Shattering Engagement

Officially announced at Tokyo, last week, was the engagement of the Imperial Japanese-heir presumptive, Prince Chichibu, to a commoner, Miss Setsu Matsudaira.

In Japan the sensation far transcended that which would burst in Anglo-Saxon lands at the betrothal of Edward of Wales to a mere woman. The British House of Windsor is a sprig, a sapling, an upstart compared to the Japanese Imperial House, which reigned before the dawn of recorded Japanese history. Moreover the Emperor of Japan is a divine being, "descended from the Sun Goddess." Emperor Hirohito has not yet a man child, and thus his brother, Prince Chichibu, is still presumptively a vessel of the Sun Goddess. Last week old school Japanese were shocked at the possibility that a Son of Heaven may some day be born of a once common woman.

Up-to-date Japanese rejoiced. Miss Setsu Matsudaira is lovely, intelligent, brilliant, modern. Her father is the Japanese Ambassador at Washington, Mr. Tsuneo Matsudaira, who voluntarily renounced an inherited title. It is explained that her uncle, Viscount Matsudaira, stands ready to give her rank by adoption. Even so, however, she is not of one of the five princely houses from which consorts have previously been chosen for Japanese imperial males. The engagement of Miss Matsudaira shatters a precedent, and is in time with the quick tempo of modern Japan.