The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1888-11-01
STRANGE SCENES IN JAPAN.

Tic 'Duuu, DOuIlQ6O az etsCu cLu ny
jetty or pier called the ssHatoba," with a
pleasant wooded hill to the left known as
the 'sBluff." dotted with white houses.
The harbor or bay itself is circle of
water perhaps three miles wide--big
enough at any rate to be so rough in
windy weather that the ships have to get
up steam and go to sea for safety
To come now to s'f1rst impressions"
there are, Of course, two kinds of these
There are the Mere sense impressions,
the things which strike the eye and ear
as strange, and there are the f'first i'm
pressions, which mean the conclusions
springing to the mind when the exter-
mails are first understood. The former
class of these first impressions gener-
ally attach themselves to very trivial
matters, but they are often not the less
entertaining for all this. The first thing,
for instance, that noticed in Japan was
the enormous hats of the coolies, and
next the ludicrous combinations of
European and foreign dress worn BY
many young members of the middle
class. A pot hat. cotton wrapper or
bath gown-the yukata-a pair of long
stockings and boots-that was common
mixture, the wearer evidently and
rightly thinking that he had adopted the
best points of both systems. An
hour after landing, too, re-
mark made to me by an educated
japanese gentleman on the Belgic
required to me. had asked him if the
coming constitution for Japan was likely
to include trial by jury. CATER you
have seen Japan" he replied, with
smile, ''you won't ask that question" I
mean by this that was struck with the
fact that the common people of Japan,
courteous and clever and civilized as
they are in many ways-the hewers of
wood and drawers Of water and pullers
of jerinkishas- upon different plane
from the common people at home. One
might say that they live in two dimen-
sions, whereas trial by jury, not in its
origin, but in its significance today, is
three dimension idea. Moreover, the
rulers of Japan see that trial by jury is
often failure or a farce with US, and
they have no wish to educate the people.
up to it.
In Japan there are almost as many re-
ligious festivals as in Spain, and one of
these-matsuri is their generic name
was being celebrated the other day in the
Japanese town. l went to look for il
with my detective camera, and when /
met it l could hardly believe my eyes
it correspondent more to ones idea of New
Guinea than of Japan. Upon an ordinary
bullock cart a raised platform and scat
folding twenty feet high had been con-
structed, and bullock ard all covered
with paper decorations and green boughs
and artificial flowers. In front "a girl
with groteSque mask danced and post
ured, while half a dozen musicians
twanged impossible instruments and kept
up an lnceSsant tattoo on drums. Chill
dren. wild with delight crowded up
among the performers and chung like
flies all over the cart, and only that
Providence which takes care of them, to-
gether with drunkards and the United
States of America, preserved them from
making a Juggernaut of it. On foot
around the bashi, as the whole structure
Is called, were twenty or thirty men,
naked as to their legs, their faces chaIked.
with straw hats yard wide, many col
ored tunics, in which scarlet predomi-
mated, decked out with paper streamers
and flowers enough to make a Sioux
chief despair of himself; dancing along
to very rude chant and at every step
banging upon the ground long iron bar
fitted with loose rings.
The coiors, the song, the dance, the
music and the changing iron formed to-
gether a spectacle as barbarous in taste
as possible, something wholly different
from what one had supposed the gentle
culture of the japanese to be. At the
time l was greatly puzzled, but SSubse-
quently learned that this matsurNs not
SO barbarous as it looks. / took it to be
a serious religious ceremony. found
that it had Just as much to do with reiig-
ion as an Italian carnival has-that is,
it was born of religious feeling and has
entirely forgotten its ancestry. Bud
dhism, which is the religion of the COM
mon people, has always played to the
gallery, SO to speak, and the priests of
today make money out of the matsuri,
partly in the shape of the coins which
are thrown into the temple ponds and
partly from their share of the subscrip-
tons of the well to do people of the neigh
borhood by whom the festival is sup
ported. The affair is thus q Japanese
carnival, where people drink sake and
play the fool themselves or watch others
doing SO, exactly as at Nice or Venice.
No account of ''first impressions, " too,
would be complete without an illusion to
the grace and charm of the japanese
women. The first time one sees a couple
of pretty and PRETTY dressed japanese
girls walking abroad under their huge
variegated paper umbrella, with their
deliberately dressed black hair, their per-
feet tiny hands and feet, their large
brown cyes-set obliquely if they are
beauties with their delicate, soft
toned cr;~. garments, and the heavy fiat
silk obi twisted round and round their
waist and ending in colossal bow be-
hind; with their funny motion on their
cip-clapping pattens, half undulating
run and half waddle, and their merry
laughter and chatter-when one sees
them for the first time, say, one is
usually delighted enough to follow them
up and down for half an hour under a
fine pretense of losing ones way or look
ing into the shops. AT least 1 did, till l
succeeded in getting snap photograph