The account given above of the actual incident is from the official Russian version as appearing in the Russian Government Messenger at the time, and the details of the happenings that followed it are largely taken from sources in Japan, and also from a fabulous tome of more than one thousand pages written shortly afterwards by Prince Ookhtomsky describing the Cesarevitch's travels in the Far East.
Those Russian accounts agree with the Japanese version at the time that the cause of the incident was no deeper than a psychological outburst of the disordered mind of one man. Those Russian accounts further show that the Czarevitch shared, as did the world at large, a real understanding and sympathy for the distress that the Emperor and Japan suffered as a result of this unfortunate event.
Certainly the action of the Emperor and his people stands out as a pattern of the amende honourable that other countries, and Japan also, might well have followed at times during the next half century. Had it been accepted by later generations as a pattern of conduct the whole course of world history might have been vastly different.
The Review of Reviews for June, 1896, carried an article purporting to give a translated extract from a letter said to have been written by Prince George of Greece to his father, wherein the Prince is alleged to have stated:
We passed through a narrow street decorated with flags and filled with crowds of people on both sides of the thoroughfare. I was looking towards the left when I suddenly heard something like a shriek in front of me and saw a policeman hitting Nicky a blow on the head with his sword, which he held in both hands. Nicky jumped out of the rickshaw and the policeman ran after him. Blood was flow-ing down Nicky's face. When I saw this I too jumped out with my stick in my hand and ran after the policeman who was about fifteen paces in front of me. Nicky ran into a shop but came out again immediately which enabled the policeman to overtake him, but /, thank God, was there in the same moment and while the policeman still had his sword high in the air I gave him a blow so hard that he had never experienced a similar one before. He now turned against me, but fainted and fell to the ground. Then two of the rickshaw pullers appeared on the scene; one got hold of his legs, while the other took up the sword which he had dropped in the falling and gave him a wound on the back of his head.
It was God who placed me there in that moment and who gave me the strength to deal that blow, for had I been a moment later, the policeman had perhaps cut off Nicky's head.....
A writer in the Independent of New York referred to the spread of the story of Prince George's heroism as a modern example of myth making. It does, however, appear that Prince George did perhaps contribute in some measure to the saving of the Czarevitch although not quite in the heroic manner in which he is alleged to have described his part.
It has been said that immediately following the incident, the Emperor ordered that Tsuda should be executed without delay, but his advisers had to point out that under the constitution which he had granted his people Tsuda would have to stand trial, but that in any case he could not be executed for assault and injury and at the most he could only be given a long term of imprisonment. The Emperor was not pleased with this news; he reiterated that Tsuda would be executed.* His advisers insisted that could not be, and so he bowed, although most unwillingly, to his own laws and thus in due course of time there terminated an unfortunate incident that could have had the gravest consequences, but which in fact strengthened the love which the people of Japan had for their monarch and added to the respect of the world abroad for Emperor Meiji.
Footnote
* Tsuda Sanzo died in prison seven years later. His death was seemingly of a suicidal nature, brought about by a refusal to eat.
PLATE I
Zempukuji in Yedo in 1859. Temple where the first U.S. Legation was located during the sojourn of Townsend Harris, first American envoy in Japan. (Courtesy of F.D. Burrows, Esq.)
PLATE II
Tozenji in Yedo in 1859. Temple where the first British Legation was located. (Courtesy of F.D. Burrows, Esq.)
PLATE III
Mansion of the Daimyo of.Satsuma in Yedo, 1859—typical of the homes in which members of the families of provincial governors lived as hostages in Yedo during the Tokugawa era. (Courtesy of F.D. Burrows, Esq.)
PLATE IV
Tokaido in 1860's near the former post town of Moto-Hakone. (Courtesy of F.D. Burrows, Esq.)
PLATE V
Tokaido at Kanagawa, showing barrier gates and guardhouse about 1860. (Courtesy of F.D. Burrows, Esq.)
