Japanese Swordsmen

The pictures and earvmg-s of Japan, as a rulo, present the warriors armed with two swords - one on each side, says a writer in the Kansas City Star. This two-sword matter is more a part of ceremony and state than anything else. When a Japanese mcans business he only needs one sword. They are not so skillful of fence as the Europeans, trat nevertheless have ;i number of Guts and slashes which, benig1 in their nature so many surprises, would give a swordsman unused to their methode some little trciiibic. The first move a Jap makes in a sword fig-ht is fraught with danger to his opponent. There are no preliminaries with a Jap. The tight begins with him while his blade is yet iü its scabbard, and, as he draws his weapon, wisdom will g-ive him about forty feet of room. Grasping the scabbard near the center, he slightly tilts it so that the point of the sword as it hangs by his sid is, if anything, a little higher than the hilt. The sword itself is curved, very heavy, and with its single edge as keen as twenty razors. When he draws it streams f rom the scabbard like a beam of light, and as it comes he makes a prodigious step forward with hisright foot, accompans'ing the whole with a rapid circular slash upward of the back-handed sort. The whole performance is one motion, aaid rapid in its execution as thought. Your Jap will reach a man a dozen feet away, and the keen blode, starting its work low, will split an opponent like a mackerel. A Japanese swordsman always makes this upward sweep on drawing his weapon, whether an enemy is in sight or not.