THE JAPANESE MAN-OF-WAR AT SYDNEY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6053, 12 April 1881, Page 6

THE JAPANESE MAN-OF-WAR AT SYDNEY.

His - Imperial Japanese Majesty's ship Riujio, which put into Sydney a few days ago for coal, will leave at 10 a.m. to-day (says the Herald of the 4th), in continuation of her journey to Melbourne, and after a short stay at the southern metropolis will-go to Hobart, and thence to New Zealand. On Friday and Sunday afternoons, when she was thrown'open for public inspection, her decks were thronged with visitors. She presented a pleasant spectacle, with every rope and block in its place, every bit of metal about her bright ._and clean, and everything showing that scrupulous neatness which is so characteristic of the British warship. The Riujio looks indeed more like an English vessel than one belonging to a nation like the Japanese, which until recently had kept itself jealously apart from the rest of . the world for many centuries. The uniform dress is copied from the British navy, the discipline is the same, and •whenever an article not peculiarly Japanese has to be spoken of, its English name is used. Between decks the men mess together as English sailors do ; but in their hours of leisure their national tastes and habits show themselves. Then they break into groups, some to study English, or to write letters in queer Japanese characters ; some to listen to a story or ballad recited by one of their number ; some to patch and mend their clothes; and some to squat in a circle round a big spittoon, and smoke fragant Japanese tobacco from pipes with bowls like a little girl's brass thimble. Saturday afternoon was a holiday, and in this way did most of the men enjoy it. The Riujio carries, in addition to her officers and crew, 35 sea cadets, appointed after they had spent four years' in training at a college in Tokio, and passed a competitive examination. Officers, cadets, and seamen have been on leave in Sydney, and it speaks well for the Japanese character that not a single case of drunkenness has cropped up, nor has there been any of that disorderly horseplay which with Europeans is so frequently indulged in by Jack ashore.