PLATE VI
Eleven monuments at Hojuji Temple, Sakai, of the eleven Tosa men who were executed in connection with the Sakai massacre. See chapter, "The Sakai Massacre."
PLATE VII
Head of Mamiya Hajime on view at Yokohama after execution. See Chapter, 'Murder near the Daibutsu" (Courtesy of L.J. Nuzum, Esq.)
PLATE VIII
A courtesan (generally referred to in Japanese publications as a "beauty" or "entertainer") by Utamaro. See chapter, "The Yoshiwara Ladies and Pinup Girls."
THE
FORGOTTEN
MEDALS
Honours are shadows, which from seekers fly;
But follow after those who them deny.
Richard Baxter—"Love Breathing Thanks "
When Lord Elgin, or the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, to give His Lordship his full title, arrived in Japan in 1858 to conclude a treaty, he proceeded to Shimoda where he saw the Stars and Stripes flying over Townsend Harris' first U.S. Consulate at Oyster Point. The following day he entertained the Governor of Shimoda and his suite at luncheon. On hearing one of his Japanese guests refuse Curasao and ask for Maraschino, Elgin concluded the Japanese were wider awake than they admitted and he decided to waste little time in the outer office of Shimoda but to make for the capital as soon as possible. In any case he thought so little of Oyster Point as a place for his Embassy that brushing aside all opposition he promptly sailed up the bay for Yedo where he demanded a suitable residence ashore.
A demand from any foreign envoy for a suitable residence in Yedo would have been bad enough, but coming from the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine it was doubly bad, because they had assumed that there were two personages, one Elgin and the other Kincardine. On learning something about the intricacies of English titles they were relieved to know that only one envoy had arrived, not two.
Lord Elgin quickly got down to business and a treaty was soon signed, the British using pens and the Japanese brushes, which were then exchanged as souvenirs.
The first British Minister, Sir Rutherford Alcock arrived in the following year and was provided with the commodious temple of Tozenji at Takanawa in the city of Yedo, for his residence and legation. As was not unusual on such occasions the Japanese authorities made available to the newcomers a Buddhist temple as a place of residence. Apart from official buildings, which obviously could not be handed over, there were in those days few suitable buildings other than temples available. Townsend Harris had much earlier been furnished with a Buddhist temple for his place of abode and to serve as a U.S. Consulate.
In 1859 when the port of Yokohama was opened, the British, American, French and Dutch Consuls each had their offices and residences in temples in Kanagawa. Some of the foreign missionaries likewise were accommodated in Buddhist temples, but although not at that time noted for their tolerance it is not recorded whether, as in the case of a certain Prefectural governor on taking over office in recent years, they first conducted a religious service to purify the premises after the presence of the previous incumbents.
Again in 1868 when the port of Kobe was opened some of the foreign merchants were at first given accommodation in various temples, and some in sake godowns.
Around a hundred years ago when the Treaty Ports in Japan were first opened there were more Japanese then than now who believed that Japan would be better off if the foreigners could be forced to leave the country, and within a few months of the first arrivals a long series of assassinations occurred.
Three Russians attached to a diplomatic mission in Yokohama were murdered, soon to be followed by the killing of a Chinese servant of the French Consulate, and of a Japanese interpreter attached to the British Legation in Yedo. The French Legation was then fired and a few weeks later two Dutch merchants were cut to death in Main Street, Yokohama. Then within a year Heusken, secretary and Dutch interpreter to U.S. Consul-General Townsend Harris was murdered whilst proceeding on horseback along a street in Yedo under protection of the Tycoon's guard. (Even at a later date than this, members of the British Legation were forbidden to leave the legation compound unless accompanied by four or five Japanese guards and at least one English mounted constable.) All this lawlessness within less than two years!
