The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-10-22
OF PEACE
 FELT IN JAPAN Shock Rent Foundations of So-
 ciety in Tokio WHAT CAUSED ERUPTION remarkable Changes in Glasses Caused by Disappointing News From Portsmouth-Mlnistry Must
 Resign to Insure Quiet.
WHAT CAUSED ERUPTION

Special correspondence of the Washing
 ton Post.
 Tokio. october 14.-The earthquake with which old Portsmouth celebrated the signing of the peace treaty was felt distinctly here in Tokio-only here 1t was a social shock None the less was it a true earthquake, for much that had been strong and trustworthy was shaken by it.
 When the war was begun nineteen months ago and the troops poured into Tokio from the provinces every one held his breath. Race prejudice fired by open war might make the capital too warm for Occidentals. But no; everything was uuieter than usual The country soldiers thronged the streets, mild-eyed as any other lotus eaters. European ladies walk ed among them unattended save by the lads of the family. and not even jest at their expense was heard. All through the war the people had seemed gentler than before.
 But so it is with earthquakes--it Is their nature to give no warning. No seismo- graph gives more than few seconds mo- tice and then, too, the heaviest earth quakes come suddenly at the end of long periods when everyone has forgotten the last big shock. Only one sign is fairly de- pendable, and that is, singuarly enough, barometric. A period of dull heavy, un- breathable air generally shoves down the earth's crust along with the mercury in the tube, and people are started from their beds.
 Peace found Tokio entirely sullen. The great fagpoles across the streets raised zl.-1 1. La. and hopeless than when last summer they waited months to wave the sun flags at Port Arthur's fall. That did come at last, but now everything hoped for had been lost, or. worse, given away. Blood and treasure gone for nothing. It was had to breathe in Tokio. Every thing was quiet--stifingly so.
 Suspicious Break In Cable.
 Two little things happened mere wrig- gles of the seismograph. A pot of shi- kimi was left at Baron Komura's door. Shikim is flower used only as a funeral gift. A solitary man called on MT. Chin da, vice-minster for foreign affairs, to leave his card. He carried a rising sun flag, only on the white ground the disk was not red, but black.
 And then the papers were In a way quiet. Of course, the terms of the treaty were strongly condemned, but the lead ing articles had a bewildered tone. The yellowest of them all contained yelled references to the common mode ofs dis posing of unpopular officials, then sud- denly change it's inflammatory words and urged the people to remember that the pen was mightier than the sword. Just about this time the cables broke and no telegrams could go west except by ship from Nagasaki to Shanghai. and in the process they might be delayed two days or longer"; but, strange to say, incoming telegrams evidently found no ships to bridge over the two days interval. This absence of news from Apefica and Eu- rope made things quieter.
 Meanwhile from behind Nagasaki a thousand Kagoshima men had come to the capital. Kagoshima was the home of the great hero, rebel, and patriot Saigo, the admiration of every schoolboy in the empire Kagoshima, the capital of Sat- suma, has furnished the strong men of this restoration period
 What became of these men after they reached Toko no one knows, but the next morning, the day before the peace would be signed, band of schoolboys appeared before the palace They were all in white (mourning) kimonos, their brows bound with the white mourning fllet, and each carried white lotus, the funeral flower.
 Signs of an Eruption.
 These tremors served to show that the power underground was gathering force. The day before the peace treaty was to be signed large mass meeting was to be held in Hiblya, the park in foreign style almost within stones throw of the palace and government buildings. This meeting Vscount Yoshilxawa, the home minister and ex-officio head of the na- tinual nolice ordered broken nm and the park closed.
 The next forty-eight hours cost Japan heavily in reputation. To Europe and America cabled reports seemed to demon- strate the veneer character of the self restraint so nobly maintained throughout the war. It Is hard to form right im- pressions under skies glowing for miles with incendiary fires or in the presence of a mob to demoralize the entire police | of large city. But mobs and riots in | Japan are words of a connotation radl- | cally different from that which they have in America or Europe or China In Japan mobs have apparently always | organized in protest against grievances | and with the purpose of securing the at- | tention and help of authorities otherwise | indifferent Under the Shogunate mobs rose in famine times to protest that their l families were starving. Within the last l five years the farmers of an extensive district similarly protested that their rice lands had been ruined by the poison ed waters of great copper mine.
 The mobs of September. 1905, likewise | had a definite purpose and clearly | planned programme of protest against the ministry that had accepted the hu- initiating terms of peace. The home min ister had forbidden their meeting of pro. | test. Strong guards prevented them from | burning his house; so instead they burned every box and station of the police
 his minions-throughout the city except thos& in the foreign concession. where ! most of the foreign residences are. They would not trouble those. they said. be. i cause 1t would dim the fact that their cry was against the cabinet. Viscount Ye.
 shkawas official residence. which was | the center of the mob violence. Is next door to the Imperial hotel. which was ! full of foreign guests. The mob paid moi
 the slightest attention to 1t or to them.
 Not Known to Be Foreigners.
 The attack upon the members of the
 Hartman party was in entire ignorance l of the nationality or personality of the party. If the real facts had been known 1 1t Is safe to say that the attack would never have been made. One member oi 1 the party was struck in the head with a stone by getting accidentally between the crowds and the police.
 1 The burning of the First church was l precipitated by an eloquent address of a 1 brave Japanese pastor. who tried to dis suade the mob from its excesses; after | that 1t was easy to suggest that the churches belonged to the "Roski.' But
 these were incidents and clearly apart | from the purpose of the rioters,
 | No xxrt1l f.