Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/149

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
English as she is Japped.
137

alien in blood, like the reigning houses of England, Russia, and many other European states.

The present Empress is of course Empress Consort. Her name is Haru-ko, correctly translated by Pierre Loti, in his Japoneries d'Automne, as "l'Impératrice Printemps." Wisely abstaining from even the shadow of interference in politics, this illustrious lady, daughter of a high noble of the Court of Kyōto, devotes her life to learning and to good works, hospitals in particular engrossing her attention. The Red Cross Hospital at Shibuya in Tōkyō, one of the most spacious—one might well say luxurious—hospitals in the East, was her creation, and the Charity Hospital at Shiba in Tōkyō also enjoys her munificent patronage.


English as she is Japped. English "as she is spoke and wrote" in Japan forms quite an enticing study. It meets one on landing, in such signboard inscriptions as

TAILOR NATiVE GOUNTRY.
DRAPER, MILLINER AND LADIES OUTFATTER.
The Ribbons, the laces, the veils, the feelings.[1]
HAND PANTING POST CARDS
MANUFACTURED. BY CAKE & A. PIECE. OF. BREAD.[2]
EXTRACT OF FOWL (over an egg-shop.)
PEST MILK.
Photographer Executed.
HEAD CUTTER, (over a barbers shop.)
The European monkey jacket make for the Japanese.
WRITING FOR ANOTHER.[3]
Specialist for the Decease of Children.
BEST PERFUMING WATER ANTI-FLEA.
DEALER OF.[4]


  1. Can the shopkeeper mean "frillings?"
  2. On a baker's cart.
  3. Over a public letter-writer's. Owing to the difficulties of ideographic writing and a highly peculiar epistolary style, the public letter-writer continues to drive a brisk trade even among a population fairly well-educated.
  4. Of what, does not appear.