Marine; Disarmed by Mates; Ulegal Gendarme Action ssrrcia, To. TU N.C."
Peiping, Jan. 4.
recent incident at.a cabaret here, in which Japanese and Marines of the U.S, Embassy Guard were involved, seems likely to have more serious repercussions than were at first expected, less owing to the-incident itself than to the subsequent developments.
The following is an abbreviated, but accurate, account of the actual affair, gathered from the victims themselves and other reliable: foreign, witnesses:—
On the night of December 30, about 11 pin, ten Marines of the American Guard "were sitting i the, ballroom of the International Cabaret in Hata-men, Street. Among them were several plain-clothes patrol on duty.
Japanese in civilian dress walked swaggeringly round the room and stared challengingly at each Marine in turn, as if trying to incite him to start a row. The Marines, however, Ignored him.
"About ten minutes later, when another Marine entered the cabaret, this same Japanese bumped into him Intentionally in the entrance, passage. 'The Marine took no' notices, and the Japanese following him into the ballroom bumped into him a second time, whereupon the Marine pushed him aside. Thereupon the Japanese drew a pistol from his hip pocket and pointed it at the Marine. Other Marines came up and took away the pistol.
As soon as that happened, Japanese in plain clothes came pouring out of the cloakroom and other side Tooms and closed in on the Marines. (It had already been noticed that an unusually large number of Japanese were standing about in the alleyway outside the cabaret that night). A. general melee followed. Within less than five minutes, fifteen Gendarmes uniform, with' pistols and drawn swords in their hands, suddenly put appearance.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.