Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1895-11-08
PACK HORSES OF JAPAN.
In Praise of the Cooiy-Their Powers of
 Endurance.

Tn Praise of the Cooty-Their Powers oi Endurance.
 It is pretty we'll known by this time
 that the cavalry of the Japanese army is by far it's weakest division. This,
 of course, is not uncommon, in the
 armies of many countries, simply for
 the reason that economists cut off the
 horses in time of peace, and trust to
 Providence and subsidized carters to
 make up the deficiency in time of war.
 The problem is not quite the same in
 Japan. Comparatively. if not abso-
 lutely, there are no horses in Japan,
 just as there are no sheep. In the
 north one comes across a few biting,
 bueking quadrupeds that are as much like sheep as horses but, taking the country as 8 whole, there is scarcely a decent animal that will take saddle.
 What horses, or rather ponies, are to
 be found come from China, which pro- duce very good breed of freight car riers though they have much to be de- sired in point of speed. Horse racing exists in Japan-Y Yokohama and Tokio have their courses-as it exists wher- ever two or three Englishmen are gathered together, but it is species of racing quite unlike anything to be found elsewhere.
 The ponies are imported from Hong Kong or Shanghai by syndicate, lots are drawn and after certain interval for training, the races take place.
 But to return to the army. One can conceive a campaign, and especially such one as the Japanese have been doing, being carried on from first to last without cavalry at all, or at any rate. with the merest skeleton of 8 mounted force. This, of course, as far as fighting or scouting goes. There re- main the all-important questions of artillery and transport.
 In neither of these departments are horses absolutely necessary, provided you have an adequate supply of human labor. and it is just here that Japan scores.
 Very little has been published with regard to the transport arrangements of the force that marched so steadily through Corea to the gates of China, but it is not difficult to guess what they are. Four years ago there were thirtYthree thousand jinrickshaw eoolies in Tol1io alone. Taking the moderate estimate that there were just double this number in the whole empire, it is safe to say that there are quite eighty thousand now, for the kurumaya class iinrickshaw) is rapidly increasing one, owing to the simple fact that man who can pnll kurnma is able to earn three times as much as he could at any other manual labor. In fact, the kuruma question is rapidly becoming very vital one in the Japanese industrial problem, but the trade is so oYercrowded that the problem will soon solve itself accord ing to the inexorable laws of supply and demand. The existence of such elass-and it is quite recent origin for the kuruma was only invented a quarter of century ago-was god send to Japan in her late struggle.
 To judge from what one hears pri- Vately from Japan, jinrickshaw coolies are now at premium in the capital. and Osaka and Kioto tell me the same tale. The kurumaya have been ''an- nexed" by the imperial government much in the same way as the entire feet Of the Nippon Yusen Karsha has been acquired for transport purposes by sea. Having no horses, or at any rate, insufficient horses, the empire has fallen back upon the abundant supply If human horses which has grown up of recent years. And for all purposes except as cavalry mounts-they are superior to the four-footed variety. Where would you find horses to do thirty or forty miles a day, and lay after day, with load of two or three hundred pounds? Yet that is a feat which Japanese kurumaya think little of. The power of endurance of these men-one likes to think of them as men and not merely animals-are mar velons. The present writer has been drawn thirty-fiye miles in less than seven hours over bad road and remem- bers the holiday spent in which couple of OsalSei coolies contracted to draw forty pounds of baggage thirty miles day for an indefinite period. Such men, healthy, hardy, in perfect training, able to do their work upon little food, and that of the simplest, must be in- valuable in campaign such as Japan embarked upon. How many of them will survive the rigors of a Corean winter-for Surumaya are not long, lived elass-is another matter. Since Japan is able to plant her flag in Peliin, no small measure of the credit of such an achievment is certainly dne to the harmless, necessary, jinricllshaw eooly. St. Louis Republic
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