Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1895 — PROFESSIONAL BULLIES. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PROFESSIONAL BULLIES.

Scoundrels Who Hire Themselves for Criminal Purposes. A peculiar feature of modern Japan is an organization known as the Soshi, bullies who are ever ready to sell themselves for aiPf dirty or dangerojs work to the highest bidder. Every politician has a number of them connected with him, and every political meeting is filled with them. They hire themselves out to break up political meetings, Intimidate nervous statesmen, dominate the voting booths and sometimes even to commit assault or murder. They carry sword canes, and during elections the papers are full of the attacks of one band of Soshi upon another, and of statements as to how one prominent man, accompanied by his Soshi. was met by another statesman, with his Soshi, and how the two fought the matter out on the street. These Soshi come from the student class. Thousands of young Japanese

have been studying professions, and there are hundreds upon hundreds of lawyers and doctors more than are needed. The government places all are overcrowded, and the universities have been turning out their graduates by the hundreds a year. The brightest students have been picked out by the government and sent abroad to finish their

educations. When they have come back they have been given positions, and those who were not so fortunate have had to stay out. The “outs” have banded together, and thqy have formed these organizations which are, to a certain extent, insurrectionary in their tendencies. They would be a bad element in case of a revolution, and they form one of the worst features of the new Japan.

TYPICAL SOSHI, OR PROFESSIONAL BULLIES OF JAPAN.