ABSTRACT
THERE were three remarkable trials held in the latter part of 1924. Namba Daisuke, the young man who had shot at the Prince Regent on his way to the Diet, made no attempt to escape, but was arrested on the spot. It was many months before he was brought to trial-months spent in trying to extract from him names of confederates or associates. Deplorable as was his action, he was a man of great firmness, and implicated nobody; but if he had a morbid sense of his own importance it received the fullest indulgence. The Supreme Court, with numerous judges on the bench, sat as a court of first instance to try him. The trial was held in camera, but, as was always the case, a good many details leaked out. The prisoner sat throughout his examination-a fashion which Osugi started, and which never failed to ruffle the dignity of the court. When sentence was pronounced, however, he stood up and shouted, “Banzai for the Proletariat !” Such was the accepted story; but the Department of Justice issued a statement, which alone was allowed to be published, to the effect that Namba heard the pronouncement in a humble attitude and expressed contrition for his deed and for the distress that it had occasioned to his family. Two days later-on November 15th-he was hanged, and for days after the Press gave prominence to morbid details about his last hours and the disposal of his body.
