The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-01-29


 padded gauntlets and a face guard. His master, holding out his weapon. bids the boy strike as freely as he pleases at 1t. This Is the beginning of muscle training for his arms. In a few min utes the young pupil is glowing and perspiring. He knows that he Is to become one of his country's champions. He has never belonged to himself since the moment when his mother, as soon as she could take him to the temple, laid him on the altar, at the shrine of the guardian deity of the district, as "a gift to the adored nation. and an em- bryo patriot-hero.
 Every day there must follow some amount of muscle trairing by the prac- tice of the art of sword-play. For there must be no relaxation. The mus cles must be developed day by day. Then comes lessons in that marvellous "jiu- jitsu," which means the art of yielding, or of overcoming stronger wrestlers by the physical paradox of making their very strength their dis advantage. It is the development of fine quality, not of conspicuous quanti- ty, in the muscles, which the Nippon trainers value. The agility of the well taught but slightly built wrestling con- rtortionist is magical and well nigh in credible. but long years are spent in the cultivation of the exacting art In which the eye and the perceptive faculties. as we'll as the muscular system, are mag nificently trained.
 The mastering of appetite is the sec ond stage of juvenile Samurai instruc- ton. The stomach has to attend this severe school as well as the muscle The child is still very young when his father suddenly one day begins to theo- rize to him on the probabilities of a time of war. Talging of the contin- gencies of a campaign, he explains that some day. when he is a grown sol dIer, fighting for the defense of his Emperor. he may be besieged in a fort ress without food or drink. And in or der to acquire adequate powers of en- durance every true young patriot of Nippon should begin betimes to prac- ttce abstinence. as If actually under going the direct ordeal of war. Now begins a month of semi-starvation. Nothing but the smallest quantity of rice that can sustain life Is allowed, the only relish added being a few pieces of pickled "dalkon," a popular kind of radish. But what makes this period of training eXtra-severe is that hard exercise is imposed, part of the phil scphy of the discipline being that 
 ten. My friends father" says Adachi Kinnosuki. "in the days of his made-to- or 6er starvation, had him climb a noun tain, chop wood, roll the logs and sub jected him to all manner of physical exertion. One day, when he was about Is years of age, he was sent out upon a long journey. His servant accompanied him, and he was allowed to have two bowls of rice, piece of dried fish and two cups of water a day to sustain himself. At one time he was sent to fifteen days on the mountain, and to sustain himself with whatever he could find with his own hands,"
 In facts like these we discover the | reason why the Japanese troops were ,ple to trsmp suc'I great distances day after day on the rough, mountainous tracks of Korea to deliver three front al attacks on the semi-permanent forti- fications of Liaoyang and to master the Complicated and tortuous Manchurian geography on the ridiculously scant rations of rice. dried fish and a few stray pickled plums.
 Thirdly comes the discipline of nerve and soul q recall" says Kinnosuki, "how we used to go to an old deserted Ecuse which stood on the outskirts of the castled town of Kameyama, There was a genial gathering of boys ranging from seven to sixteen years of age An old man, the most wonderful of story -tellers. presided over the gather ing. His fund of fsarsome ghost sto- ries was inexhaustible. Behind the d. lapidated house stretched a bamboo lgrove in the direction of a moss-covered 1 graveyard of an ancient temple. The old man counted the number of his boy guests and took as many candles into the graveyard. There he lit them and hid them in all sorts of corners among the tombstones. Then he came back to tell the most horrible ghost stories