The Archive · 1941

Basket of Gelluloid Caused Bus Fire

A fre, which broke out in a No. 16 trolley bus in Carter Road, pear Shanhaikwan Road on May 19 and which caused more than 20 casualties, including several deaths, was caused by the ignition of celluloid products used for "making buttons, which a passenger carried while travelling. This was brought to light in the First Special District Court yesterday when Nyi Chikong, manager of a button manufacturing factory in Connaught Road said that some careless person might have thrown a cigarette butt into the bag containing the highly inflammable articles which caused the fire to break out. Judgment was reserved for a week and Nyi was remanded in custody.

The mystery surrounding the outbreak was only recently solved by the police' when it was learned that some inflammable articles carried by a passenger were burned inside the trolley which caused the disaster. It was alleged that after alighting from the crowded and burning trolley, Nyi went to his native district to evade law but, eventually. he was tracked down when he returned to this city, The question now is who threw the cigarette butt that caused the ignition of the celluloid products in Nvi's bag?

Nyi confessed in court that the bag belonged to him but refused to admit that it was he himself who threw the cigarette butt, which he thought caused the outbreak. Nyi also admitted that at the time of the outbreak, he was in the trolley, He said that he had been asked by several button factories to buy celluloid from a shop in the French Concession, When the fire broke out he was carrying a bag containing 12 rounds of the inflammable products. His hair was burned and he had to escape through a window of the trolley, he said, Tue Chinese National Government will vote a huge sum of money for the purpose of financing the pro-Auction of textile goods ju the in-*erior. It is expected that, the outout of such goode will soon be considerably increased. says the "Cheng Yien Pao." Meanwhile, the government authorities are discussing ways and meane to increase importation of textile goods from outports in order fo meet the present great public demands, the report states. son why he carried the weapon was hat he wanted to escape from the camp together with other comrades Veranse he could not tolerate the bad treatment. He admitted however that he had stabbed the second in command.

The one who was alleged to have been armed with an iron bar urine the attack said that he carried the weapon in order to pro'ect the camp during tHe confusion so that bad characters could not enter the camp. Another said that he had tried to escape but that he had never talked about any assassination plot. Chane Fu-chung told the judge that several days before the assassination he knew that Ho would attack his commander Fe tried his best to persuade him not to do so. He had not participate ed More Strikes Settled; j

Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.

Your account