The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-07-23
STORIES ABOUT THE GIRLS OF DAI NIPPON
Anecdotes of Sacrifice
and herOism in
Japan.

TOKIO-One chilly evening, when
the cherry bios SONS were scattering
before a wind so strong that it limited
of a typhoon, we went to the snug lit
tie house of old Tomita, there to sit
upon the soft, clean mats, smoking
our pipes and passing the sake cup,
while our venerable host told US stories
of the girls of fair Nippon. Tomita
of lowly merchant or artisan blood,
but a descendant of the valiant samu-
raj. His fathers were numbered
among the dashing retainers of those
war lords who, in the feudal days,
fought each other unmolested because
the youthful Emperors, unmindful of
affairs of state, preferred to daily in
seclusion with concubines or prattle
over the shallow verses of court poets
SAMURAI SWORDS ARE RUSTING.
Since the present Son of Heaven
turned from his harum and his rhyme
sters to quell the warning shoguns,
the swords of the samurai have been
rusting. Shorn of the opportunity to
fight, they have gradually fallen into
the ways of peace. But no matter
where their descendants may be found,
whether porting over government ac-
counts or even running between the
shafts OF jinrikishas. they clothe
themselves in the pride of their Samu-
raj stock until it gives them an indivi-
duality almost as distinctive as the
marked garments of the coolies. Tom
tia turned from warrior to book-worm.
When the hour came for the Mikado's
hosts to clinch with the Russian Bear
the old man cried because his infirm-
tiles prevented him from following his
two sons to the front. One of them fell
before Port Arthur and the other was
lost at Mukden.
Inasmuch as it is part of the Samu-
raj creed that to die on the firing line
is mans most noble end. old Tomita
did not lend himself to further travail,
but rubbed his withered hands and
chuckled with the satisfying thought
that the iron of his ancestors had
SHOWeu true III MS boys, proving
them worthy sons of the Empire. Then
he went back to his books. We find
him master of the love of his people
and proud as if he were a prince of
the blood All this goes to show
what kind of man it was who told
me the facts herein contained, the
same being put down as nearly as the
translation will permit, in exactly the
same manner in which he spoke.
THE APPETITE OF THE WORM.
Eyes, honorable sir, 1 know that
1t has been written of Japan that the
song and the women no virtue. But
you know the account of ones faults
will always travel a thousand miles
before the report of his good qualities
gets beyond the front gate. We of
the East have saying that a heron
can rise from the stream without STIR
ring up the mud. So we are careful %
leave unsaid the words which might
give offense. But the foreigner! NO!
He spares not our feelings. When 1
read these unkind things I console
myself by the knowledge that We all
feed upon what our appetites crave.
The worm eats smart weed and our
traducers who dwell at such length up
on unsavory subjects reveal their de-
graded tastes.
mo, 1 do not admit that the state
ment is wholly true. For tens of CEN
turtles the Oriental woman's honor has