On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 20:32:08 -0500, "John W." <worthj1970@yahoo.com>
brought down from the Mount tablets inscribed:

>Michael Cash wrote:
>> 
>> The book said something to the effect that the Chinese were not at all
>> amused by the idea that the two had been beheading innocent Chinese
>> for the purpose of attracting wives. So it would seem that the Chinese
>> court chose to believe that what they had told the reporter about
>> their motives were true, but that their denial of the contest having
>> been anything more than a hoax was false. The way it read to me was
>> "We're going to shoot your asses for even joking about shit like that,
>> whether you actually did it or not". Perhaps part of the reason I read
>> it that way was at least in part due to the fact that they had already
>> been acquitted of the crimes.
>> 
>Just out of curiosity, while reading it did you at all get the
>impression that they were killed in part to shut them up? Seems to me
>having a couple of guys running around saying it was all a hoax would
>take away a great deal of leverage, though it'd be difficult to believe
>anyone had that amount of forsight at the time.

The book is a compendium of some 800 or so murder cases in Japan
during the 20th century, and this was just one of the cases mentioned
for 1937 or 1938, whichever it was. The author was just presenting the
bare basics of the case and it wasn't within the scope of the book to
delve into great investigative detail about it. To see the way it read
to me, read two paragraphs above this one.
>
>> If it were the big deal that the newspaper account seems to hype it up
>> to have been, wouldn't it seem likely that at least ONE other paper in
>> Japan would have been carrying it? Maybe there was another paper
>> carrying it, but the only articles I've ever seen mentioned in
>> connection with the story all come from a single newspaper.
>> 
>Which paper? Wasn't the government more or less in control of the press
>at that time?

東京日日新聞

Eric has pointed out that it also appeared in the 大阪毎日新聞, but I
have discovered that from 1911 the two papers were affiliated. It also
appeared in the Japan Advertiser, but since that was one of the
forerunners of the Japan Times, it is likely that they were just
translating an article from the 東京日日新聞





--

Michael Cash

"I am sorry, Mr. Cash, but we are unable to accept your rap sheet in lieu of
a high school transcript."

                                Dr. Howard Sprague
                                Dean of Admissions
                                Mount Pilot College