Within the past few weeks reports of a number of distressing suicides in Japan, consequent upon the financial debacle, have been received. One Osaka merchant whose liabilities totalled Y.4,000,000 took his life, as the most ' ample apology he could make, the report said, for his failure to meet his engagements, while a few days afterwards a banker followed suit. Statistics have now been given out in Japan showing that those attempting to take their -lives by throwing themselves in the" front' of an oncoming train are numbered at 1,300. We take it that these figures refer to the present year, although it is not expressly stated. and it is pointed out that nervous prostration is apparently at the root of the trouble, while observers also note that the hot summer weather is a factor tending to an_ increase in the number of suicides. It might be presumed from this report, coming on top of the recent crisis, that the Japanese are tending towards hysteria, as an accompaniment to their rapid advance in western civilization. It may possibly be, but we have to remember that when the first of the recent tragedies took place, the Japanese press hailed it as a "magnificent. suicide", and comment was made upon the ancient respect of the race for this form of death. Tradition is hard to kill, but none the less it is distressing, and even disconcerting, to find such a recurrence at a time like the present when it is necessary to show a brave attitude in the face of threatening catastrophe.
H.M.S. Widgeon Fired On News has been received that M.S. Widgeon was fired upon, on the gnd instant, when passing Chungehow on the Yangtze, which is between Wanhsien and Chungking. She thereupon fired a blank shot in return, but, as this had no effect, she let fly one shot from a six-pounder. Thereupon the firing from the bank ceased and subsequently the Chinese general—his name is not given, nor is the origin of his troops,' when ther Szechuanese, Kueichow men, Yunnanese or what—came on board with an apology, which was accepted. The men who had fired on the Widgeon were, moreover, punished. "So ends this particular episode. But the firing on ships on the Upper Yangtze is becoming too much of an every-day affair. The story of the Woodcock, which we told yesterday, had a comic side, and is more excusable in that the Southerners were really in pursuit of opponents and, coming from far inland, might with some justice plead ignorance. But hardly a week passes nowadays without news of some ship being fired on, and the ordinary, peaceable business of this great highway is being seriously injured by the ill conduct of irresponsible, undisciplined troops.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.