The Daily Express of Monday prints an interesting letter from
its Tokio correspondent on the spirit and temper of the Japanese people in the present war. One striking instance is that of a widow who committed suicide when she discovered that her only son refrained from volunteering because he was her sole support. Another story, told the correspondent at the War Office in Tokio, was of seven old men who sent a letter written in their blood, begging that, as military regulations debarred them from serving in the Regular Army, they might be allowed to form a "battotai," or battalion of swordsmen, who, in feudal times, rushed at the enemy with blades un- sheathed. Numbers of letters have also been received from schoolboys under the age-limit offering to go to the front as servants or in any capacity. Discipline, intelligence, and equipment are powerful assets in a national. struggle; but what renders the Japanese so peculiarly formidable is that their efficiency is backed by a fervid patriotism animating all ranks and ages. The nation forms one vast forlorn hope.
The German Staff consoles itself for the unexpected successes of the Japanese Army by believing that that Army
