Two Hoots

Wind howled and whistled round the eaves of Tokyo's low rambling Imperial Palace (see ART, p. 45) at dawn last week. Despite the worst storm in years a silent nervous crowd waited patiently by the palace gates. In the city sleepless radio announcers stood by their microphones. A watchman in Tokyo's chief fire station was ready with hand on the siren cord. At 6:15, just as the full force of the storm broke against the palace walls, lights suddenly appeared. A uniformed aid scurried from a side door across a sanded driveway to a temporary booth where reporters waited. Excited watchers whispered to each other that it had come. Another child was born to the Empress Nagako. Would it be a boy? Would there finally be a direct heir to the throne of Japan? On the roof of the Tokyo fire house the siren hooted mournfully, rose to a high electric scream. Tokyo waited breathless. Then came another hoot, longer, more mournful. Sadly Tokyo realized that the Empress Nagako had borne another girl, her third.* Emperor Hirohito still lacked a son. The heir to the throne was still Prince Chi-chibu, his brother.

Tokyo realized, but not the rest of Japan. A poor telephone connection, the noise of the storm, caused radio broadcasters to believe that the child was a son. Gaily they announced the fact. In distant Japanese villages bonfires were set alight, barelegged, short-jacketed watchmen ran through the streets beating gongs. It was hours before the true facts were learned. Aghast at the error all the officers of Tokyo's central broadcasting station resigned, grimly realized that it was their traditional duty to commit harikari.

Despite the nation's disappointment, the baby Princess was not neglected last week. Scarcely was her weight, 7 1/4 pounds, announced than the Lord Chamberlain Admiral Suzeki in elaborate court costume entered the royal nursery, bent over the royal bassinet, and laid a short ceremonial dagger beside the little Princess, a gift from her father the Emperor Hirohito which she will have by her all through her life to protect her from harm. Because she is a girl, he laid beside the dagger a tiny purple hakama, or ceremonial skirt. Soon came government officials led by bushy-browed Prime Minister Yugo Hamaguchi to pay their respects to the Empress. Shinto priests held thanksgiving services at three shrines in the palace: the Kashikodokoro, shrine of the Sacred Mirror of the Sun Goddess, Japan's holiest relic; the Ancestor's shrine, temple of all the ancestors of the Imperial family, and the Shinden, dedicated to all the "80 myriad" gods of the Shinto religion.

*Empress Nagako's second daughter, the infant Princess Sachiko, died in March 1928, aged six months (TIME, March 19, 1928).