JAPANESE GENERAL AND A GEISHA

Shannon News, 29 July 1921, Page 3

JAPANESE GENERAL AND A GEISHA

GIFT OF CIGARETTES BRINGS DISGRACE. Tokyo, July 15. Major-General Takayana, Chief cf Staff of the. Siberian Expeditionary Force, is in disgracb because he gave a geisha girl soma cigarettes which had been presented to him by the Emperor. He has been placed on the waiting list for a year. .He is an ab’e and popular officer, and is well known to the officers who accompanied- the British forces that assisted Koltchak in his campaign against the Bolsheviks. At a ‘'geisha spree” given in his honour at Vladivostock, before he returned to Tokyo, General Takayana gave the girl, Kosome' San, a packet of the cigarettes which he had a short time before received from the Emperor as a New Year’s gift. The girl soon afterwards arrived in Japan, and at the port of entry the Customs authorities discovered a cigarette box bearing the imperial chrysanthemum. On being questioned she said that the cigarettes had been given to her by Gene ral Takayana, and the matter was reported to the imperial household and the army authorities. Japanese reporters were informed by a sister of Miss Kosome that the girl had persuaded the general to give her 100 of the imperial cigarettes when song and sake had induced a melting mood in the warrior.