TATTOOED PEOPLE ASSEMBLE

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1935, Page 15 (Supplement)

TATTOOED PEOPLE ASSEMBLE

But ’’Champion” Was Absent From Tokyo Convention

GREAT OMI IS PATTERNED ON . BOTH FACE AND BODY RESPITE the fact that it is a mis-, demeanour, punishable by im* prigonment and fine, for a Japanese to have his person indelibly m.« scribed with the tattooeFs needle, a convention of tattooed people recently was staged in Tokyo, The alert police did not molest the delegates to the conclave because every one of them was able tq prove that he, or She, had not been tattooed within the past few years, since the ban has been in force, • When an Oriental makes up his mind to get himself tattooed, he does a thorough job of it and covers himself with the sort of red and blue skin pictures that seamen carry around on their arms and chests.

While the convention was in session and the human art galleries were getting their pictures in. the newspapers of the Japanese capital, the Great Omi was touring the British Isles and astounding people who did not envy him in the least. Not for $1,000,000 would the average human being let himself be so “ornamented.” The Great Omi is one of the few tatooed men in the world who has permitted the artists with the needle to work on his face as well as his body. As the accompanying picture shows, there is hardly a square inch of Omi’s head that isn’t covered with a design that makes him look stranger and more savage than the wildest of the African' medicine men, who go in for that sort of disfigurement. Professor Burchett, said to be the world’s outstanding expert in the art of tattooing, supports Omis claim that he is the most tattooed man in the world.

AfRS EMILY BRADSHAW placed a metal hot-water bottle in the oven in her house in Bungay Street, Park, Sheffield, and then sat down in front of the fire. Suddenly there was an explosion, and pieces of metal flew out of the oven. Mrs Bradshaw was severely injured, a wireless set was wreciced, mirrors splintered, pictures broken and the furniture and room damaged-