The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-06-05
LAPS KILLED
 MANY KOREANS

ToKio, June -(Correspondence of
 The Associated Press) - Thirty-f1ve
 Koreans were shot or killed with
 swords or bayonets by Japanese sol diers in a Christian church building
 at Cheam-ni. 40 miles from Seoul in connection with the Korean lndepend-
 ence movement.
 This has been confirmed by an in vestigation by British and American consular agents and by missionary leaders in Korea. Tho facts are ad- mitted by the Japanese authorities at Seoul. including the Governor General Hasegawa- The authorities say that they deplore the outrage, that those guilty of 1t have been pun ished and that orders have been given | to prevent a recurrence.
 Investigators also have found that | Soochung, another village near l Cheam-ni, was burned by the Japan | ese and that several Koreans there were wounded in an attack by Japan ! csc soldiers who shot them or used | their swords and bayonets on them as | they fled from their burning homes after the troops had set fire to the | buildings.
 1 Reports have been received of the 1 burning of Christian churches in 1 three other villages and Koreans told | The Associated Press correspondent | at Seoul that they could show him
 nine villages which had been burned | by the Japanese.
 i "Details Of the massacre at Cheam-n
 were obtained by The Associated
 Press correspondent who visited that l place in company with Raymond S. ! Curtice, the American yice-consul at | Seoul and MT. Underwood, an Ameri- can missionary. Subsequently the | correspondent again visited the place with MT. Royds, the British consul, and several missionaries including Rev Heron Smith, who is in charge | of the work of the Methodist church | in Korea. Describing his visit to l Cheann-ri, the Seoul correspondent | writes that when they asked residents | of nearby villages why that hamlet ' had been burned they were told that | it was because there was a. Christian 1 church and many native Christians in the village.
 When we got to the place which | had been a village of about 40 houses | we found only four or five standing, l all the rest were smoking ruins, ne | continued. We found body fright 1 fully burned and twisted lying in a 1 compound and another either of a | VOung man or woman Just cALS4uS bAiC
 church compoun1- Several groups of people were huddled under little | straw shelters on the hillside with a ! few of their pitiful belongings about l them. They were mostly women, | some old, others young mothers with babies but all sunk in the dull apathy 1 of abject misery and despair MT 1 Underwood. an American missionary | who talked to them in their own | language, brought the story of what | had happened.
 The day before we arrived sol
 diers came to the vafsge and ordered | all the male Christians to gather at the church. When about 30 were in
 the church the soldiers opened fire on
 them with rifles and then entered the | church and finished them off with swords and bayonets. After this they 1 set fire to the church and to houses | which otherwise would not have been burned"
 The party however divided up and obtained many interviews concerning 1 the story as the correspondent learn ed it on his first visit. They were told 1 that two of those killed in or near the l church were women who went to that 1 building to learn what was happening | to their husbands.
 l The party heaOeu DV tHe ioliIASAi | consul then visited Soochun and found the village had been burned | The Koreans told the visitors that | they were awakened in the night by ! finding their houses on fire. When they ran out they were struck with
 swords and bayoneted or shot None
 were killed but several were wound ed | and we saw one man whose arm had 1 been laid open with a sword A church and 30 houses had been burn l ed here but no attempt had been I made to cleanup the others.
 Rev. Stacy L. Roberts, an Amer1- can Presbyterian missionary station 1 ed at Pyens Yang, has issued a state ment asserting that more than 100 Koreans were shot or beaten to death in Tyung-ju and a church there was | burned by Japanese.
 | In another village eight miles ] away another Christian church and an academy for boys were burned by | Japanese soldiers after the contents
 | such as benches. stoves and mats
 were carried away and put to use in
 | the government school at Tyung-Ju.