The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1904-05-02
JAPANESE DISCIPLINE.
Patience ana "a High Respect For
the Law Are General.

the Law Are General.
The japanese soldier is drawn main
" from the class of the hclmin or com
mon.rs, and as agriculture is still. in
spite of the recent progress in manu- |
facture, tha staple occupation Of Japan. |
the japanese soldier comes mostly from !
a family Of peasants The peasants of /
Japan were always part proprietors Of
the hand, eycn before the revolutions,
they farucd it under certain c0adi- !
tons, paying 50 much of the produce /
sometimes half. sometimes tWo-iiItAs, /
to tie dIInio Of the province. Theo-
rcticaily the land belonged 70 the lord.
but in reality he very seldom enforced
his poWe, Of tgking it away from the
peasant IN occupation In tie same
way today all the land belongs 'heo-
reticaliy TO thc emperor, but it Il own
cd by the peasant Under certain condi-
tons Of taxes and so forth ono does
not need to be an agricultuist to &p-
preciate the care with which the japa-
nese peasant farms bis land. Rudydrd
kipling, in the record Of his hasty jour
ney from Kobe to Tokyo observed Il
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 lie
hills, which are sometimes terracCd in
fields from top to bottom, have seen
rice fields not larger than a pocket
handkerchief pcrched between uncom-
promising powders ON a mountain side,
which had been literally created with
basketfuls of earth. Their irrigation
was II Chinese puzzle. In agriculture
the Japanese peasant has a bulldog
perseverance which that ugly intclli-
gent bullet head OF his does not belle.
What Is more. he cOntriyCs to express
In it that artistic soul which anmatcs
| his whole race Ills fields are rarely
square ] think | was never more
struck with the innate art of the nation
than when standing in front Of the de-
serted temple of Tcssluii ! looked
| down over the mics Of fertile plain
| which stretch like Il broad band along
/ the coast from the province Of Suru98
| 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 drcaYy
in the extreme, and yet not monoto-
nous. 1t took some looking to. find the
reason. IL was this. Few OF those
fields were square; not two were idcn-
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 tie
mind Of the peasant
Ii has been said of the japanese sol
der that he is slngularly amenable 10
discipline One has only to see n
japanese crowd confronted by q police
man TO know that Most Of the police
men. as we'll as the officers Of the army
in Japan. belong 10 tie Old samurai
class, and their power over the people
! Is enormous. have seen surging
! g. wd in the midst Of q religious fes-
I tiyal ut Kioto. iammed between the
car IF the sd and tie flaming torches
of the priests. give way instantly, po-
litey and in order ut the mere wave
of the hand Of one white uniformed
policeman. Yet ibis implicit obedience
is not slayish fear II is respect for
authority. London Globe.