Then on the night of 4th July, 1861, fourteen two-sworded men entered into a pact to attack the British Legation and kill the five British members. The Legation was guarded by 150 Japanese guards detached for that purpose by the Shogun's Government, but not all would have been on duty at the time. Despite the brave and resolute defence put up by those guards, several of whom were killed, they were unable to repel the fourteen samurai who carried out their surprise attack with all the reckless valour of their class.
The assailants gained an entry into the Legation but were there met with such resistance from the Englishmen who were armed with pistols, that they withdrew leaving behind one dead. Several of the Legation members were seriously wounded with sword cuts.
Each of the assailants carried a sealed pact reading:
Although I am a person of low standing, I have not the patience to stand by, and see the sacred Empire defiled by the foreigner----If this thing that we are to do, may cause the foreigners to retire from our country....I shall take to myself the highest praise.
Although the Shogunate gave assurances that every effort would be made to apprehend and punish the offenders, several months elapsed before they dared arrest any of them. They then secretly executed three of the assailants in prison, and exposed their heads on the tops of pikes at the public execution ground. The Shogunate Government did not dare make it known that the men had really been executed for the offence of attacking the Legation. Instead the placards underneath stated that they were criminals who had been executed for breaking into a temple and stealing.
It was this incident and the sincere confession of the Japanese authorities that they were powerless to prevent such attacks that decided the British and French ministers to have their own guards and so led to the garrisoning of British and French troops in Yokohama for a period of about seven years or more, until about 1871.
In grateful recognition of the bravery of the Japanese guards, Queen Victoria had one gold and eighty-two silver medals struck off; but as the Tokugawa Government of that time refused to supply the names of the guards who had earned the decorations, which decorations would have marked the men as traitors in the eyes of most of their fellow-countrymen, the medals were packed away in a chest in the Legation, awaiting a change in public feeling when it was hoped the presentation could be made. The Tokugawa Government was strong enough to impose on its daimyo retainers the duty of posting guards to protect the foreign legations, but if the discharge of that duty was to include the unenviable distinction of being publicly decorated by the hated foreign powers, the guards would have been reluctant to continue their duties.
New legation buildings were constructed a few years later, but immediately they were completed they were set on fire by another band of samurai and so in course of time the British Embassy was moved to its present site in Kojimachi, facing the moat of the Imperial Palace. In one corner of the building, long since pulled down, was an enormous tower which Sir Harry Parkes insisted be built as a fitting place from which to fly the British flag. Only when the tower was completed was it discovered that any flag flown from that tower would be fluttering higher than the roofs of the Imperial Palace across the moat. A flagstaff had then to be constructed from ground level, and thereafter the tower was used to house a huge water tank, to the great alarm during earthquakes of all in the Embassy. Indeed it was somewhat irreverently whispered at that time in British diplomatic circles, mostly by junior secretaries, that the greatest hazard of the ambassadorship in Tokyo was the ever present possibility of His Excellency's enthusiasm becoming wetted at some unforeseen moment.
(Eventually the tower did come tumbling down. That was in the big earthquake of 20th June, 1894, but nobody at that late date held it against Sir Harry, because almost every other Legation in Tokyo suffered most serious damage—all in fact with the exception of the Belgian Legation, where according to Baroness d'Anethan's diary the loss was limited to a "few old empty beer bottles." The lady in question was Rider Haggard's sister and the wife of the Belgian Ambassador, and so should know.)
The circumstances of Sir Harry Parkes' flag-tower were forgotten by subsequent generations, but the outline of the story lingered on and is still told to-day with modifications and imaginary frills and with the locale being shifted from the British Embassy to one of the many tall buildings that line the Plaza in front of the Imperial Palace. Most foreigners residing in Tokyo are shown at one time or another by one of their knowledgeable friends some building which is alleged to have had the top story lopped off to prevent the occupants looking down upon the Emperor!
