AN EMPEROR AND HIS DYING PRIME MINISTER.

Western Star, Issue 1572, 20 June 1891, Page 1

AN EMPEROR AND HIS DYING PRIME MINISTER.

The last mail from Japan brings the news of the death of Prince Sanjo, who was Prime Minister from 1868 to 1886, when he became Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. In hereditary and official rank and reputation he towered above all his contemporaries and colleagues. Early on the morning of February 18 his physicians saw that death was near, and information was at once conveyed to tiie Emperor, who repaired without delay to the bedchamber of the dying statesman, and there conferred on him the highest rank attainable by a Japanese Emperor in the 19th century. The Emperor is described as manifesting great grief, his voice being broken and his hand trembling. His Majesty then read the following words —“In the early years of my reign, while I was yet a youth, you were my chief aid. It was you who, not shrinking from a post of a weighty responsibility lont mo assistance so constant, so steady and so true that you were to me as a teacher and a parent. Never from first to last did you falter or fail iu the discharge of your trust. Your services arc a model for all subjects of our time, lu recognition of your fidelity, I confer on you the First Class of the First Rank.” The paper containing these words was then laid by the Emperor on the dying man’s pillow. Prince Sanjo, though so weak that all movement of the limbs had for some time seemed impossible, raised his head and joined his hands in t he old Japanese fashion of expressing gratitude. He lingered in a semi-conscious condition until i in til

evening', when he expired. The disease was influenza, which has worked terrible havoc in Japan during tho present winter.