Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1904-04-30
JAPANESE DISCIPLINE.
Patience and q High Respect Fss
the Law Are General.

the Law Are Generai.
The Japanese soldier is drawn main
ly from the class of the helmin, or COLI
moners. and as agriculture Is still, IN
spite OF the recent progress in manu-
facture. the staple occupation OF JAPAN
the japanese soldier comes mostly from
a family of peasants. The peasants OF
japan were always part proprietors Oh
the land, even before the revolution;
they farmed it under certain condl-
tions, paying so much Of the produce
sometimes half, sometimes two-hfths'
to the daimio OF the province. Theo-
retically the land belonged to the ioru'
but in reality he very seldom enforced
his power OF taking 1t away from the
peasant In occupation. In the same
way today all the land belongs theo-
retlcally to the emperor, but II Is own
ed by the peasant under certain conoi-
tiops of taxes and 80 forth. One does
not need to be an agriculturist 10 ap-
preciate the care with which the Japa'
nese peasant farms his land. Rudyard
Kipling, In the record Of his hasty jour
ney from Kobe to Tokyo, observed
farmer going over his bean crop stalk
by stalk, and every traveller to Japan
must have noticed the rice fields grow
ing not only in the plains, where irrl'
CATION Is simple, but up the SIDES OF tue
hills. which are sometimes terraced IN
fields from top to bottom. nave seen
rice fields not larger than a pocKe'
handkerchief. perched between uncom'
promising powders on mountain siue'
which had been literally created with
basketfuIs OF earth. Their irrigation
was a Chinese puzzle. In agriculture
the Japanese peasant has Duiiuog
perseverance which that ugly inteln-
gent bullet head Of his does not Delle.
What is more he contriyes TO express
in it that artistic soul which animates
his whole race. His fields are rarely
souare. think / was never more
| struck with the innate art Of the nation
J than when standing In front OF the de-
serted temple Of Tesshuji looked
down over the miles OF fertile plain
which stretch like q broad band along
the coast from the province or Suruga
into the peninsula of Tau. Above rose
the blue line of Full, crowned WIN
snow. The rice fields at that season
were mere pools of liquid mud, each
set I'm low mud wall. ugly and dreary
I'm the extreme, and yet not monoto-
nous. 1t took some looking to find the
reason. 1t was this: Few OF those
fields were square; not two were iden-
tical in shape; in most the low mud
walls were curved as gracefully as the
lines I'm a Greek vase. There was no
agricultural reason for these ever vary
. ing vet always graceful shapes. 1t was
merely the expression of art In the
mind Of the peasant.
II has been said OF the japanese SOL
dier that he is slngularly amenable to
,, discipline. One has only to see
Japanese crowd confronted by a police
man TO know that. Most OF the police
men. as well as the officers OF the army
, In Japan, belong TO the old samural
class, ssd tlieIr power oyer the people
ia enormous. I have seen a surging
!. crowd in the midst Of a religious fes'
,, tive. az Kioto, .ccnc I'D hetwe"n th'
, car of the god and the flaming torches
of the priests, give way instantly, po
litely and In order at the mere wave
Of the hand OF one white uniformed
policeman. Yet this implicit obedience
is not slavish fear. 1t is respect FOL
;, authority.-LOndon Globe.