The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-07-22
SWORDS OF JAPAN
Old Samurai Blades Are Looked
 Upon as Sacred.
HANDLED WITH REVERENCE.

A Curious Formula of Etiquette Fol lows When "the Steel Bible of Bushido" Is Drawn From Its Sheath by a Hand Which Grasps It In Peace. If one were in a friends house in Japan and should ask to examine one of the old samurai swords that rest in the lacquered sword rack in a place of honor there curious formula of etiquette would be followed by the host.
 He would go to a closet and return with little square of silk in his hand. This he would wrap about the shark skin handle of the sheathed sword be fore touching his bare hand to the sheath. Then. with his right hand grasping the silk covered handle and the fingers of his left gingerly raising the lacquered hilt from the rack, the Japanese host would lift the sword to the level of his forehead and bow to it.
 All this in reverential spirit and with utmost gravity. The square of silk, preserved for no purpose but this and having its own name in the Japanese vocabulary, is to prevent the defle- ment of the handle by a hand which grasps it in peace. The bow is meant for the spirit of the swordsmith who forged this weapon. The reverence is for the sword itself, ''soul of the sa- mural" in the Japanese poetical con- ception and aptly called by foreigners ''the steel Bible of Bush1do."
 But this Is only the beginning of the formality. When the Japanese host unsheaths the blade he does 1t with the edge toward his own body and the point directed away from his guest. When the guest receives the sword in his own hands he must be careful to keep the outer edge always away from the direction of his friend the host. If he wishes to examine both sides of the blade he must even turn his back so that never will the menace of the sharpened edge be directed toward his friend.
 After the examination is completed the sword is returned to its scabbard. and the owner receives it with an- other bow and places 1t once more on its rack.
 The etiquette of the sword is no empty thing. With the high spirited Japanese, who have not forgotten the many centuries of chivalry and of hand fighting behind them, the deli cately curved and curiously welded sword of the samurai has a signih- canoe almost sacred. There is 8 phi losophy of the sworn no less stern than the use of the weapon.
 In the old days when the Japanese fighters wore the war masks and the steel armor seen nowadays in the curiosity shops the boy was taught that as the shining blade must be kept free from spot and corruption, so must his soul be ever clean. Neglect of the blade brings rust; neglect of the soul an impure character.
 Then the sharp edge was held not only as a constant guardian of per sonal safety and honor, but as a sacred disciplinarian to punish whenever its possessor stepped from the narrow Again, the sword was emblematical of true gentility. which is never over bearing or vulgar in department, but sternly self repressive.
 No man knows when first the forge for fighting weapons was set up in the dawn of Japanese history nor who was the man who first replaced the by the tempered steel of the Yamato blade. There is in the imperial collec- ton of swords at the castle of Nara the weapon worn by the Crown Prince Shotoku, who compiled the constitu- ton of seventeen articles in A. D. 693, the oldest sword known in Japan. From that weapon, which was straight and not curved as all other swords of Nip pon are. down to the fall of the Toku- gawa shogunate in the middle of the last century there is an unbroken his tory of the art of the swordsmith. Twelve centuries of recorded art in, swordmaking and the names of over 10000 makes constitute the history of the sword in Japan.
 The Japanese blade, placed almost on a par with the Damascus product in art and utility, differs from the Arabian weapon in one material detail of manufacture. Instead of having a uniform high temper, which gives the remarkable fiexibility possessed by the Damascus blade. the Japanese sword has two tempers, hard and mild steel.
 The edge of the blade is hard with the finest temper. the body and back of a milder temper, sufficient to give some elasticity. A Japanese sword cannot be bent half double with the pressure of hand; it is nearly rigid.
 Though sword manufacture has ceas- ed to be in Japan today outside of the government arsenals. which turn out only the accepted military blade of the modern army, the country is filled with prized relics of the past art. and these are relics which the Japanese will not sell. A possessor of one of the old swords, keen and blue white in fuster as the day it was forged. would sell his house. even himself maybe, before he would part with his iron Bible of Bushido for money.-Japan Magazine.
 Starting the Trouble.
 Mabel-Did he stutter when he pro- posed? Ethel-NO. I donS think sos Mabel-Really! He must have tm-