No modern event in this country has so painfully agitated all classes as the attack on the Russian Prince Imperial which was made at a town called Otsu, near Kioto, four days ago, by a frenzied Japanese police constable.
The Prince, with his cousin and fellow-traveller, Prince George of Greece, reached Japan from China on the 27th ult., attended by a squadron of Russian war-vessels.
Great preparations in honour of this visit had been made by the Japanese Court, Government and people.
The Imperial tour, by sea and land, was to occupy a month, was to extend from Nagasaki, in the far south to Awomori at the northern extremity of this island, and was to include most of the chief cities and places of interest in the length and breadth of the land.
Russia's policy towards this empire has latterly been of a friendly kind; and, glad of the opportunity now afforded of manifesting Japan's own regard for her great northern neighbour, and of cementing the bond between them, the country was preapred to give the Heir Apparent to the Russian Throne a magnificent welcome, marked by all the heartiness, grace, and novelty which the Japanese are so well able to impart to these occasions.
That such a guest, at such a time, should have been the object of a murderous assault at the hands of a Japanese was in itself a fact sufficiently horrible to paralyze the heart of the nation - not to speak of its certain grievous effect on Japan's good name before the world.
It had the further sting that Japan's annals were thus for the first time made to wear the stain of an attack by one of her own people on the person of Royalty.
Read Full Article »