The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 17, 1904, Page 15

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. ing either the court or the classic lan- zuage, and Sir Ernest Satow, the British Minister, and one of the great- est Japanese scholars, stood near 1 and seemed to be drinking it all 2. 1 would later ask him to tell me what were the words that had fallen from the.imperial lips. t the cenclusion of his address the ror bowed, and then every one much lower than the as for Hoshi Yoru, ice assassinated, en the Emper- :rhaps the only 1 the transplant- he circumstance rs of the Cabinet memb 1 g ¢ ctl wed him, se th + moment to mak x se, 28 the august and r Lord of Pt r really s the news- which in were s in the S0 Korea; ' was the tish som a ould vouch ves out troops. Lugu he tk > situation to- v ground the Em- ated and undoubted- It is certaim that he tter than he does ally those g ec lower hc of ¢ ure upon the Im- - Ministry—which, in view of the - German constitu- . v is t . nly responsible to the P & was a reflection upon the = : which the fathers. of. Xtr = = g old-time 1 the ‘ led in 1 o, stil ¢ : lesti- Sie Sncapaiis they do not cx ters as they » = mes to the & . ich is sug- u i h g a, or any F s v g t = : Japanese Emperor's ph 1 the gical educ 16 vears of b 5 age. whey A ed to walk, e, perhaps the first | of Japan by no for five hundred vears who acquired or : Mikado the art of foot exercise, it is bably ‘ r szrown, just as well that he chould not intrust xes se, himself and the enlightened neace era y ] to the saddle ar tener than is abso- s * \ly necessa ¢ . At all time: vecially when ; and look down st descendant of : ; d perbaps a few : Smperor had en- ver, we were in- overlooking the ch was cleared make room for lower chamber, peers wore gold lace while the mem- use had almost arded their na- disguised in the f West. They I, very ghastly and e cold, searching Lorning. appeared, com- loor, immediate- members of his light bow to the drawn up before E 1ded a scarlet great tufted covered with lacquer. One ials then pre- anuscript of his ad- other slight bow, it in perhaps the voice I have ever 2 human throat, un- volume and falsetto in surrounded by his troops, the Emperor has undoubtedly a very imposing ap- pearance. His is a carriage of uncon- scious superiority over other poor mortals, which is quite refreshing af- ter brushing up against the superior- ity of the conscious order, but the mo- ment he walks he loses much of his dignjty. His education, in & western d issue from in The only word I understood was the stant repetition of the word “Chos- which means Korea; but this did not surprise me, my panese not be- EMPREgs B sl sense, and apart from the Shinto learning and the Buddhist philosophy which he imbibed at an early age, may have been perfected, as some say, after ha, came of age, but walkinz is evidently not one of the accomplish- ments which can be acquired late in life. There is no spring to the Emperor’s step; his knees are stiff ‘and the whole exercise is awkward and evidently dis- tasteful to him. I have heard some westernized Japanese say—and I be- lieve withy truth—that the Emperor's walk fs the last reminder of the tyran-y ny of the Tycoohs, which was over- thrown in 1868. 1t is cuite common to read of this or that an, native or foreign, having ant chat with the Em peror. accounts give quite misleading a of what tha¥e inter- views are, or were until a few months ago. I have been present many times when to Field head of the , the saigo of t s Ito or Count Inouy re supposed to enjoy his in an extraordinary degree, aw him speak to them indirectlv through one of the officials of his household. Perhaps this hedgelis not maintained in nrivate, but it is still very apparent in public. No one can chat with the Emperor; he can only communicate with him through the medium of 2 third exalted person. . It is own that thie Emperor is fond of ancient Shinto books and that he is an amateur of sword making, accord- ing to the old mysterious methods which vroduced blades in comparison with which Toledan steel/is brittle; all about his ta: and occupations is rouded in the ve that he still survives in the palace. I am aware, to m confidence and I never once s directly, but alwa hame, that the question still gema unanswered what light t Japanese regard their ruler. It is akin to the respectful, al- most aw: tricken, which the Russian for the great white Czar, but it is t, certainly, sui generis. I have s times asked, and I am