How General Bowels May
Contribute to the Wel fare of General Good
UTHE other day, down in Tahiti , James Norman Hall, famous American novelist, was thinking of Japan , and wondering what we shall do with that race of barbarians when they come to the United Nations with their “So solly!
Mistake, please!” He finally remeynbered the Japs’ unpleasant habit of slitting open their own stomachs — harikiri —and he thought that, maybe, the Japs could be induced to supply their own solution of our problem.
So he wrote these verses and sent them to the “Pacific Islands Monthly,” with the ingenuous plea that the editor somehow might contrive to get the suggestion through to Tokio.
The Japs, to save or find their faces When they, beyond dispute, have lost them, Search in the strangest, weirdest places, No matter what the search may cost them: Commonly, no more than life; They do the searching with a knife.
They have no bowels of compassion Even for those that in them rumble.
Current as well as ancient fashion Demands them out, and out they tumble.
How odd, to save or find a face In such a way, in such a place!
When they behold, with wild concern, The Rising Sun about to set; When faces lost more hotly burn Than they have ever burned as yet, Will general bowels promptly pay For all the faces gone astray?
Oh, happy possible solution!
Oh, happy mourners, quiet grave!
General Bowels, your contribution To peace would thus forever save Your countrymen from losing face And benefit the human race.