Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1888-12-13
POLICE IN JAPAN
POLITENESS OF OFFICIALS WHEN
ARRESTlNG AN OFFENDER.

| ARRES lNG AIN OFFCNOCh.
Scene I'm a japanese Police Station-visit
to the Bureau of Newspaper Censorship.
Suspending an Offending Journal-Secret
Service.
A japanese policeman was never known
| to smile, but when he finds it necessary
to proceed to the extreme step of arrest
| ing lawbreaker his face becomes clouded
over with pail of sorrow and solemnity
| that would do credit to an Irish under
| taker taking the coffin measurement Of
an archbishop. Grasping the offender
firmly with one hand, with the other he
extracts from an invisible pocket of great
capacity roll of strong cord. Whisper
ing polite and minute directions in the
ear of the victim, who obeys them with
scrupulous consideration for the feelings
of mis- captor, he winds the cord several
times around his waist and then attaches
his wrists in optical contact with the
small of his back. Six feet of cord re-
main; the policeman grasps the loose end,
and bowling to the prisoner with an
after you, sir" the pair march away in
a touching union of sadness and security.
The neighborhood is paralyzed during the
performance, business is suspended and
traffic is stopped.
MARCHED OFF TO PRISON.
The fornality of an arrest, however, is
the only amusing side of Japanese JUS
tice. If you follow the white clothed
policeman and his prisoner you will soon
reach a police station in which sit dozen
clerks and functionaries hard at work at
books and accounts and reports, with
nothing except their physiognomy and
the little teapot and tobacco brazier be-
side each one to differentiate them from
similar European officials. The prisoner
will be taken before superior officer, the
charge against him noted down; he will
be searched and then put in one of dozen
wooden cells, ten feet square perhaps,
separated from the central passage by
great wooden bars reaching from floor to
ceiling and making cell curiously like
an elephant house, but providing admira-
bly, for ventilation in this hot climate.
At the police station he may not be kept
more than twenty four hours, and then he
is removed to a central station, which is
simply the first police station on a large
scale. minus the functionaries and plus
the necessary arrangements for the deten-
ton of prisoners for long periods. The
courts are much Like European courts.
After visiting many court rooms we
reached room where twenty particularly
intelligent looking officials sat at both
sides of long table piled up with news
papers. scissors, blue and red pencils, paste
pots and all the familiar equipment of the
exchange editors sanctum. l turned to
my guides for an explanation, and caught
them regarding me and each other with
amused smiles. Then | saw the Joke.
1t was the Bureau of Newspaper Censor
ship, and these gentlemen with the spec
tacles and scissors and paste were exam
ining all the newspapers of Japan for
REASONABLE or seditious sentiments or i'm
proper criticism of ministerial and i'm
perial affairs. Twas introduced the twenty
gentlemen rose simultaneously and the
laugh became general. This" said my
guide, waving his hand proudly over the
piles of newspapers and the teapots of the
censors, lis an institution you have not
yet reached in England"
CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS.
The procedure of this branch of the
japanese police is simple in the extreme.
A lynx eyed censor discovers an article
which seems to his conservative notions
to threaten the stability of the govern
ment, to bring minister into contempt
or to foster improper agitation among the
people. He extracts it and submits it to
the director Of the bureau, who probably
takes counsel with the higher authorities.
Ii the censor's view is confirmed the edi-
tor of the paper is peremptorily but po-
itely summoned-everything is done
politely in Japan, and l have no doubt
that the school boy is politely birched and
the criminal politely executed-to appear
at the department of police at a certain
hour on q certain day. When that sum-
mons comes to join the innumerable cara
van of martyrs to sense of journalistic
duty he knows that-in the expressive
language of the Bowery-he is a ''goner."
"Sir," he is told, ''your estimable journal
is suspended for SO many days. Good
morning"
The whole system of secret police is
highly developed in Japan. There is
regular staff Of detectives who disguise
themselves as laborers, merchants or trav-
elers, or even in case it is necessary to
hunt down some great criminal, hire q
house in the suspected neighborhood and
live there. One of these men loses caste
very much in his Office, if he does not ac-
tually suffer degradation of position, by
failing to return with information he is
dispatched to secure. Besides these,
however, there is regular staff of private
police correspondents in all parts of the
country, and one whole bureau at the de-
partment of police is devoted to receiving,
ordering, classifying these, and taking
action upon them. A good deal of infor-
nation must be picked up from the tea
houses, each of which is a center of gossip,
and in one or other Of which almost every
male well inhabitant of Toxic is an
habitue.-Tokio Cor. New York World.