Arizona republican., 1904-03-18

land, while his court at Yedo far out shone that of the mikado of Kioto, which was an insignificant affair in Icomparison.
 Thus it happens that when the first foreigners, English, Dutch, Portugese, Spanish and American, came to Japan they were completely mystified and puzzled over the peculiar system of government of the Japanese. Some of the earliest writers on Japan stated that the islands had two rulers, one, the mikado, the spiritual ruler and the other, the shogun, or military sover- eign. But this was a mistake, the shoguns were merely usurpers, deriving their power through the mikado, by whom. they were appointed. Practic- ally, however, they were the rulers of Japan, inasmuch as the sovereign was forced by them to appoint their sons as their successors, and history relates where one or two mikados were killed by the shoguns for failure to comply with their demands.
 The shogun dynasty, which started off so auspiciously in 1903, under .Iyey- osu, became a great burden on the peo- pie during the early half of the nine . guns forbidden foreigners to enter Jap an, but the Japanese were not allowed to leave the islands. As a special con- cession, one or two ports were thrown open to outsiders, but beyond this Jap an remained very much as Tibet is at the present day a hermit kingdom Finally the misrule of the Shoguns, the warning of the feudal lords, or diafios. NI &I.. working classes caused number of the rising young. men of Japan, some of whom had visited the west, and seen for themselves the benefits of liberal government, among them Ito, Yamagata Inouye Cpronounced "Inoee'), and Mas ugata were leaders to decide upon the overthrow of the shogunate. Marquis Ito, who had drunk deep at the well of liberalism, decided upon a restoration of the mikado to his proper place as emperor of Japan, constitution sim liar to that of this country. Great Brit ain and France. and a sweeping reform of the military system and it's rehab- ilitation on the European plan. The people were ripe, for rebellion, and the revolution of 1S67-6S made short and quick work of the last shogun of the Tokugwa dynasty. This done, the milk ado moved his court and the capital from the picturesque and hum-dru town of Kioto to Yedo, the former cap- | ital of the shoguns, the name of which was changed to Tokio, the designation which it has borne from that day to this. Thus it happens that geographies printed prior to, or about 1868, have tha capital of Japan down at Yedo instead of Tokio. as at present.
 The history of the life of Marquis Ito and Count InOuye is in a measure | the history of the wonderful develop ment of Japan during the past thirty six years. In one sense these two men might be termed the Robespierre ant Lafayette or Franklin and Patrick Henry of Japan. To the credit oi Japan let it be said that they accomp- lished their work in far less time and with infinitely less bloodshed and tur- moil than was necessary before the Occidental champions of light and lib- erty were able to dispel the pail 0 medieval gloom that hung for so many years over Europe. Curiously enough Marquis Ito, Count Inouye, and Gen eral Yamagata were all three born T | the same province in the western par of the main island of Japan. Moreover according to Japanese history, this ant one or two other of these westerI provinces are the oldest and first set tied, for it was here that far back in thC lremote past the Japs, crossing oyel from the main land of Korea, discover ed the islands that were destined some day to be the greatest power in the ia east, and, routing the hairy savages of whom the Ainus are modern de scendants, drove them out of the south ern islands and up to the Yezzo tn, northern island. where today the! constitute a small and diminishing tribe. who in a few more centuries wil be extinct. To men of science th' phenomena of certain districts pro lducing more great men than others i by no means remarkable, and the dis trict where these three men were borl has long been famous as a nursery O powerful minds.
 Ito and InOuye were companion