The date for the wedding of Prince Takamatsu, younger brother of the Emperor, with Miss Kiku-ko Tokugawa, grand-daughter of the last of the Tokugawa Shoguns, who ruled Japan through the medium of a military dictatorship for close on 300 years, has been tentatively fixed for February 6. The official date will be announced towards the end of this month, when priests and astrologers have reported whether those choosing this date were correct in regarding it an auspicious one, and a special many will then be held, for the Emperor to announce the date to the Imperial Ancestors' in the speial shrine within the palace grounds.
"The wedding will be solemnized in the Imperial Palace, after which a grand reception is to be given in the Akasaka Detached Palace, where H. R, H. the Prince of Wales resided during his visit to Japan and where the Emperor resided as Prince ally' moving into following his enthronement, After their wedding, Prince and Princess Takamatsu will pay visits to all the principal which he further declared to the] the "minimum defence strength standard" of Japan, that the nation is determined "to have sufficient warlike strength to defend the country from any outside attack, Although Mr. Wakatsuki has reiterated on several occasions that Japan will remain adamant with, regard to her 10-7 claim, there are many who believe that this i: just good bargaining tactics and that the financial condition of the country is not such as would permit Mr, Wakatsuki to reject any alternative plan that, while no! involving Japan's security, would permit substantial reductions in naval expenditure and, nutomatically, would tend to lighten the heavy burden of taxation.
These think that Mr, Wakatsuki, like the and. many others, have swal we ms_and propaganda put forth by hook, tine, and ' sinker th
the Navy authorities, but that 4 there will have to be a give-and: take spirit at London and that such accommodation could be arranged to the satisfaction of all, Death Sentence Abolition A. now code of the criminal laws of Japan, work on the revision of which was started some nine ago, will be completed in another Sew weeks, Tt has given occasion for a bitter the younger and older offd controversy between! in the Department of Justice in regard the abolition of the death penalty, The younger group contend that execution is a relic of barbaric days, and suggests that life imprisonment, should be substituted for it, This, they say, will not only give the criminal an opportunity of reforming, but woul make him recompense the State well as the family of his viet thereby indemnifying the State and the victim and making some restitution, in addition to affording him a etter opportunity for really atone ing for his crime. The older offi. einls are opposed to the abolition the death sentence and firm insist that the extreme penalty exacted by the law is the onl; effective deterrent in. so far a: 8 potential murderers are concerned.
'A tentative bill being drafted whereby judges called upon to pronounce the death sentence as seldom as possible and, instead, to increase the length of sentence: for grave offences by a few more years, this. including indeterminate sentence on which a condi can be re-arrested and incarcerated on the expiry of his sentence, however long, if the authorities "deem it dangerous to society to set such criminal at liberty.
'Another change in, the revisee criminal code gives women th right to institute legal _actio against their husbands for adultery. 'At present, women have' no hold whatever on men in this respect, at a man can' sue his wife for in Japan, particularly to Ghose at Ts6 astoclted with, the foundress of the and to the Meiji Shrine, where the bridegroom' deified' grandfather is buried; and will announce their marriage at all these shrines. They will then go on a tour of the world, proceeding first to England, where Prince Takamatsu will return the visit of the Duke of Gloucester and will take with him special gifts sent by the Emperor and Empress to the British Royal Family.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.