The Japanese Catfish

Far beneath the land of Nippon lies a huge catfish, imprisoned by the weight of the islands resting upon him. He dies hard, perhaps he will never die. In hia desperate wrigglesheshakes the islnd from base to summit. Earthquakes esult. This catflsh may be taken to ymbolize the body of superstition uried under the New Japan and still isturbing the growing light and order. apantle superstition is purely Orienal anti barbarie and seems highly in)nsistent wilh the roaress of the land. 7ake üie Maisuri festival- a bullock art with a platform twenty feet high receded by a girl with a grotesque ïask and native band. Around this 20 arelegged men with chalked faces and mbrella hats dance and bang iron jars trung with jangling rings. Their oats gleam with scarlet, their chant s barbarie. The whole spectacle is as istinctly grotesque as the war dance t the Wild West show. That the pilrrims buy charms of their priests to nsure all manner of objects from sound eeth to painless childbirth is certainly ot more curious than many things one in our cities. But how account or the fact that at the Tokyo exposiion of 1892 a first prize was awarded o a big burly wooden god, the Jimmu'enno. If the emperor is really a escendant of the original Jimmu-Teno, this day entitled him to reverence.