hospital witness said he saw the bullet bei extracted from the body of Kau by a Chinese doctor. He subsequently learned that deceased had died, Witness identified a rifle produced in court as the one which was in the tool shed and which he said, was put up by his master every evening and removed every morning.
The blaze had enveloped all the building by the time fire engines arrived and all the workers, including the five injured, had escaped from the burning premises. The fire was extinguished at 1230 p.m. and examination by the firemen revealed 7
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.