The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1923-09-05
BY CLARE OUsLEY

Copyright, 1923, by United Press.)
HOUSANDS Of casualties! No
buildings left standing in Yo-
kohama! Toxic swept by fire!
Wildly uncertain and curtailed the
reports are coming from stricken
Japan as we wait in the New York
office, peering over the "flimsies' as,
they come from the telegrapher's
typewriter. Tidal wave follows
earthuake" Many Americans prob
ably killed yokohama Governor
sends out plea for food and assist
ance." So came the terrifying mes
sages.
And those of us whom Toxic and
Yokohama are more than just strange
Oriental words on the map, sit and
stare at each other, aghast, trying to
conceive a wrecked Yokohama, To
kio in flames and then doing our best
to stop conceiving IT.
East Meets West
Perhaps nowhere in the Orient
could such a surprising combination
of eastern and western civilization be
found as in Tokio-the Toxic before
the earthquake of 1923. On Gina,
that oldest of all Main streets. the
east met the west. sometimes decor
ously, sometimes Enthusiastically, some
times anonymously. always interest
ingly. A sparse bearded and very dig
nified old gentleman strolling down
the walk be half eastern and half
western-western from the waist up in
morning coat and derby, eastern from
waist down in hakama and wooden
clogs.
BOastfully European
The Mitsukoshi department store.
In which, according to one dispatch
the first post earthquake fire broke
cut and which is now totally de
stroyed, stood out proudly tall and
clerk.towered, boastfully European In
structure. And all along the street
on either side Of Mitsukoshi's crouched
tiny, open front, paper walled shops
where the beautiful fabrics were dis
played in good Japanese fashion on
the immaculate Tatami covered floors.
The Kaigo building, reported de
stroyed with 1000 casualties. stood
not far from the city's great FISH mar
clcuts and gay headbands, came early
each morning up the canal in their
cld-fashioned sampans with huge loads
of fish.
Bridge Was Symbol
Nihonbashi itself, the Nippon
bridge, was the very symbol of this
meeting of the east and the west,
the old and the new. For the Nihon-
bashi has existed ever since the days
when Toxic was not Toxic but Yedo.
Then il was an unimposing little foot
bridge at which all the roads Of the
empire terminated. Yesterday it was
still Nihonbashi. where all the com
mercial roads of the empire conferred
no longr a wooden footbridge-but an
impressive stone structure 1anked
with winged griffins and electric
lights. Today 1t is a mass Of wreck
age.
In the Maranouchi district one could
easily forget he was in Japan. Some
times in stepping from the now
demolished imperial government rail
way station and looking over this
section of the city where big brick
and stone bank buildings, hotels and
office buildings faced wiped paved
streets, I have felt as though I were
stepping out Of the Kansas City or
St Louis station
1t is here in Maranouchi that these
big stone buildings. representative of
the new Japan and her industrialism
that there has been a test note often
required of brick and stone. Up to
the last ten or twelve years the Japan
csc have kept what few stone or brick
buildings they constructed within the
limits of a few stories.