The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-05-02
Cameras Barred in Japan.

William Dinwiddie, in Harper's Weekly. To use camera in the southern island towns means it's polite but immediate confiscation and a punishment by fine. By great courtesy, q display of passports. and a proper degree of self-reproach for hay- ing ignorantly disobeyed the laws you may at the end of twenty-rour hours. se- cure the return of the camera. minus the roll of films. So strict is the camera reg ulation at fortified ports, that an English lady who took a picture of the captain on the bridge of one of the vessels in the harbor of Moji, was approached, several hours later, by member of the harbor police, and asked to deliver up her cam era. Protests were useless, and the camera was taken ashore the films probably de- veloped, as they were never returned. and the camera was sent back the following day.
 On another occasion. a traveller who opened mp a small pocket camera in the streets of Shimonoseki. was promptly piloted to the station house, violently pro- testing he had done no wrong, and that he had not attempted to make any pho tographs of Qualifications nor soldiers. The diminutive and quiet captain of po- lice, who spoke English brokenly, re- marked, solemnly: We will see" and the tourist waited four hours while they saw. At the expiration of this time he re- turned and said, What you said was true. but we shall notwithstanding. be obliged to punish you with the extreme severity of the law In this case. You have photographed no fortfications or soldiers, but you have committed a crime'-and. while the trembling culprit blanched in terror he finshed-"and your fine will be eighty sem (4o cents).
 How the "Alabama" Was Saved. John Bassett Moore. in Harper's Maga-
 zine for May.
 It is perhaps not generally known that the Alabama, in spite of the omission of the English customs authorities to seize her, might in the end have been detained but for an act of wifely devotion. On the 22d and 24th of July 1862, evidence directing inculpating the vessel was communicated by the America legation in London to the British foreign office. On the 2Sd and 26th of July the papers were referred to the law officers of the crown and as the officers had no per manent office were sent as usual to the senior officer. who was then Sir John Dorney Harding, queens advocate. his associates being Sir William Atherton, attorney general and Sir Roundell Pal mer afterward Lord Selborne. solicitor general. Unfortunately, Sir John Hard ing had just then fallen victim to an acute mental disorder. which proved to be fatal, but which his wife, in the hope that it would soon pass away, had kept the. secret. Upon the decision to be rendered by the law office there hung perchance the issues of peace and war and the fate of nations but the papers lay unex- amined at Sir Johns residence, apparent ly, till the 2Sth of July. when the foreign office. growing anxious at the delay, but ignorant of it's cause, took steps to re- cover them and placed them in the hands of Sir William Atherton. On the even ing of the same day. Sir William. per ceiving the gravity of the situation which the papers disclosed. called Sir Roundell Palmer into consultation upon them in the ear-marshals room in the house of lords They at once agreed that tre vessel must be seized An opinion to that effect was delivered Earl Russell on the morning of the 29th of July; but during the night of the 2Sth the Alabama left the docks In which she had been lying. At 10 o'clock on the morning of the 18th she put to sea. The order to detain her reached Liverpool in the afternoon.