"JOHN BULLESSES."

MR. YOSHIO MARKINO has already captivated the British public. When he told John Bull what " A Japanese Artist" thought about life in London, he held him

spellbound from the first chapter to the last. The typical Englishman was delighted that his portrait should be painted by this gentle Oriental of genius. The picture flattered and

amused him in a high degree. Encouraged by his success, Mr. Markino has set down in his much-admired English,

transparent in its conscious foreignness, brilliant in its ungrammatical precision, what he thinks of British women- " My Idealed John Bullesses " (Constable and Co„ Gs.) he calls them. The title cannot fail, we think, to make John Bull restive, but the charm of the Japanese will force him to listen in spite of himself.

How do our wives and daughters impress this Eastern stranger, who has been fourteen years within our gates ? His courtesy is exquisite. His attitude towards "The Queen of the John Bullesses " is the attitude which he assumes towards the majority of her feminine subjects. "May the graceful Queen forgive my dreadfully ragged English, for my heart is in the full uniform before her Majesty." We say the majority advisedly, for Mr. Markino's chivalry fails him where we should least expect. He finds the old women of England unamiable, and excuses them upon the ground that they perceive his want of regard for them. He could not know that the excuse is not true, but surely a Japanese artist should have known that it is not pretty. Little John Bullesses are, he declares, the most charming children in the world—the least self-conscious, the most innocent, the most attractive in their unfailing happiness. It is said, says our artist, that the English are hypocrites. He inclines to believe the saying. On the other hand, lie strongly maintains that the effect of their hypocrisy is good. It is in England, he thinks, that the truest love and respect between age and youth is to be found. " Those simple-minded children believe everybody is the sage, and they can grow quite innocent." A life of constant occupationand outdoor sports, shared with their brothers, keeps English girls from self-consciousness, senti- mentality, and foolish romance. They aro too happy to be morbid. " The gain is very great, both ethically and physically." Other European young women compare ill with them, he thinks. " I know personally many women in the other countries who have been entirely infatuated at their youthful time," and though "they have too high ethic to be ruined then, they generally get into melancholy fit." In England Mr. Markino sees no " melancholy fit," nothing but happiness and good fellowship. The young John Bullesses are good comrades to the young John Bulls, and difference of sex is very much forgotten by them. He himself, he naively explains, has asked three seemingly friendly young women to marry him, but they would not. " I felt the pain in my heart" when he saw the object of his latest passion in company with her chosen husband. He is shocked at his own jealousy. "Am I more worthless than what I have been thinking P" he says to himself, and he determines to be happy' in her happiness. " However my feelings contradicted against my reasonings " and " the pain in my heart did not vanish •

away easily."

The first impression of an Oriental who arrives in England is, Mr. Markino thinks, that the women arc wonderfully beautiful.

This impression is made by the crowd. Looked at as individuals he seems to think the verdict of an artist becomes a little less favourable. One reason is that they themselves care nothing for detail and think only of effect. Well-off Englishwomen dress well—better perhaps than any other nation "when they do not mock after the French," but they dress for the dis- tance and adorn a landscape more than any people—so he says. They think little of perfection in small matters. This peculiarity is a reflection of character. They are what he calls "broad-minded," by which he seems to mean intellectual, easy-going, and somewhat "vague." It is a curious generalization. Every Englishwoman takes risks, she is a first-rate home maker, but not a very serious housekeeper, partly because she is preoccupied with polities and her hus- band's business. She always gives her servants an opportunity

to steal—a thing impossible to a Japanese mistress of a family. Englishwomen are, we learnt reserved upon first

acquaintance, and we are told, to our surprise, that they are never noisy in company. It was a long time before our artist found out at a ladies' club that "they could be noisy when they felt homely." In the club dining room he could barely hear himself speak. " Surely these were warmly second persons to each other. I could hardly believe that these same John Bullesses behave themselves so cool and quiet when they are third persons to each other in the public places." Silence is a great characteristic of an English crowd, it seems. " The English people are generally very quiet. Once I went to Shepherd's Bush with my French friend. He said to me, Can you believe that there are some ten thousand people in this ground P Just shut your eyes, you would feel you were standing in a desert Yes, he was only too true. In France or in Japan they would make deafening noises."

But if the John Bullesses of Mr. Mivrkino's picture are un- self-conscious and thoughtful, they are from their earliest youth devoted to the ornamentation of their persons and the improvement of their " personalities "—habits which he ascribes to the fact that Englishwomen can never trust to their parents to marry them, but depend upon their own

power to please. They begin early, and after they are married they have made the habit and do not cease. No women, in his opinion, take so much pains to please their husbands. A Japanese woman, we are told, after the birth of her first child never gives another thought to her own attractions. "If you give some flowers to a Japanese girl, she would carry them home and put them in flower vases. But if you give flowers to John Bases, she would wear them immediately. It is not only flowers that John Bullesses want to wear. if I wear my national costume and pay a, visit upon some John Bullesses, every one of them always wants to wear my lime.' There is nothing, he goes on, which John Bullesses do not want to wear—" metals, stones, aniinale skins, dead leaves, and dead birds." It is a mania with them. He tells of a little girl whom he took for a country walk, and whom he could not restrain from picking an old hat out of a hedge and

putting it on I—though "I scolded her not to be so naughty." They are incorrigible, be complains, in this respect. They

are exactly like those little babies who always try to put everything into their mouths."

While Mr. Markin() writes ostensibly only abort England, he throws some sidelights upon Japan which will, we think, astonish the more ardent devotees of that astonishing country. The following paragraph will show what we mean :—

"I think I can carry out my logic—' the broad effect of Britons and small details of Japanese' into a larger scale. I mean to compare the two whole nationalities in this logic. The other day I met with an Englishman who had been in Japan for a few years. He said to me, ' Whenever I met with an iudividual Japanese I admired every one of them. They were very modest, polite, and charming. Even the low-class farmers in Japan could bo asso- ciated with the most refined English ladies and gentlemen. But the street scenes in Tokio were awfully shocking. On every corner of the street 1 saw the dreadful fighting going on. In the trains, trams, and 'buses they were struggling themselves to get the best seats. They were behaving themselves exactly like wild beasts. Now tell me if they were the same Japanese who were so audable when I saw them individually ? ' I said to him that he wits a very good observer, and his question itself proves my logic satisfactorily I They are exactly like their own art. They are quite refined individually. But the whole effect of their social life is out of tone. On the public life they becomes quite wild boasts, as that Englishman told me. Whereupon I am a great admirer of the English life."

It is, not for figure pictures--in wards or line—only

that we must thank Mr. Markin ; his sketches of nature are delightful. He describes the "gracious and benevolent trees " in Windsor Park and their " strengthy, big trunks." He tells how he went to look at them upon a day in early summer : " 0, how very refreshing it was to my world-tired soul! Evidently the full spring was come to the tops of the trees. But on the ground low beneath, nothing much was awakened from the 'winter bed yet. Only here and there young ferns timidly came out from the cool, moisted ground in the shape of question marks." Such a living paradise, he assures us, does not exist in Japan. "It is my nature to love those calniful and poetic views. They appeal to me far more than those enormous precipices,gorgeous turbuients, and all sorts of curious phenomena, which may be a good lesson of physical geography to study." " Gorgeous turbulents " is an addition to the language ! On the whole we gather that Mr. Markin() thinks that in England the height of civilization and the height of natural beauty are to be seen. But he quotes a Japanese proverb of fearful wisdom to make us think : " The bottom of lighthouses is very dark." We wish Mr. Markin would write a book on Japan.