The Coconino sun., 1925-03-20
Shanghai, China, Jan. 27


Really, you know trying to keep up
reasonable chronological run of do
ings as one goes along is rather diff
cult. You get side-tracked at times
and of necessity must drag in things
here and there. While at Kobe, dur
ing the few days Mrs. B. was i'll with
cold and | was giving my spectacles
a rest, the Rotary bunch were invited
to attend meeting of the Rotary club
of Osaka. Osaka is a large port and
the second largest city in this collec-
tion of landing places scattered about
the Japanese sea.
This may not be interesting to, you,
but can't help that, because we got
nice cross-cut section of Japan
where one could see some of the in
side works. Well, sir, one member of
the Osaka Rotary club, at Tokyo
when we ratified our heads at Ro-
tary meeting there insisted that his
club entertain US for day when we
rambled down to Kobe. Osaka is only
an hours ride from Kobe.
A Japanese gentleman guided US
foreigners down to the railroad sta
ton, introduced US to the ticket agent
so he would know where we desired
to migrate; got US on the train-sec-
ond class, but we sat squared with the
engine instead of straddle the car in
street car fashion. He advised a
friend of his on the train who could
rehearse words in English, where we
wished to be dumped. We were met
at Osaka by bunch of real Rotarians
with Rotarian flags floating on their
cars with the good old Rotary wheel
emblem in the center of it. They
seemed to know US, not necessarily
because we had bruises on our fore
heads from humping through low
doorways, but from our general ap-
pearance suppose. They bowed US
into high-class autos and said we We're
on our way to pay our respects to the
mayor of the city, Mr. H. Seki, at the
city hail. We did it and he was pleas
ant to meet. He is said to be one of
the best educated men in Japan. It IS
reasonable to suppose that is the rea-
son he didn't offer US the keys to the
city. But it appears we didn't need
any keys. We had two or three news
paper men of the Osaka Mainichi or
Osaka Rising Sun, with US and these
bows knew how to crack their way into
any place we suggested we wanted
to see.
From the mayors office, which was
some palace of a place which looked
like one of our overgrown government
buildings, we were autoed to the
Osaka Business Mems club-another
place that was built on most gen
erous, comfortable plan and elegantly
furnished.
Before luncheon the newspapers Of
ficial photographer had to get a cou-
pie pictures of the bunch for his pa
per. 1t included number of the
members of the Osaka Rotary club,
all Japanese except Mr.. Thomas,
who is local manager for big New
| York gas plant. He has been here
about nine years but gets home about
! once year so his job is not quite SO
bad. am certain he was glad to
See this gang and give his English a
free and untrammeled airing.
1t was a live meeting and we were
given a royal welcome to Osaka.
Usually the business of the club is
conducted in Japanese but this was an
| American day w. Phi. Riethof of The
I Hague, Holland, did the honors in a
/ fine talk dwelling especially on what
the great international court at The
Hague is doing. All did turn before
/ the hour was up. Each one has a
nickname and the secretary is called
| s'Tex" because he spent some years
| in Dallas, Texas, having returned to
japan couple years ago. There
were two live, old, grey-whiskered
members, Y. X. Kindo, called Uncle, ="
Land X. Hasegawa, president and gen
eral manager of the Toi Gold Mining
I.Co. Some ore lied when they said the
! Japanese are not good "hdders.
/ These two old warehouses could sure
play the game in two languages.
Suffice to recount, we saw the
!, whole works including the Osaka Sun
office. Speaking of printing office
we desire to mention that this was
one of these of which did things at
liz million daily circulation, then
slung in an English paper with some
$4,000 circulation daily in order to
clean up in different languages.
/ Ihey ndQ S0Vofdi UdttCrASo @ "
monotypes- machines that cast letter
characters for the Japanese type
cases. Now a japanese type case
/ looks like a young corn crib. It is
about 80 feet long and about six feet
high. 1t contains some 5000 type
characters scattered around in this
big outstanding rack. It has been
/ said that the typesetter used to have
a couple assistants to help collect type.
You know, like messenger kid or a
bell hop, who had to go out and bring
1 in type from the cellar or garret, as
the case might be. Here am athletic
looking young fellow pranced up and
down this alley-looked like. an old
! time ad alley--dug out a character
/ here and there and stuck it into q
1 wooden box with two compartments IN
it. The upper part Of this typeset-
Fer's stick was probably used to save
steps. That is to say, in passing along
he might grab out character ne
4 :-.l,% Loxvo n i1co later He SlinDpd