"Even One . . ."

Still under indictment for murder last week, but by no means under arrest, was that frank and open swaggerthug, General Chang Tsung-chang, rich with the loot of Shantung, his former bailiwick. Fortnight ago Chang was--as he later expressed it--"handling a pistol." The thing went off and killed handsome young Prince Hsien Kai, cousin of China's deposed Boy Emperor Henry P'u-yi ("Henry") (TIME, Aug. 12). The shooting occurred in the garden of Chang's hotel at Beppu, a Japanese island summer resort. Last week the Beppu police made no protest when indicted Chang Tsung-chang and his suite journeyed to the neighboring port of Moji, conferred with an elder brother of the youth whom he had shot.

The brother, Prince Hsien Lung, has recently been poor, is probably richer now. After listening briefly to Chang Tsung-chang he said cheerfully to reporters: "I am sure it must have all been quite accidental."

At Tokyo a Japanese newspaper gilded the lily with a story of how slain Prince Hsien Kai had probably been attentive to one of Chang's numerous "wives." Wrote the ingenious Tokyo editor: "Chang, who at one time has had as many as 40 wives, could not bear, the police believe, to see anyone take liberties with even one of them."