Tokyo, Oct, 28.
Tokyo went wild with joy today when the officially-sanctioned week-Jong celebration of the fall of Hankow began. From daybreak innumerable processions of marchers, waving flags and led by bands, converged on the Plaza in front of the Imperial Palace.
Apart from regimented battalions, "which an elaborate machinery can pour, out whenever occasion demands, thousands upon thousands participated unbidden as a spontaneous expression of joy An air of undeniable optimism prevailed, for despite official pronouncements describing the fall of Hankow as marking only a new phase in the Sino-Japanese hostilities the general-public appear confident that large-scale warfare has already ended and peace, though it may be delayed, is in sight.
The crowds demonstrating at the Plaza in front of the Palace burst into frenzied cheers this morning when the Empress appeared at Nijubashi, or the double bridge linking the Plaza with tie Palace.
But enthusiasm reached a point of delirium when the Emperor, mounted on his favourite charger "White Snow," on which he had. been taking his daily exercise, appeared on the bridge at 306.
Only a few times in the whole history of Japan has a monarch appeared in public for the express purpose of acknowledging the greetings of his subjects, and today marked the first such appearance of the present ruler.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.