The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1898-05-30
JAPANESE DECORATION DAY.
The yisit to the Csnstsriss Followed By
6ports and Picnios.

The visit to the Csnstsriss Followed By
sports and Picuios.
Army drill, discipline, inspection and
parade, with magnificent decorations, flags
and symbolism In Leaf, flower and extern
ported material, form the first part Of the
celebration exercises. Then follow wor-
ship, the ceremonies Of religion, visitation
Of the shrines and cemeteries by soldiers,
people, dignitaries and priests. After ro-
freshing the inner man come the afternoon
sports, picnios, fireworks. and general TO-
Taxation with lanterns, boats, river Joys
and promenades or moon viewing at
night. Let mo describe an occasion that
remember well. 1t was In the far in
terror, away from the seaports, where tho
true life Of the people Is seen.
In the days Of 1871, when the national
spirit was bursting the cocoon of feudal-
ism, 1t would DO like describing the Null
ligan guards" or Falstatf s company to tell
Of tho parade Of provincial regiment in
hybrid transition dress. Uniformity was,
however, gradually established In a ma
tional army, navy and civil administra-
ton, and then saw In Fukui these saIno
Echizen troops smartly dressed in neat
uniform of French style with the mikado's
crest on their caps. They looked very
promising. In Tokyo afterYard, during
three years, saw 10, 900 troops at time,
with their drills. evolutions, dress paradcs
and details Of barrack life and training.
In earnestness and perseverance they al
ready showed what Loyal soldiers could do
in the Satsuma rebellion of 1877, and
what, with tho uprising of tho nation, was
possible in Korea and China in 1s94-5.
On May as remember, tens of thou
sands Of people visited the new cemetery
in Fukul, called the Sho- Kon-Sha, or Soul
Reckoning Rest. Among the now tombs
of the loyal men slain in the civil war Of
1S6S-70 tluttered many colored streamcrs
and banners with memorial inscriptions.
Hundreds came with beautiful flowers to
lay before and upon the monuments. In
the afternoons the ladies Of the princes
household visited the cemetery in their
gorgeous embroidered silk gowns and CIR
dies. Then thought myself back in tho
middle ages, when the figures now on
playing cards were realities, as gorgeous
with their colors. Their hair was dressed
in magnificent style in an exaggerated sort
Of pompadour, outraying from tho fore
head, thanking the temples in sort Of
semicircle or halo and gathered backward
into a long, single tress, which in most
cases went down to the waist and In some
almost to their feet, the back part of the
hair on the head being hold together by D
pretty horn or tortoise shell comb. Ono
gracious lady, tho princes wife, who with
her husband did SO much, in my year Of
loneliness, when saw only rarely white
mans face, to make ny lot comfortable,
was dressed in simple but very rich garb
If white and crimson silk.
The flower decorated monuments, the
pennants, the fluttering banners
md the new and shining monuments,
with the reverent and exceedingly polite
md well bred crowds Of people in that new
,emetery-which contrasted in its fresh
ness with the century old daimios ances-
5ral burying ground not far away, where
The moses and lichens seem to have been
'eeding on the granite for ages, and, on
The other hand, with the large city ceme-
terry below, with Its cremation furnaces
and ascending columns Of smoke, having
near by q great mound many rods long
and wide and several feet high, where in
ndistinguishablo mass lay the ashes and
bones of humanity swept off in successive
Ind old time periodical famines-made
'cene forever impressed on my memory.
Tradition locates the burial place of one
If Japan's 1873 cmperors on this hill.
Hence it is place Of much interest.-In-
dependent.