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Show Japanese and Their Children. If. as somebody writes, "the most striking quality of the Japanese Is precocity." pre-cocity." and as another says, 'Japan is a very paradise for babies," it is singularly sin-gularly touching to see how the precocious pre-cocious child rules its parents. In "From West to East," Sir Henry Jemingham gives an amusing instance of the child's supremacy. "An officer appointed to the customs at Dalny, who is on board our steamer with his wife, his- sister-in-law and a maid, is the possessor of a child of the age of three, a little urchin with a solemn sol-emn countenance, who constitutes the joy and sole preoccupation of the quartet, quar-tet, and exacts from his parents and attendants. at-tendants. In a truly ..despotic manner, the closest and most constant attention. atten-tion. "I was speaking of it to the chief engineer, en-gineer, who told me that during the war, when the troops were on board, and all was bustle and activity, a small urchin of two years of age. brought on board to say good by to his warrior father, fa-ther, got interested in the maneauvres about the gangway, and took up a position posi-tion right in the middle. "Anywhere else." said my informant, "sailors would have lifted the child and carried him to his parents, so as to put him out of harm's way, but not here. He was allowed to remain where he was, though he terribly hampered th,e work to be done, .The sailors, to whom he was a nuisance, only smiled at the infant and admired his pluck. "It is rather touching and indeed beautiful because it sounds and is so true. Such love as the Japanese exhibit exhib-it for children cannot but be real. It strikes one everywhere, in all places and under all circumstances." |