The Crown Prince, who is not the son of the Empress, but of one of the secondary wives, was sixteen years old in September, 1894, and is said to be a bright lad, of dark complexion, like his father, with almond eyes and face of the most pronounced Japanese type. He is of an erect figure and fond of military pursuits. He has been educated in the Nobles’ school, and has studied French and English. The Emperor is taller than most of his subjects, very dark, with a long face and heavy features. Except in complexion the son is not very much like his father, his face being rounder and shorter. There have been one hundred and twenty-one Emperors of Japan, all of the same family. The first one governed the country just about twenty-five hundred years ago. “He was on the throne long before Julius Cæsar aspired to be Emperor of Rome, and three hundred years before Alexander the Great thought he had conquered the world. The Japanese have the history of all of their Emperors from that time down to this, and they will assure you that the Mikado is a lineal descendant of the first Emperor, whose name was Jimmu Tenno.
“Any other royal family would have run out in less than this time, especially in an isolated country like Japan but the Japanese have a law by which the Emperor cannot marry one of his own family. He has to marry the daughter of one of the court nobles, and the Empress is, therefore, not of royal blood.”
It is interesting to us, as Americans, to recall the fact that, while China and Japan were thus grappling in the throes of war, important diplomatic work, of a peaceful character, was going on between ourselves and each of the contending powers. The treaty signed with China arranged many important points which had been long at issue between us and them; but the most important action was the Convention between the United States and Japan, signed about the 1st of December, 1894, at Washington, by Secretary of State Gresham and Minister Kurino, as Plenipotentiaries on behalf of their respective governments.
This Convention supplants the Treaty of 1858, already alluded to, in which Japan was dealt with as a barbarous nation, and that of 1866, by which the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands established Japan’s customs tariff for her. The United States, alone of all nations, has, of late years, insisted upon Japan’s complete autonomy in foreign as well as domestic affairs; in taxes and tariff duties, as well as in judicial jurisdiction—none of which she had enjoyed under the old treaties.
Copyright, W. H. Rau.
Deck of U. S. S. Indiana.
In the foreground are two of her 13-inch breech loading rifles, and two of her 8-inch guns are shown on the right. It costs to fire one of the former, with tooled steel projectile, $700. The Indiana is capable of giving combat to any vessel afloat.