Empire Notes

The Imperial Household Ministry proclaimed, last week, that this year the set subject for its Spring poetry contest will be: The Coloring of the Mountain Becomes More Brilliant. From among the thousands of poems sure to be submitted the best will be culled, and--by way of "prizes"--will be read in the adjudged order of merit to His Majesty, the Sublime Tenno, descendant and Son of Heaven.

His Majesty's Government concluded, last week, with the Russian Soviet Government, a most satisfactory treaty continuing the rights under which Japanese go every year to fish in Siberian waters. Though this vital document emerged through routine channels, its negotiation was rumored to have been greatly furthered, at Moscow, by the "unofficial" visit of that great statesman Viscount Shimpei Goto.

The efficient Tokyo Beggars' Association promulgated, recently, a system of "begging in relays" whereby the average begging day will be reduced to three hours and much duplication of effort eliminated. The sum of 70 yen per month ($35) was mentioned and denounced as the record of certain notorious renegades who persist in begging steadily all day.

Mr. Tokuji Hayakawa, onetime railway conductor, now builder-operator of the newly opened Tokyo subway (TIME, Jan. 9), contrasted, last week, his construction methods with those used in Manhattan. Since a great part of Tokyo is not, like Manhattan founded upon a rock, no drilling whatever was necessary and the Tokyo tube was simply buried in trenches cut with ease in the soft soil.