The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-30
No Wife Beating.

In spite of these qualities of easily aroused antagonism. of pride and Spar tan ideals. the Japanese are an essen tially gentle race-Inore so than the Anglo Saxons Broils in which one man hits another are of rare occur renee, blows are generally the preface of a death struggle. The women may often suffer from the prevailing ideals of morality, which are yet much lower than ours. but there are few wife beat CTS and the home atmosphere is al- most always outwardly peaceful. It. follows that a little true politeness on the part of the foreigner goes a long way and almost invariably meets with a warm recognition; you rarely appeal to the Japanese in vain. They are as quick to respond to an act Of real kind ness as they are to resent an act which has a tinge of arrogance Our govern ment allowed several transports to stop at Yokohama and so hundreds Of American soldiers visited that city ana Tokio. One of them hired bicycle and was taking q ride about the streets of Yokohama when he ran down an el- derly Japanese man. The soldier rang his bell several times, but the Japanese apparently paid net attention to 1t, and the American found himself promptly arrested and taken to court, where he was fined ten yen" (s5.) He protested that he had done everything possible to avert the accident. and asked why the man made no attempt to get out or the way. The policeman then told him than the man was blind. The soldier looked daSed for a minute, then felt in his pocket and brought out $1O bill. Here" lie said. Its the last I've got. but he can have it." And he turned it over to the blind man. The Japanese were deeply touched and that same day a delegation of policemen hunted up the soldier and gave him back his nne.
 Japanese Curiosity.
 The characteristic which has been potent in the undermining of Japan IS that of unsuitable curiosity. an intense desire to see and understand anything new. While the present day Chinese attitude is that of contempt Tor any beings or institutions not evolved in China. the Japanese are eager to know of everything connected with our form of civilization. and to adopt 1t if 1t is good. Sometimes their great receptive ness and power of imitation and adopt ion lead them to adopt innovations which they afterward find 1t wiser to discard. Hence the accusation of flick leness. A perusal of Japanese history shows that the people have ever pro gressed by impulses. by action and re- action. and that in the end good 1udg- ment seems to become supreme. The foreigner travelling in Japan is soon made aware of the quality of curiosity On every railroad platform he is sur rounded by a crowd of people, Who with their. mouths as wide. open as their eyes in their efforts to lose no detail Of interest, regard him slowly from head to foot and comment upon him among themselves the while. These people may have seen hundreds of foreigners they may have seen them every day but they continue to act as 1T they had never seen one before. visited some Americans in Tokio, who had lived in the same house with the same Japanese neighbors for about year. Yet each time that we went out to drive the people in the little Japanese house near by would rush to their windows and stand there watching us eagerly as a small Yankee at the cir GUS. This happened every day. It is always possible to tell whether for eigner to be in his garden, for good sized crowd of Japanese gathered about the gate announces the import ant raet. l gave several talks ana lee lures to school children and young men and women in Japan. They were in interpreted I, of course, speaking in English, so that half ot the address was understood by only a few. Yel l have never seen audiences more abso
 Iutely attentive. Not a word was lost and the same concentration was shown while I was speaking as when the in- terpreter was turning 1t into Japanese
 Little school children-boys and girls sat drinking in, with their eyes pop ming ont of their heads until 1 had fin ished. 1 never flattered myself thai was due to the fascination of my dis course. but merely to the great curios- ity of my audience. their power of con centration and their receptivity.