CO129-438 - Public Offices - 1916 — Page 380

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374

The passage in the section on which the charge is

based is to be construed as prohibiting all dealings, without specific authority, in arms and explosive substances of foreign

provenance, The common law as articulate in the code of the late dynasty, leaves no room for doubt that illicit trafficking in such articles is absolutely forbidden.

Before I proceed to deal with the prisoners themselves,

I wish to draw attention to the deplorable state of affairs in the Settlement, as revealed during the course of this trial. What should be the habitat of a peaceful commercial community has become an Alsatia of rogues and vagabonds, native and foreign. In its present condition Shanghai is a festering sore in the body politic of China, The evidence adduced before us shows that there was, and presumably still is, an enormous quantity of arms in the Settlement: that those arms have not arrived through the proper channels but have been smuggled into our midst: and that disreputable foreign firme, disreputable foreign individuals and disreputable Chinese are vying with each other in the traffic, a traffic which can 'have no other purpose than to effect a breach of the neutrality laws of the country or to promote domestic disturbances and civil strife,

The Court then passed sentence on the prisoners as follows: Yeu Ching-foo, four months; Fang Yung-chow, four

Teen Ling yi, 18 months;

months; Chiang Ah-chow, two months;

Taoong Tsang-ling, 15 months, Woo Zung-kwaung, 15 months; Zung Zei-oha who was arrested in Chapei will be handed over to the Chinese authorities.