afraid ed. Japanese of all ranks to what it is, and the best answer received was from General Fu- kushima, who knows Europe and the ern world well. “What we feel for the Emperor,” he caid, “is a sentiment which only a Japanese can feel, and which certainly ha garded as a perfected ancestor, & god d a hereditary leader—a lipk between this and the past generations, perhaps between this worldgand the place of This need hardly add to the n of General Fukushima's defi- nition I once saw the comparative methods an and Japanese patriotism, 1 by an American marine recruit from Seattle and an engineering student from Osaka, settled upon the forward deck of a Pacific Mail steamer —=secttled in a way which was very sat- actory to our arms. But I confess ur neace festivals after the Spanish war did not appeal to me quite as much as 414 the simflar demonstrations which I witnessed in Japan at the conclusion As with us, those who had died in battle as well &s those who had fallen victims to the many diseases which in- variably follow upon an army’s trail, were brought back to the Island Em- pire—“that their souls may the better " defend it against future enemies” were, as I remember them, the words of the imperial rescript. ‘A’ curious custom I noticed—which' has recently been fol- lowed in Englahd, where Lqrd Roberts 2as been empowered to wear his son's Victoria Cross well as his own—was the cdecoratiod the fathers of those soldiers who had distinguished them- selves by their ghllantry, but had not survived tre battle, * The Emperqr with his own hand dec- orated the father of the young recruit who in a critical moment of the attack on Port Arthur had made a breach in the stubbornly defended gate by means of a dynamite stick by which he was’ also blown to pieces. This patriotic lad was of the coolie class and not of the fighting strain of the Samurai. The hero of Wei-HakWei, however, was a “Sacred Samurai,” as the saying is in Japan. of the fighting caste, and the honor that was shown to his ashes was - greater, though certainly not greater than he deserved., In the mid- night attack on the then Gibraltar of Chinese power the unenviable post of the forlorn hope was naturally given to the fleet of torpedc boat destroyers. Behind a great boom crouched the crippled Chinesc ships that had escaped from the Yalh fight. Until they were sunk or utterly destroyed there was no wurity for the Japanese armies so far from their base across the seas. Every encouragement had been offered by Ad- miral Ito and the ranking officer to their y-ung men to batter down the barrier, but without success— the weather, a northeast storm that swept ° the Gulf of Chili, was helping the de- fenders ard the snow and ice began at last to depress the spirits and the cour- age of the hardy islanders. In the teeth of adverse ‘wind and weather and under a concentrated fire from the forts and the shinping, sev- eral torpedo boats had advanced through the cannonade and attached explosives to the barrier, but all to no purpos Whan day came it was seen that the becom survived and that the fugitive Chinese fleet was still safe- guarded from the attack of the larger ships of the squadron outside. Then the spirit of the Sacred Samu- ral, which is that of patriotic self-sac- rifice, spoke in the breast of a young ensign of the fleet. He announced that he had invented a new attachment which would hold the explosive in place, and all he asked of the admiral ‘was permission to go in the foliowing evening and all would be well. This permission and a picked crew were glven and not a word was breathed in regard to the ‘‘new attachment” until in the dark of the wintry night the overhanging shadow of the boom was seen. Then the little ensign had his say to the warrant officers who sur- rounded him and had been instructed to obey his orders implicitly. “No mechanical contrivance was re- lable,” he sald, “and trust in them had led to the failure of the previous attempts to destroy the boom. “But @ son of Japan would hold with his hands the bomb in place, there would be no trust in any contrivance however cunning—a son of Japan could not fail.” : The sailors understood, and sorrow- fully did as they were bidden. In a few moments they left their officer alone to his glorious fate, tled to the end of the boom with his bomb in his hand. A few moments and the terrific explosion took place, which rent the boom asunder and opened the entrance to the beleaguered harbor. The next day when Wei-Hai-Wel capitulated the same honors which