New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-05-07

But love- they say, is heiUiu as well as
ShI10kn, a COrnrnOner as well as noble And
the shut-up Island people who reached out so
eagerly to grasp the many things they saw to be
good in Western civilization do not marvel if
now and again there creep into their lives
phases OF possibility they had not contemplated
There IS nothing about the house of Kudo
Jullchi TO indicate the quality of those who
dwell within except the little wooden slab fast
ened over the door. No spacious grounds sur
round 1t. Its walls show the soft gray of rain
beaten age. Even the tiles of the roof laid
with a care cognizant of earthquake and bitter
storm, seem to have lost patience and to be
ready to slide down in scOrn of their owner The
lone Plu1n-tree, that stands like garden sentinel
in the corner OF the little flower-plot in front,
touched by the general air of decay, struggles
tIttully in the raw cloudy spring to thrust forth
here and there a blossom in remembrance of
happier days To the casual passer-by there is
10 object to attract attention, except perhaps
the shingle over the door, proclaiming accord
ing to law, to all who care to stop and read,
that in this house of little ease at No 0 on
Lower Tlmber-st., lives gentleman of the
Empire, kudo Jukichi by name
Scarcely a hundred wards distant, around the
corner on Azalea-st., there confronts the curious
observer a striking evidence of the change the
new Western life has brought. Prosperity
radiates from the substantial house and pleasant
garden, and all the place is infolded in its
ample mantle. But money is not everything
IN the Island Empire yet, however rapidly its
power IS advancing, as you may see by reading
the cedar ticket over the door, duly setting
forth, without attempt at subterfuge, the fact
that a commOneT occupies that comfortable
dwelling Mr.. Kutami Chobei.
What cares the COnmOner Kutani that his
humble station is thus placarded over his hos
ritable door? But a hand-breadth back in the
space of years even that poor title seemed a
measure of hopeless distinction to him. In the
yesterday when neighbOr KudO wore the
naughty sword of Samurai his weapon would
have leaped from its scornful scabbard if Kutami
the Eta, however accidentally, had polluted his
presence. Better far to be one of the multitude
IN the oblivion of the cOmmoners than one of
the marked few in the despised class of the out
cast Etas. And so kutami blessed the fate
that had brought the Western ideas, abolshing
Samurai and Eta, and setting both free and
equal before the law, face to face with the
world-old problem of life and its individual
opportunities and rewards.
He was proud of himself, in humble way,
proud of the success he had won from stub
born conditions by his wit and work, proud
of the son Soichi, who had helped him SO well,
proud OF the new nation that had given him
chance. and loval to it with the last drop of
blood of himself or his family. And yet with
that the great change meant to him and to
son. it was not without a secret sympathy tina
saw the hard and harder fortune increasing
brought TO his gentle neghbor. He was use'
the Bullets Of unknd circumstance. They trou
not at all the erstwhile Eta, accustomed from
earliest recollection to sights and scorn, anC
hard struggle for himself But Kudo the Sam
valiant soldier and sIilful swOrdsman that he
been, was inept in the rough-and-tumble scrar
for existence. And perhaps deep down in his
Kutami still found some of the old-time rever
for the nobly born.
He was revolving these things in his min