A tense situation suddenly developed in Hongkew at about 10.15 p.m. yesterday when a male Oriental, believed to be a Chinese, fired several shots wounding a Japanese officer and also a rickshaw puller in North Szechuen Road near Wuchang Road. The motive of the shooting could not be ascertained but it was reliably learned that the man escaped. The Japanese officer was rushed to hospital.
Soon: after the shooting, Japanese military authorities quickly made investigations and conducted searches in streets and as a result, many persons who wished to come over to the southern side of the Creek were delayed, including more than 100 workers of the Settlement tramway company. It could not be ascertained whether or not the Japanese had detained suspects but at ap early hour this morning, investigations were still being carried out.
A tram carrying tramway workers across the Garden Bridge was detained in Hongkew by the authorities for some time. After taking between 30 and 40 tramcars to the Yangtszepoo depot of their company, they were returning home south of the Creek in cne of the vehicles when they were detained, but at about 11.30 p.m. the. car was eventually allowed to cross the bridge. By that time many of the workers had gone home on foot.
Heavily armed patrols from the Japanese Naval Landing Party headquarters appeared on the streets suddenly soon after 1030 p.m. and a house to house search was started without warning, while a large section of North Szechuen Road was cordoned off.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.