Late Emperor Research Articles

The Street Lighting Service Given to the Late Emperor Taisho's Funeral

昭和二年二月七日大正天皇大葬儀葬場殿の御儀當日の爲に、東京市は市内御道筋、即ち宮城から新宿御苑に至る道路に、瀧装飾を施し、其に件うて臨時的の街路照明設備を施した。奉送装飾は市土木局灘任し、照明設備は市電氣局が擔任した。鼓に其の概要を記述する。

Our Relations with Japan

The rise of Japan within the span of one generation from the condition of a weak feudalized state, shut off from all contact with the western nations, to the position of a world power dominated by a desire to shape the destinies of Eastern Asia and ready to dispute with other powers the control of the Pacific, constitutes one of the most dramatic stories in the whole range of history. The rapid assimilation of western ideas and the successful appropriation of all the material elements of western civilization are without a parallel.Dr. Nitobé, whom we are glad to recognize not only as a great scholar but as a great writer of English, in his remarkable book, Bushido, the Soul of Japan, describes with great power and beauty the idealism of the Samurai, or gentlemen of Japan of a generation ago, but while the old spirit still flashes out occasionally as in the spectacular, and to us meaningless, suicide, on the occasion of the funeral of the late Emperor, of one of his most distinguished subjects, General Nogi, we cannot help believing that the Japanese have outgrown their idealism; that they cast it aside when they discarded their mediaeval weapons and abandoned their self-complacent exclusivism. The Japanese are the greatest materialists in the world today, for it is the material elements of western civilization that they have appropriated and to which they owe their success in two wars. A nation of materialists, fired with ambition and military ardor, are going just as far in their aggressiveness as sheer force will carry them. That is why Japan with her present ambitions is so generally regarded as a menace to the peace of the world.

The Political Condition of China

In order to understand the political condition of China it will be necessary to know something of the persons and forces that brought it about. In 1898 the late Emperor Kuang Hsu, inspired by the study of a New Testament, sent to the Empress Dowager by the Christian women of China, and by the study of all the books translated out of European languages into the Chinese, sent to him by the writer and others, began issuing a remarkable series of reform edicts, ordering the establishment of boards of railroads, of mines, of education, etc., and dismissing various conservative officials, and disbanding various useless boards that were an encumberance to the government.

EDITORIAL NOTES.

Dr. Thomas G. Morton, of Philadelphia, has been made an honorary member of the Society of Mental Medicine, of Ghent, Belgium. <h3>Garbage Cremation.</h3> —The board of health of San Diego, Cal., does not favor cremation as a method of garbage disposal. Has the board made a proper examination of the matter? Sir William Jennerhas resigned from the British Medical Association, it is said, on account of the publication in the<i>British Medical Journal</i>of the late Emperor Frederick's note to Dr. Mackenzie. <h3>Scarlet Fever in Milwaukee.</h3> —On Nov. 17 there were 24 cases of scarlet fever in Milwaukee, and within the next week 14 new cases developed. Up to Nov. 24 there had been 12 recoveries and 2 deaths. <h3>Compulsory Vaccination.</h3> —Small-pox is causing some alarm on the Pacific Coast and a short time ago fourteen doctors and a number of medical students made a descent on the schools

Napoleon III. and the Nicaraguan Canal

AT p. 249 of NATURE, vol. xx. it is made to appear as if the circumstance of the connection of the late Emperor of the French with the scheme of Central American canalisation through Nicaragua, was quite unknown to the public. But it is well known that Prince Louis N. Bonaparte, whilst at Ham, was in communication with Don Francisco Castillon, envoy to Louis Phillippe from the Nicaraguan Government upon this subject. After the escape of Louis Napoleon from France, he publicly advocated the project of the Nicaraguan Canal at the Institution of Civil Engineers, London. (Vide Proceedings I. C. E., 1847, vol. vi. p. 427; vide “The Gate of the Pacific,” by Commander Bedford Pim, pp. 118, et seq.)