75 YEARS AGO
Unable to stop frequent thefts in their village, 33 residents of Magi, Keitoku-mura, Fukushima Prefecture, gathered recently at the Seigenji Temple and cast votes to decide on who the criminal was. Ginichi Oyama, 30, and his wife Momiko, 33, who originally proposed the balloting, received 18 votes out of 32, and thus were declared the criminals.
The village of Magi is on a small island formed by two rivers and is isolated from neighboring districts. The villagers believed that no outsider committed the thefts, and they must have been perpetrated by someone in the village.