The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-04-10

I was more bitter against the foreigners
than they were. Inouye admits that
he led a band of young samurai who
burned down the house set apart for
the first British minister the night be-
fore the latter was to occupy it. He
had no special grudge against the
minister, but he wanted to embroil
his government with the foreigners
and prevent them from settling in the
country.
Had the Making of Statesmen.
But even at that early age Ito and
Inouye had the makings of statesmen
in them. They soon saw that nothing
worth while could be accomplished
along those lines. Let US learn what
the foreigners knows" they reasoned
with one another. THAT is the only
way to beat him at his own game and
preserve the independence of our
country"
At that time the edict forbidding
japanese to leave their country was in
full force, but the young Samurai sold
their property and got together all the
money they possessed or could bor-
row from their friends. With this they
bribed some Englishmen to smuggle
them aboard one of Jardine and
Matheson's famous clipper ships,
bound for London. They had paid
about ten times the proper price for
their passage, but the people who got
the money cheated them. They had
nothing to do with the ship, and SIM
ply smuggled the young Japanese
aboard as stowaways.
When they were dragged to light,
two days after leaving port, the cap
tain naturally regarded them as such.
In vain they protested that they were
gentlemen of Japan who had paid for
their passage. They were set to work
scrubbing dishes and swabbing the
decks. and in the dog watches the
sailors taught them to play cards by
winning all the money they had left
except 50, with which they landed in
London.
Count InOuve.
Count Inouye-a genial, goodhumor-
ed man who enjoys nothing better than
a joke at his own EXPENSES fond of
talking about those early experiences.
Not so the sober, stately Marquis
Ito.
Inouye tells how they landed, cold
and desperately hungry, knowing no.
body in the vast metropolis, utterly
ignorant of Western ways, and with
only about a dozen English words in
their vocabulary. They saw a bakers
shop with beautiful crisp brown
hoaves inside. Inouye rushed in,
picked up one of the loaves and gave
the baker a dollar. The man pocket
ed the dollar and gave him no change,
although the proper price was only
five cents. Thus their first meal in
England cost them half their CAPT.
tai
They stayed in London for year,
and probably they could not them
selves tell how they managed to live
during that time. Scanty remittances
arrived from home, and they eked out
a bare subsistence by performing all
kinds Of mental tasks when they were
lucky enough to get work. 1t must
have been a terrible life for the young
sanurai, who had always been used
to having the best of everything, and
had been taught from infancy to
look upon any work except that of
the soldier as an unspeakable degrade
ton.
"Stuck 1t Out"
But they stuck it out" and accom-
plished their purpose of learning the
ways of the Western world, and then
returned to Japan to find public affairs
in a terrible state. The Prince Of
fired upon the foreigners at Shimono-
sok and could not be induced to make
repatriation. Grave trouble was brew
ing.
Ito and Inouye hurried to the
Prince to tell him Of the might of the
Occident and counsel him to avoid
war Their mission was vain; they
were rebuffed by the self-opinionated
old feudal lord, who could not imagine
that anybody was greater than him
self. At this point Japan nearly lost
the services of two of her greatest
men, for Ito and Inouye have since
admitted that they seriously debated
the question whether in honor they
ought not to commit "hari kari since
they had failed in their task. They
RETAINED from doing so because they