JAPANESE HEROISM.

Hot Lakes Chronicle, Volume 2, Issue 118, 6 March 1895, Page 4

JAPANESE HEROISM.

In llis Japan Weekly Mail are two nstances of heroism during the wr.r hat illustrate the pluck of the fapanese. The first is the story of a >rave seaman on board the Itsukuihima Kan, who was shot while enleavoring to fave the powder maga;ine. The man was a marine who had jeen toid to stand as sentry on gua<'d it the entrance Df the powder magazine. During tlie hottest part of tha •aval engagement, that of Hai-yang, die ItFukusliima was so steered that she shot 3 of the enemy's small-armH jeemed to concentrate in the vicinity jf tlie vital point, and noticing this the sentry fearlessly ei.ieavoured to ;c,ver the wholo doorway with his lior] J*. In this he was wholly success.Fnl, not a builet reaching the interior dE the maqi'.ine. When the affair was over, relief was sent to the faitlifull guardian, who was seen still standing at his post, with a somewhat troubled expression on his countenance. He was discovered to bo stone dead, and literally honeycombed with bullets, of which no less than thirtyfix had struck him. 0£ course, death bad ensued long before his wounds reached that terrible total, but even in death his body hod continued to guard the post kept so fearlessly and so well in life. The Fuzoku G-uho gives an account of a very dariDg feat performed by an infantry soldier just before the Phvongyang battle. Boats were imperatively necessary, but every available craft in the neighborhood had either been requisitioned by the Chinese or else moored on their side of the Tai dong liiver. One of the Japanese volunteered to go across alone and fetch at least one of these boats, and on receiving permission to make the trial he swam across, mostly under water and in the face of a storm of bullets, unmoored one of the smaller junks and. towed her back to his start" ing place, He escaped without a wound, much to the satisfaction of hia regiment. The bold fellow is said to be the Btoutest and moat iutrepid swimmer in the army.