Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-11-06
DWARFS AND GIANTS.
The Little Trees and the Big Wrest-
lers That One Sees in Japan.
PINES TWO CENTURIES OF AGE.
Rice the Food of the Athletes Who Some.
times Weigh 400 Pounds.
HUNTING THE ORIENTAL CHIN DOG
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DIsPArcH.I

| CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DIsPATcH.I
NEW YORK, Nov. 5.-I have always
wondered if the cherry trees in Japan did
really have that dwarfed and knotty look
that we see in picture books and on jap
anese screens also wondered if the jap
anese really had that long, silky-eared,
white and black dog with its pug nose. big
liquid eyes, broad, brainy head and cork.
screw tail The potters and screenmakers
sent these objects to u.s. but thought it
was crippled art. But now know that the
plum tree and cherry tree do grow in that
forked and stunted manner. The cherry
tree is not raised for fruit but for its bios
SONS, and cherry blossom time in the
spring, like chrysanthemum days in the
fall, is the sweet holiday period of Japan.
The poor cherry and plum trees are trimmed
and gnarled and hacked, and then fertiliza-
tion and rebellious nature do the rest
The scraggy plum and cherry trees on the
Japanese screens and vases are true to
nature. I have often seen pine tree with
a trunk foot in diameter trimmed to one
little branch. 1t would be in flower pot.
When 1 asked how old it was they would
| say:
'It is 200 years old Great-great-grand-
| father planted the seed. 1t keeps off the
earthquake"
| The Giant Wrestlers of Japan.
While they dwarf their trees and shrub
| berry the Japanese have made race of giant
| men-a race of wrestlers. These wrestlers
often weigh two, three and four hundred
| pounds. At the Imperial Hotel in Toxic
they brought their champion wrestler to
my room. He was prodigious in size and
| as fat and fair as baby. He was Her.
| cules in strength but looked like an over
grown Cherub of Correggio.
'What do you eat?" L asked.
"Rice-nothing but rice"
"Why not eat meat?"
'Meat is weakening. Beef is 20 per cent
water. Rice is 80 per cent food. 1 ate
lean beefsteak once and my strength left
me. The other man ate rice and threw me >
down."
Ny courier said: 'This wrestler is the
Sullivan of Japan. No one can throw
him.
We searched Japan for the little black
and white chin dog, but we did not see four
perfect dogs in the country. They have
been mixed and badly bred. 1t was the
japanese chin that was taken to England
and mixed with the Blenheim spaniel to
produce the King Charles spaniel
Taken in by Dog Trader.
At Kobe the Sampan men rowed out to
the Empress of India, bringing two pretty
chins
'They very good" they said. "See, big
eye-long ear-litte nose. What you
gives?"
"How much ask?"
stFifty dolla"
"Give you five."
"Can have"
We were proud of our purchase till We
got to the hotel and saw real chin Just
brought down from Kioto by an English
man, then we gave them away. The Jap
ha our money and we had the experience.
When we got to Kioto we went dog hunt
ing every day. The iinriksha men got to
know what we wanted and would say:
''More chin want? L know good chin
Comep'
But there was always something the
matter with the chins. One would have
weak eve or q straight tail. Another
would be too big. The real chin should be
about a foot long.
One day we visited the old castle of the
Mikado-where he used to live before he
went to Toxic and became an Emperor.
After we had walked through hundreds of
rooms in our stocking feet and admired
LACQUER work, bronzes and embroidered
5GOl NJ ohu OhAH NO3b l. choNSN NAS OAN jam
urai ifhe knew OF chin dog like the one
on the embroidery.
A Pair of Trained Dogs.
81 have" he said, and then he led to the
rear OF the castle.
"Here," he said, care Fuji and Meto
They can wear a kimono and waltz and
chin"
''what do you mean by can chimp II
asked.
'eThey can talk"
Then he dressed them up and put witches
red collars on them. They were perfect
chins-tender, playful and fearful Speak
a cross word to them and their great eyes
fill with tears, but speak kindly and they
rush into your arms to be fondled and
petted.
"Chin, chin," said the old Samurai,
taking wafer out of the sleeve of his
kimono and holding it up. Then Meto and
Fuji stood on their hind legs, folded their
arms around each other and waltzed as the
old Samurai whistled the tune of Kohana
San:
The "He ra, he ra, he," she dances every
In an elegant kimono and an obi:
II you go out to Japan, you must see Kohana
San,
She's the prettiest little Geisha girl in Kobe.
will say here that with a little money
and good deal of diplomacy we persuaded
the old Samurai to part with Fuii and Meto,
and we brought them to America. Captain
Marshall, of the Empress of Ida, fell in
love with the little brother and sister and
kept them from the deadly cook. The
Canadian Pacific allowed their little Japan
ese cage to ride in the Pullman, and now
they are eating mush and milk IN New
York ready to be naturalized as American
citizens.
Fun and Satire in Japan.
The Japanese have their agnostics who
make fun of Buddha and some of them are
as funny as Ingersoll
One day 1 asked Prof Kishi, of the Kioto
University, to translate for me japanese
agnostic article on Buddha- The next day
he handed me a translation saying, ''It
makes everybody in Japan laugh at the
wooden saints in the Shinto shrines." The
translation was of fable. A priest hung
an old tea kettle over the fire one day when
it turned into a cat. Then it turned back
into kettle and again into cat, keeping
up the performance often enough to make
it q snowy curiosity. A tinker made
fortune by exhibiting it. When he died he
gave the tea kettle back to the priest, who
put it in the temple, where it was laid up
with precious treasures and where it is now
as saint. "When people want
q saint, and they are scarce, a cat-kettle 10
concludes the agnostic article.
The next day L asked the professor what
an agnostic was.