FORMOSANS IN LONDON.

Colonist, Volume LIII, Issue 13109, 18 May 1911, Page 4

FORMOSANS IN LONDON.

Truth is proverbially stranger than fiction, and it is questionable whether any mere effort of the imagination could hope to equal in interest the narrative recording the actual impressions produced! on the minds of the head-hunters from the island of Formosa (now a Japanese possession), who visited London during the run of the Anglo-Japanese Exhibition, and formed one of its most interesting "side-shows." The savages were interviewed by the representative of a Japanese paper on their return to Japan en route for their island home, and excellent "copy" was made out of their story. The Formosans said the people of London tried to mnke them believe that the great buildings there were the work of men's hands. It wont, of course, without saying, that these huge structures of stone and of iron and steel, and also the cars which liew along steel rails were brought into being by some powerful god. The dusky visitors were duly presented to King George at Buckingham Palace, but were not much impressed. Even a small chief, in Formosa, thay said, would have a retinue of at least fifty men, while King George had only four or five men about him—"and they didn't look much like warriors, either!" The spectacle of men and women walking about tha streets of London arm-in-arm filled the men from Formosa with surprise and disgust. They wondered that the people of England were not ashamed to be seen on such occasions. What kind of civilisation was it that permitted men and women to assume such familiarity in public? The beauty of Hyde Park, with its wide, grass-clad spaces, failed to appeal to the visitors. Why so much fine land should bo alJowcd to lie idle ami unproductive when it might be yielding potatoes in abundance,, they could not understand. There was no such waste in Formosa