But let us return to the subject of this article. The years went by. The Embassy grew in size. Ambassadors came and went. The archives of the Embassy accumulated but during those times an old chest, believed to contain old accounts was shifted from place to place. The key had long since been lost, but it was of no consequence. Then came a time in 1889 when a secretary in the chancery, imbued with what is not always deemed to be a diplomatic virtue, decided to disturb the dust of years, and in a general cleanup broke open the old chest. Then it was that the gold and silver medals and the parchment citations of bravery on the part of the Japanese guards in defending the Legation twenty-seven years before came to light. After much effort one or two of the Japanese guards for whom the medals had been struck were located. One subsequently became editor of the Nichi Nichi Shimbun. However, those were the days when the mercantile community still lived far apart from its consular and diplomatic representatives. The foreign press was not slow to take advantage of the discovery and added to the general amusement over the happening by offering the not very helpful suggestion that the Embassy should wait a little longer and then in a single ceremony hang the medals on the gravestones of all the recipients. In the circumstances it is not surprising that the Embassy observed a certain reticence over the matter, and so it cannot be told with absolute certainty in this article what was the ultimate fate of all those forgotten medals.
THE
CAREW
CASE
Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.
SHAKESPEARE—"Hamlet"
I had known for a long time that many people believed that Mrs. Carew had murdered her husband.
Edith, that is to say Mrs. Carew, was well-known in the small foreign community of Yokohama, and many were glad to call her a friend. She was bright, attractive, and refined. She was a good horsewoman and enjoyed the company of the younger and brighter set—that is to say younger and brighter men than her husband—no less than they enjoyed her company. Walter, that is to say Mr. Carew, he was... well, maybe I am prejudiced. His friends at the Club liked him, and he had many friends. According to one of their servants:
The master had a liver, and he drank a fair bit, but you know what clubmen are.
He was manager of one of the gentlemen's clubs in Japan—the Yokohama United Club. Actually I did not know either of them. In point of fact Mr. Carew died of arsenic poisoning before I was born.
I do confess (and so far as I know this is the only confession in the case) Mrs. Carew had such a fascination for me that for a long while I attempted, but without much success, to learn more about her. Eventually I forgot her, as I imagine most other people had also, until some years ago w
hen I was outside of Japan and I happened to be reading a very old issue of the London Saturday Review, actually of the year 1897, my attention was caught by an article on the Carew Case. It may have been inspired by Mrs. Carew's friends. In commenting upon the trial it referred to the "scandalous manner" of the postmortem examination, the "improper admission" of certain evidence, the "licence accorded witnesses," and the "misdirection of the jury" which only consisted of five men. It ended with the pungent comment:
.. We are certain that no English jury would have convicted her... One thing is at least clear, that a more lamentable exhibition of bemuddlement and imbecility on the part of all concerned in the trial at Yokohama has never disgraced English legislation...
My interest was so re-aroused that I immediately endeavoured to locate a descriptive and detailed account of the trial. Remembering what a stir it had caused among foreign circles in Japan, I imagined that would not be difficult. To my astonishment I failed to find any mention of the case in the London Times, the New York Times, or the New York Daily Tribune for the years 1896-1898, which I suppose only goes to show that the news services in those days were not as well organised as now to gather dirt from the gutters, the boudoirs, and the drawing rooms.
When I found that the case was not even mentioned in such authoritative books as Notable Trials, Famous Poison Trials, Crimes in High Life or Women Bluebeards my interest in Mrs. Carew perceptibly waned. The search continued however and in the years that followed I must have scanned through thousands of pages of newspapers, all without success. For assistance in my long drawn out search I am indebted to patient librarians at the Oriental Library and the historical section of the Tokyo Imperial University, but most of all to courteous officials of the Ueno Public Library who permitted me to descend into the depths of the cellar storerooms and finger the dust-encrusted papers of bygone days. Then suddenly in an unexpected quarter I stumbled upon the court record. Since then I have made quite a study of the case.
Shades of the Past Page 13