Nineteen Months Since Earthquake and Nothing But Sham and Red Tape how Our Oww Contpsronpext.
Tokyo, Mar. 24, Full 19 months have passed since the earthquake and there is riot a single permanent building yet rected in the devastated area New buildings have crept up, bat these ure in those sections of the: city where neither fire nor quake two toll; a few good buildings have een put ap in the ruined regions Uut_ the iron framework and concrete founilations of these had alrendy been laid before the blow' fell, To say that nothing even remotely resembling permanent fire-fand-quake-proof structures has been yet erected, far from being an ex-Aggeration, is merely the cold truth, Visitors come here and go away raving about the wonderful manner in, which Tokyo has been reconstructed and attributing to the jpaneve virtues that belong to Super-race, These good folks are the fly-by-night tourists and transients who. are officially and semi-officially chaperoned around!
ist such places as the authorities wish them to. see. They are ignorant of the fact that the entire city was not destroyed; or else Tubour under the illusion that the tins shanties and mud-and-plaster edifices, cleverly camouflaged to verembie strong conerete buildings, tive decent structures. Tokyo to-day ix better fuel for fire than it ever wax before the great earthquake. 'There seems to be no building law whatsoever, or if there is, no heed is paid to' its observance, Tokyo has' been merely re-built, a totally Gilfevent thing from proper reconstruction, Proper and permanent reconstruction of Japan's capital Tans yet to com
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.