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 appears at any of the state functions at the palace, though the ladies of her suite are sometimes seen in the imperial loges at a Koyokwan No performance, when given for the benefit of her pet charities.

The Empress Dowager has nominal charge of the imperial nurseries in the Nakayama Yashiki, where the children of the Emperor and his inferior wives remain until their fourth or fifth years. These wives are all of kuge birth, and have establishments within the palace enclosure. They are an Oriental survival, of which little is said or definitely known, although they still have a fixed rank.

The Empress Haruko has no children, and Prince Haru, the Crown Prince, is the son of the Emperor and Madame Yanagiwara. One little imperial princess living, but ten imperial children have died. Prince Haru was born September 6, 1879, proclaimed heir apparent August 31, 1887, and elected Crown Prince November 3, 1889, dispossessing as heir to the throne Prince Arisugawa Takehito, a young cousin, who had been adopted by the Emperor in the absence of any direct heirs. Prince Haru attends the Nobles’ school, reciting in classes with other boys, and enjoying a more democratic life than any other crown prince of this era. He is quick, energetic, and ambitious, inclined to foreign ways, and is altogether the most emancipated and untrammelled little man in Tokio. When he is older Prince Haru will be sent around the world to see other countries and courts, and it is prophesied that this energetic young man will make great changes in the already changed order of things. To Emperor, Empress, and Empress Dowager he is a marvel, but to him these august personages are but ordinary mortals. Yet the princeling can be a stickler for etiquette, and boy companions venturing too far, or becoming too democratic, have been sharply brought to task by Jimmu Tenno's latest descendant. 124