Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1904-04-29
JAPANESE DISCIPLINE.
Pnuencc ana High Respect For
the Law Are General.

Patience ana . High Respect For
the Law Are General.
The japanese soldier is drawn main
ly from the class of the helmin, or CON-
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
family OF peasants. The peasants OF
Japan were always part proprietors OF
the land. even before the revolution;
they farmed il under certain condi-
tons, paying SO much OF the produce,
sometimes half, sometimes two-ffths,
to the daimio of the province. Theo-
retically the land belonged to the lord,
but in reality he very seldom enforced
his power of taking it away from the
peasant In occupation. In the same
way today all the land belongs thee
retically to the emperor but il is own
Ell by the peasant under certain condi-
lions of taxes ana so forth. One does
not need TO be an agrlculturist to 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 a
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 irri-
CATION is simple, but up the sides of the
hills, which are sometimes terraced in
fields from top TO bottom. 1 have seen
rice fields not larger than n pocket
handkerchief, perched between uncom-
promising powders on n mountain side
which had been literally created with
basketfuls OF earth. Their irrigation
was Chinese puzzle. In agriculture
the Japanese peasant has bulldog
perseverance which that ugly inteIli-
gent bullet head of his does not belle.
What Is more, he contrives to express
In it that artistic soul which animates
his whole race. His fields are rarely
square. / think l was never more
struck with the innate art OF the nation
than when standing in front of the de-
serted temple of Tesshuji. 1 looked
down over the miles of fertile plain
which stretch like broad band along
the coast from the province of Suruga
into the peninsula of Tau. Above rose
the blue line of Full, crowned with
snow The rice fields at that season
were mere pools of liquid mud, each
set In low mud wall, ugly and dreary
In 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-
teal In shape; in most the low mud
walls were curved as gracefully as the
lines in Greek vase. There was no
agricultural reason for these ever vary
ing yet always graceful shapes. 1t was
merely the expression of art In the
mind of the peasant.
1t has been said of the japanese sol.
der that he is singularly amenable to
discipline. One has only to see n
Japanese crowd confronted by n police
man to know that. Most of the police
men. as well as the officers of the army
in Japan. belong to the old samurai
class, and their power over the people
Is enormous. 1 have seen n surging
crowd in the midst of n religious fes-
uval at Kioto, damned between the
car OF the god and the flaming torches
or the priests, give way instantly, no.
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 for
authority.-London Globe.