The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1890-12-03
THE ATHLETES OF JAPAN.
WONDERFUL MUSCULAR DEVELOP
MENT OF HER wRESTLERS.

MENT OF HER wREsTLERs.
Their Heroic Mode Of Training--The
Bath is All-itnportenta.He
Coal Miners.
The Japanese contortionists have an
international reputation. On every
country road Of Japan you will find
bands of three little boys, ranging in age
from six to fourteen, and these boys will
twist themselves into more shapes than
the india-rubber man of the American
dime-museum. They will wrap their
toes about their heads as they lie on their
stomachs, and will look out of their
almond eyes as they frame their faces
with their ankles. They will turn their
heads around so that they seem to be set
on their shoulders wrong side first, and
will bring themselves into so many
positions that you can hardly believe
that they have any bones in their bodies,
and you feel that they are hardly human.
Among the best developed men have
ever seen are the laborers of the Takas-
hima coal mines, who work all day
underground, and whose labors are
carried on in a network of passages of
more than fifty miles in length, which
extends under the sea about one of the
islands of western Japan. These men
carry great loads. They work from dawn
until dark, and their daily hot bath and
their rice diet give them muscles of
which any turner in America would be
proud.
The japanese consider the bath aud
gymnastics of such Importance to health
that they have introduced them into the
training of the soldiers of their regular
army. The soldiers of Japan are put
through full set of exercises every day.
They swing dumb-bells, jump on the
parallel-bars, and go through the severest
of physical training. The bathrooms are
one of the institutions of every barrack,
and the soldiers are required to bathe all
over once day, and they have to take
hot baths three times a week. Their
diet is rice instead of hard-tack, and
they have an allowance of six cents per
day for other food.
The professional athletes of Japan are
the great wrestlers who seem to be of
different race from the ordinary japanese,
and who have system of training very
different from that of John L. Sullivan
or Jake Kilrain. These men believe in
the accumulation rather than the reduc-
tion of fat, and they are great, tall fel-
lows of six feet or more, and weigh from
two hundred to three hundred pounds.
They train themselves largely by pound
ing and by being pounded by their fel-
lows. They have great strength OF neck,
and they increase this by butting against
one another with their heads and strik-
ing their opponents in the chest, so that
the noise is that of a battering-
ram. They butt at wooden posts
with their shoulders, pound their flesh,
and stamp the earth with their feet. I
saw an exhibition at which about hun
dred of these wrestlers contested, during
visit paid to Japan year or so ago.
The wrestlers came into the room entirely
naked, with the exception of belt about
the loins. Before beginning, they made
the earth shake with their stamping, and
they glared at each other like demons.
They made many false starts, and when
they grappled, their muscles stood out
like ropes upon their great arms, and it
was battle of the giants. They have
wonderful strength of wrist and fingers,
and now and then one would grasp his
opponent by the belt, and, lifting his
three hundred pounds high in the air,
would throw him over his shoulder, and
he would fall on the earth with a terrible
thud, while the umpire would raise his
fan and yell out the japanese word for
| victory. The most noted japanese
wrestlers have as great regulations as
those of our prize fighters, and the
profession of wrestling dates back to
the beginning of the japanese history.
The rules of the ring are quite as rigid
as those of the Marquis of Queensbury,
and there are forty-eight falls which can
be made. The very best class of the
japanese people patronizes these wres.
tiers, and rich man often has party OF
them come and wrestle at his receptions
/ for the entertainment of his guests. Some
| of the most noted statesmen are patrons
of wrestlers, and one of the cabinet min
listers of the Mikado was not long ago
/ nicknamed the "Wrestler." The wres-
thug goes on in both its public exhibitions
| and at private entertainments without the
aid of betting, and so far the muscular
exhibitions of Japan have not been cor
rupted by the vice of pool-selling.-NeO
] Y,,,L Ts1y.n