dents of history or
drama. In many cases--though not in all--the bodies and the costumes
are composed of foliage and flowers trained to grow about a framework;
while the faces, feet, and hands are represented by some kind of
flesh-colored composition.

This year, however, a majority of the displays represented scenes
of the war,--such as an engagement between Japanese infantry and
mounted Cossacks, a night attack by torpedo boats, the sinking of
a battleship. In the last-mentioned display, Russian bluejackets
appeared, swimming for their lives in a rough sea;--the pasteboard
waves and the swimming figures being made to rise and fall by the
pulling of a string; while the crackling of quick-firing guns was
imitated by a mechanism contrived with sheets of zinc.

It is said that Admiral T[=o]g[=o] sent to T[=o]ky[=o] for some
flowering-trees in pots--inasmuch as his responsibilities allowed him
no chance of seeing the cherry-flowers and the plum-blossoms in their
season,--and that the gardeners responded even too generously.

* * * * *

Almost immediately after the beginning of hostilities, thousands of
"war pictures"--mostly cheap lithographs--were published. The drawing
and coloring were better than those of the prints issued at the
time of the war with China; but the details were to a great extent
imaginary,--altogether imaginary as to the appearance of Russian
troops. Pictures of the engagements with the Russian fleet were
effective, despite some lurid exaggeration. The most startling things
were pictures of Russian defeats in Korea, published before a single
military engagement had taken place;--the artist had "flushed to
anticipate the scene." In these prints the Russians were depicted
as fleeing in utter rout, leaving their officers--very fine-looking
officers--dead upon the field; while the Japanese infantry, with
dreadfully determined faces, were coming up at a double. The propriety
and the wisdom of thus pictorially predicting victory, and easy
victory to boot, may be questioned. But I am told that the custom of
so doing is an old one; and it is thought that to realize the common
hope thus imaginatively is lucky. At all events, there is no attempt
at deception in these pictorial undertakings;--they help to keep up
the public courage, and they ought to be pleasing to the gods.

Some of the earlier pictures have now been realized in grim fact.
The victories in China had been simi