Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1893 — Policemen in Japan. [ARTICLE]

Policemen in Japan.

There is no human being quite so polite as the Japanese polioeman. Not to his fellow-countrymen, be it understood; by no means. He regards the bulk of them, probably, with good-natured contempt, for, in the language of Mi. Chevalier, “he is a gentleman by birth and education.” When in the pursuit of Western civilization, Japan cast oft feudalism and put on a frock coat and a silk hat, thousands of samurai, or twoswosded retainers of the old nobles, found their occupation gone. No mort exhilarating little expeditions into tlfi territories of the neighboring prino-s were possible and chopping loreigneis into little bits soon became a game hardly worth the candle. The swords rusted in their scabbards and finally wera, by imperial decree, discarded altogether, and helped a few years later to decorate the drawing-rooms of Belgravia. What was to be done with these swashbucklers, trained to militarism quite impossible in the modern army modelled on the French pattern? The Government wantid police. The samurai knew noth! ng about the status of the British “bobby” or of the French gendarmes, so they enrolled in large numbers, happy in being able to wear at any rate one sword, and chat a two-handed one. Thus it happens that the Japanese police are the most aristocratic force of constabulary in the world. They are a finely disciplined body, small in stature, but well drilled and expert in the use of the steel-scabbarded weapon which dangles at their heels. —[Pall Mall Budget.