Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-08-23

In the home papers tnat experts have been
giving exhibitions in the United States,
and, as I have alre4qy stRed. we are told
here that our President has taken It up
II he will make 1t fashionable; II he will
encourage ed ts - an duo y Into our public
confer an inestimsAls 81 bsins upon not
t only soa this generation but pom generations
An Athletic Tournament.
We attended the annual tournament at
Kyoto and saw the fineSt exhibition of
muscular skill you can imagine by anna
tours from every corner Of the empire. l
haven't the time to give you the details,
for they filed pages Of the local papers
every day for a week. Several hundred
candidates representing different local or
CARNATIONS were entered for the several
prizes according to their weights, ages,
classes and other rules Of division. The
competitors were soldiers, students, me-
chanics. clerks. merchants, farmers teach
ers professional men. gentlemen. repre-
the association is under the patronage of
the mikado. and is semi-official, Baron
Kyoura Keigo, minister of commerce and
agriculture, presided, and Prince Kan-in.
president of the organization made the
opening address and presented the prizes
He is solderly fellow, about forty wears
old, unusually good looking for a Japanese,
and was on his way to Manchuria, where
he is now commanding division of cav
airy and has already seen some hard fight
ing.
The proceedings were conducted with
great ceremony, TO which the Japanese,
like other oriental nations, are addicted.
That gave them additional Importance and
enhanced the value of the awards in the
eyes of the public as well as the compett-
tors. And when ne entered the ring, If I
may so designate the platform upon which
the contests took place, every competitor
knelt before the portrait of the emperor
and touched his forehead with reverence to
the floor. Most Of those who participated
went to the Tai-kyO-ku-den Temple to
pray before entering the pavilion. and
made offerings to gods that are s,,nnosed
to take an active interest in wrestling.
Iencing ana other sports 1t would be q
satisfaction to know how those ptous ones
Jared in the contests, for it was a direct
test of the efficacy of prayer to deities
which we consider entirely lima efnarv hnt
have faith. '.
The Jujutsu Contests.
Naturally, for reasons already given. we
were most interested in the juJutsu con-
tests. and they filed half the program.
Each afternoon. after the amateurs had
finished. we had high-class exhibitions nv
experts in that science. The most skillful
teachers in Japan were there to look after
tnelr students. to encourage the association
and also to SHOW off, as children saw
ana they were worth going a long way 10
see To our unsophisticated ewes II lookad
as II the men on the platform were not in
earnest, but they were One of the nro
fessors of tujutsu would stand in the cen
ter.some of them are men of slight stature
and delicate appearance-and Wou1d NAV
with the mOst robust and chesty Young
giants, just as a cat will play with kittens
1t was not ordinary wrestling The contest
ants did not clinch with each other, and
struggle and grunt, like the professional
WreStlers l will tell you about in another
letter, but the professor seemed to be able
TO throw his assailant to the floor almost
as soon as the latter touched him, and sell
dom changed his position. His hands would
go out. and he would often do something
with his legs, but the young men who at.
tackled him were never, or seldom able TO
get beyond his guard. We couldn't under
stand why those impetuous athletes who
came toward the professor so boldly and
vigorously should find themselves the next
instant on their backs about three wards
away. sometimes he would toss them over
ms mead or shoulders. without an effort
Then, after he had flung a dozen or more
all around the platform, he would bow TO
the presiding officer, bow to the distin-
sulsneu guests: koWtow to the emperor's
portrait and retire.
And the japanese gentleman who had
been detailed to look after me would ex-
plain who he was, and declare that it was
one OF the finest exhibitions he ever saw
why didn't those young fellows graphic
him. l asked.
Impossible" my chaperon would reply
NO one could grapple him any more than
an amateur could pink an accomplished
fencer" -
why not? They seemed to be stronger
and more active than he.'
Certainly, they have greater strength,
but he has superior skill and uses that skill
to turn their strength and impetuosity
against themselves. You may have noticed,
perhaps, that the fercer an assailant went
at him, the harder was his fall"
h1f to a hI1f 7 1,yt
understand it,
That's the science of jujutsu. 1t is the
most perfect of all the methods of self
defense
Fencing Exhibitions.
There We're splendid exhibitions of fencing
daily, for the japanese have been famous
swordsmen for centuries, and still keep up
their practice. Young girls appeared upon
the platform from the fencing schools and
showed wonderful skill, but the most In
teresting of all the exercises to me were
the contests between old men, veteran
samaurai, sixty, seventy and even eighty
years of age, who came out every after
noon in their quaint lacquered armor, such
as you see IN museums and curlO stores,
scoop shovel helmets, and the brocade liv-
cry of their former daimyos, and showed
the boys how they used to do 1t In ancient
days. 1t was often pathetic and always
dramatic, and sometimes it seemed as II
time had been set back a century or TWO,
and we were witnessing battle of armored
knights, just they portrayed in the
curious colored pictures that you find in
the books about Japan.
FAVoRs DEPARTMENT OF MINES.