were pald to the THE PROGRES WHOM THE LAND HAS ADVANCED ~ POSYTION, Fl! admiral of the Chinese, who had chosen death self-inflicted, rather than the degradation of surrender, were paid to the little ensign who had died so bravely, Some fragments of his body were. found floating on the stormy waters, and they were sent back to Japan, lying in state upon the quarterdeck of a great cruiser. ‘When the beautiful shores of the in- land sea came in sight thiye were two vessels awaiting this sad homecoming, and for the first time in the history of the House of Japan, the Emperor yielded precedence to another, and that one a subject. When the father had prayed by the bier of his gallant son for a minute or two, the Emperor Jjoined him, draped the coffin with the rising sun banner, and when he walked away it was seen that he was visibly affected, while the face of the father was radlant with smiles, though I dare say there was a sorrow gnawing at his heart, strings which neither time nor honors will assuage. The fete of victory and thanksgiv- ing which was gelebrated throughout the island empire fell upon All Souls’ day, and I witnessed the ceremonies in Tokio upon the Kudan Hill, which is the Japanese Fileld of Mars. * The great Shinto temple there is called Yu Kuni, and was erected after and in honor of the restoration of the lige of the Sun Goddess, which, as all should’ know, took place M 1863, Here the dead who fell in the early expedition to Formosa, those who died faithful to the Mikado in the Satsuma " TO H WOR POWER. FOR ™~ SIVE EMPEROR. UNDBR. OF THE RISING SUN -NOTED % rebellion, were duly honored, and now in their hour of triumph came the heroes of the war with China. The hilitop was crowned by the largest banner of Japan I have ever seen; it was as large as the mainsall of the largest schooner, and fortu- nately there was enough wind to keep it right nobly floating on the breeze. Trailing in the dust before this mam- moth standard lay the dingy little bat- tleflags of the Chinese, and all about were piled up the weapons of the con- quered, the spolls of successful battle. What curious booty it was! There were the lances of Manchurian cav- alry, their double barreled gingals mixed up with repeating rifles and Gatling guns, with a fringe of bows and arrows to complete the incon- gruity of the scene. On an esplanade under the flagstaft hill there were rows upon rows of booths in which were seated family groups of country folk, the honored survivors of the fallen, who had come into the eity to be guests of the nation for a few days and breathe in the fragrance of honor and veneration which was pald them on all sides. Upon the humble booths which housed the honored families there were lit- tle inscriptions of but a few words each. telling the deed of daring and the name of the man who, under the sanctioni of the Emperor, the Board of Rites had decreed should be honored here. And all day long the thousands passed along the path of honor, strewn E RWAR, IMPERIAL ITY THL EMPREYS JARAR HAARURO * C with memorials of the dead, some of- fering the littfe mochi cakes to the shrine, others money, which was also welcome, and, I hope, well used for the benefit of those who were dear to the fallen, whose lot is, I doubt not. deso- late, too, as. in other lands when the first fever of popular appreciation is over. At the temple only the familles of those who had fallen in battle were ad- mitted to the shrine, but these luckless honored ones were surrounded by flocks of obsequious priests wearing their beautiful robes of orange yvellow silk, and their quaint old-fashioned Korean hats. And so it went on from early morning until late at night. Com-~ pany after‘company of troops, of horse, foot_and artillery, came sweepinz by the Kudan Hill and then were marched up in fours to salute the sacred shrine devoted to the ashes and the souls of the war heroes. Outside there was fencing in the. old style, and story-tellers telling old tales of-old Japan to strengthen men's souls. The Emperor had been the very first to visit the shrine to the fallen brave. but’by a vefy remarkable instance of tact on the part of thousands and hun- dreds of thousands of people. they had all absented themselves at.the hour. of the imperial visit, so that there. where we saw a sea of humanity not at all kindly disposed to .the intrusive for- eigners, there had been emvty space and room enough for the Emperor to say his prayers and hurry off without incurring the danger of any one look- ing down on him.