Tokyo, April 25.
'Another politician, hitherto regarded as "perfectly upright and a model of integrity" has' fallen foul of the law, as the result of the notorious revelations made in the last session of the Diet with rex gard to the bribery resorted to in connexion with removing the Osaka Hicensed quarter from the centre of Japan's commercial metropolis to a suburb of that city.
This is Mr. Katsudo Minoura, who once held the portfolio of ions and who, until his adviser of the Kenseikai (pro-Government) party. The arrest has shocked the public and the press. He is one of the only five men who have been able to secure a seat in every Diet election ever since Japan was given her toy parlia. ment.
He was formally arrested in Tokyo and, under the escort of a police sergeant, was taken secretly to Osaka, Here, the preliminary and he was charged with fraud and remanded to the Osaka gaol pending the hhoaring of the case.
The accused is 72 years of age, and, in consideration of this and of the high positions he has held, he was carefully protected from camera men and taken to gaol in a closed ricsha, instead of in the usual Black Mona, Mr, Minoura is alleged to have received a Lube of Yen 50,000 in connexion with the movement launched to change tthe location of Osaka's counterpart of the Yoshiwara, The prosecution declares that it is in possession of the receipt Minoura gave for the Yen 50,000 in question.
Cherry Blossom Time for Criminals Promiscuous transfers of bicycles from Tokyo to country towns and vice versa is one form of crime very much in evidence at the present time, according to the police. Realizing fully well the futility and danger of trying to dispose of stolen cycles in the same place as they were "lifted" from, the thieves, dispatch them to a confederate working in some other district. Owners of cycles are, consequently, getting more careful as to where, they "park" their machines. result of these promiscuous thefts is that hardware deal reporting increasing business fin padlocks.
That crime is more prevalent now than at any time in the past, 25 years is the statement made by the Chief of Police to your correspondent, The large number of unemployed is giv cause of this unhealthy "The wonder is not that an ray, military moustache, told "The wonder is that worse things have not taken place."
While cherry blossom viewers! stroll about in holiday mood, careless and care-free, pickpockets have been very busy. Country folks are the greatest sufferers in thi _respect. Tokyoites now know that the best way to carry money is to tuck the purse tightly between the folds of the obi (broad, sash-like belt). The country folks coming. te Tokyo to see the cherry blossoms have yet to learn this, and the umber of purses that have been filched from kimono sleeves by the light-fingered fraternity this spring is a record, according to police statistics.
One way of fooling housewives is to hang around police stations and obtain the addresses, in some way or another, of prosperous-looking individuals' who, having dined not wisely but too well, create disturbances in restaurants or in geisha houses. The police generally take these temporarily-disabled patrons and put them in the "hoose gow" until their temperature and temperament have returned to normal. It ig then that the rogues get busy. Dressed in some sort of uniform, they would call on the wife of a. man so held'and enlarge upon the gravity of his offence. During the S"hundeed yen might. wolve the whole trouble. What—faithful spouse would not seek to secure the release of the erring and wandering, but indispensable, hubby?
Flappers of "Clover League"
"Tig Sunday morn tu Tokyo street Some are tall and others small, each Here are no rage Even though th slkey she pleads and. chatters n'a Police Station ell Rubber-soled Japanese con (sandals of the "society" lass here) and French heels tapped away in the stone interior of a grimy police cell in Akasaka station this morning when the Tokyo Police cast its dragnet secretly ang—"'nabbed"" 15 Japanese flappers belonging to what is known as the "Clover, League." This is part of a moral, cleansing that the Chief of the Akasaka Police Station decided to} institute throughout, the districts: that come within his jurisdiction. Some of the girls foreign clothes and dresses; while those also attired in just as expensive and gay feathers. All were dressed to bent the band.
Towards the wee, sma' hours vf this morning, a detective saw one} of these luxuriously-gowned girls stepping out of a taxicab. He placed her under arrest and took her to the Police Station where her tale of how she had fallen heir to. stunning sartorial splendour failed to_convinee the Chief of Police. He promptly put her in a dark, bare cell and here she squealed" on her other pals in the Clover League." By mid-day she. had 14 other companions who were traced from here and there and everywhere.
"The lure of luxury seems to be getting too much for the young 4 women of this city," the Chief of Police remarked duly, "and I am going to take those in my ward in hand. They simply haven't the strength of character to resist Jewels and furs and silks and per-'a nuisance and He then put the girls through a criss-cross fire of queries and the cross-examination revealed that all of then live by their wits and often by the extravagances of the gay young Lotharios of Tokyo. But the name "Clover League" puzzled the Chief of Police, What did it signify? The girls maintained {t) signified nothing. They banded themselves together and had to have a name. That What's in a name anyway? they asked the Police Chief.
But one of the senior officers, who had studied English, was mean time looking up dictionaries and vade me-cums, He advanced a solution which the Chief of Police received with glee and which caused a crestfallen look to take shat the tear-stained faces of the Hence the name—appropriate.|—of the League."
The girls spent Sunday, until six o'clock in the police cell, and were then released. The Police Chief told them to go and get something to do, something proper and respectable, or else—why there was always a cell for them and he would keep them longer the next time.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.