New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-07-15
H1RLKIRI.

Our latest news from Japan is uIScourdSlhS'
The advent of one of Victoria's half-dozen
boys shook that dusky realm of ED to its
foundations and its doors being once Jared
open to welcome the sprig of commercial
royalty, all sorts of modern lights began to
flicker and stir among its bats and shadows.
There began to be talk of Overthrowing
hereditary dignitics, whose pedigree ran back
two thousand years. and establishing the bal
lot-box; the Buddhist priests played back
CANNON and went to tea-parties; and, worst
of all, Congress, something after the Yankee
pattern, was inaugurated, the first OF whose
acts was to consider the proprety OF the
abolition of Hari-Kari. Now this is the straw
too much. The world has been enlightened
far enough. If only for the sake of the edu-
cation of our children, some food for the
| Imagination must be left in these Out-Of-the-
| way corners of the earth. The process of dis
emboweling, if introduced among us, might,
we confess, prove inconvenient and unseemly ;
| for everyday purposes libel suit is more
efficacious to cover our wounded honor than
such reckless self-dissection but the idea Of
a man in strange garb at the AntipOdes
rushing unsummoned into Hades rather than
bear an insult, hath here something in it
wholesome and enrolling. We will not
lightly consent to give it up. Our Southern
brethren used to have quick habit of guard
ing their good name with glancing sword or
flash of pistol, which was animating and in
structive to watch at distance; but they,
too, have fallen upon tanner days, and although
they still challenge at night, safely arbitrate
before the next morning. .... BE-
ba nf in oil
demanded bloody sacrifices. Let us, therefore,
continue to offer her our friends in Japan. 1t
may amuse our Christian consciences to re-
member that there are some Pagans whose
shame of guilt Death only can wash out. Be-
sides, while it may be desirable that John
Bull and Jonathan should march hand in hand,
carrying the Bible and Cross into these mystic
rious places Of the earth, must they convert
these peoples into infinite reduplicatiOns of
themselves Let the dusky millions from
Afric's golden fountains come up and be made
Christians of, by all means. But must they
necessarily be Christians with swallow-tailed
coatsi Must they keep shop and play back
gammonf "a BritOn is good thing" says
WATSON; "but are not twenty million Britons
"enoughf" That John and Jonathan should
level the enchanted land which we all used to
own in their boundaries into potato fields and
NicolsOn pavements, was their right; we submit
to take Yorkshire grazier for Robin Hood,
or to find Red Cloud, not hung with wampum
and jabbering Cooper's gibberish, but wearing
beaver hat and talking sounder common
sense than his white brethren; but leave us
some far-Off corner, some Ultima Thule, sacred
to Picturesqueness and Paganism. For the
sake of the boys and girls to come, let us
keep one spot in the world intact from i'm
provement for the ideas which are fast dying
out, as the English preserve copse and wood
to shelter their wild game. Let there be one
delightful mysterious blank on the map, for
ever marked Unexplored Region, for the child
rem, which they may people with Calibans, if
they will. We throw out the suggestion
gratis, knowing it is worth a great deal. Some
day. when we are civilized to the last dead
level, when Hindoo and Hun, Fan and French
man, all wear cravats trade in hoop-skirts and !
groceries, and go to the opera, our descendants
will see the need of the lost shadows, and |
begin to make desert and barbaric nation |
to order, precisely as stiAed citizens plant out |
a park. ID I-HIL- 'l.r
1t Is not for ourselves we plead. The march |
of the Englishman and Yankee has made the
earth dusty and dry as market-pace under
our feet in the last thirty years. Not only
lamp has gone out for us, but the
mysterious countryman of Aladdin, seen dimly
through far-OR wall, behind which he had
sat for ages, pig-tailed, silk -robed, and drink
ing tea, now cobbes our shoes, or washes our
dishes in the kitchen the bright and blushing
ieneyieye to whom we told our love-
" In old rude song that fitted well
ii n The ruin wild and hoary," H#.a.
l0W pIaetiees law across the way. and tins her