The old refrain that ''only the brave deserve the fair" is not admitted by many Japanese j mothers to-day, they virtually acting on the premise that they did not bring up their girls to wea a soldier. The glamour of gilt braid and brass buttons gleaming ea naval or military uniforms is fast losing all fascination for the marriageable daughters of Tokio, and practical mammas in Japan agree with their daughters that a good bank account is far better bait than a gay uniform and that the pompously clothed subaltern er middy is decidedly persona non grata as @ matrimonial possibility, unless—and this is very, very seldom the case—the professional fighting man has also a tidy incom: of his own besides the pittance he receives for serving his country.
There are many reasons for this feminine reaction. First and foremost, the emoluments of the services are far below the dizzy heights to which the prices of all commodities in Japan have soared; secondly the girls declare that it ts very hard for them to row the matrimonial boat with a military or naval husband, as the professional fighter demands unflinching obedience and maintains in the home a species of discipline more fitted for the barracks or the quarter-deck; last, but not least, ever since Germany's war bubble was pricked, the prestige of the fighting men has been on the decline and the recent results of the Washington Conference, with so many Officers out of jobs, has dealt the much-vaunted fighting business another blow.
What, however, is regarded the most unkindest out of all by the would-be soldier and sailor husbands is that this matrimonial boycott is not confined to the civilis.1 population alone. The wives and daughters of military and naval men have also unfurled the flag revolt and joined the ranks of those who disdain to link their lives with soldier or sailor husbands.
Not a single one of Admiral Togo's daughters married a fighting fan, while the same is true of the daughters of General Kuroki, the man who is credited with having humbled the Russian bear on the plains of Manchuria, Quite recently, the wife of Captain Sug. of the Japanese Genera] Staff, in the course of a speech delivered before a Tokio women's organization, declared that although she had married a soldier, she would do her very best to prevent her daughters from taking for life the luxury of a gay uniformed, but Jean-pursed, young The climax at this meeting was man from the fighting services.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.