LONDON - Iyemasa Tokugawa, attaché to the Imperial Japanese embassy, delivered a lecture lately on the subject of what wrestling meant to the Japanese, and pointed out that the art originated in Japan before the Christian era.
    Arthur Diosy, F.R.G.S., presided on the occasion, the lecture being given by the Japan Society. Mr. Tokugawa told his audience that the wrestlers which they had admired at the Japan-British exhibition at Shepherd's Bush were not really wrestlers of any distinction in their own country. He urged them to learn the difference between Ju-jitsu and wrestling proper. The one being a means of defense only, and the other a sport held in great respect in Japan. A wrestler needs to know no fewer than 48 formulae by which he can bring his opponents to earth.
    In the service of the Wrestling Society the Japanese have as many as 587 trained wrestlers. In Tokio wrestling matches are very popular. They begin at sunrise and end only with darkness. The wrestling ring, which is on the floor of the amphitheater, is a square 2ft. in circumference enclosed in walls 3ft. high. The rules which govern the sport are very rigid, for instance, should a wrestler's knee touch the ground or the tip of his little finger extend beyond the ring he has been defeated. Again, the wrestlers are divided into classes which are rigidly observed, the highest class being called "rope men." Few men attain to the dizzy height of a "rope man," indeed in the last 200 years only 15 men have been granted this distinction.