House

to writing on topics connected with Japanese
drama, and to explanations of current political
affairs. His theory of the identity of Ghenghis
Khan with the Japanese hero Yoshitsune (later
worked out in great detail by his pupil, Suye-
matsu), flattered Japanese pride, and a brilliant
defense of Japan for protecting 200 Macao coo-
lies who had escaped from the Peruvian slave-
ship, Maria Luz3 in Yokohama harbor in 1872,
won him the warm friendship of Shigenobu
Okuma, an imperial councilor and later marquis.
When, in 1873, Okuma was sent to Formosa in
charge of a punitive expedition, House resigned
his professorship and accompanied the army as
a correspondent His dispatches to the New
York Herald were reprinted in Tokyo in 1875.
On his return from Formosa the Satsuma Civil
War was imminent, and House eagerly accepted
the proposal that Okuma subsidize for him a
weekly English-language newspaper, the Tokyo
Times, to offset the three pro-rebel English pa-
pers published in Yokohama. During all of 1877
the Times fought a vigorous journalistic cam-
paign to secure immediate abolition of extra-
territorial rights, to gain customs freedom for
Japan, and to secure a high protective tariff. It
also demanded the return to Japan of the indem-
nities exacted by the Powers for expenses in-
curred at the bombardment of Shimonoseki in
1863, when the daimyo of Choshu attempted to
close the straits. Through House's efforts, the
Japanese believe, the American share was re-
mitted. In the interest of these objects the Times
insisted on the recall of Sir Harry S. Parkes, the
British minister, whom House made the scape-
goat for all alien residents.

House's predilection for Japan was strength-
ened by his acquaintance with the foreigners
resident in Yokohama and in Tsukiji, the foreign
settlement in Tokyo. Diplomatic attaches, busi-
ness men, and missionaries were favorite targets
for his caustic wit. His antagonism to mission-
aries was later embodied in a novel, Yone Santo,
a Child of Japan, serialized in the Atlantic
Monthly in 1888 and published in book form in
1889. Despite his brilliant and doggedly per-
sistent service in Japan's behalf, the tall, robust,
and sallow-faced newspaperman stirred up too
many enmities among the foreigners whose
friendship the Japanese government desired to
cultivate. Accordingly, at the close of 1877, when
the subsidy expired, the Tokyo Times ceased
publication, and government support was trans-
ferred to Capt. Frank Brinkley, a more tactful
publicist, whose paper, the Japan Mail, continued
as the government organ until Brinkley's death
in 1912, House returned to America in 1880 and

House

the following February moved to London, where
he lived with Charles Reade. According to his
own story (published in the Century Magazine,
December 1897), he helped to launch Edwin
Booth's British tour of 1881. He then became
connected with the management of St. James's
Theatre, London, but was incapacitated by a
stroke in 1883. Through Okuma's influence he
was awarded a life pension by the Japanese gov-
ernment, and was decorated by the Order of the
Sacred Treasure, Second Class. After complet-
ing a number of magazine articles and publish-
ing his novel, he returned to Japan with the pur-
pose of popularizing Western music. He trained
the Imperial Band and aided in the founding of
the Meiji Musical Society, which developed into
the Imperial Conservatory of Music. He died in
Tokyo.

In addition to Yone Santo, House published
in America, Japanese Episodes (1881), a collec-
tion of his Atlantic, Harper's, and Tokyo Times
articles, and Midnight Warning and Other Sto-
ries (1892). In Japan, he published The Kago-
shima Affair (1874), The Shimonoseki Affair,
A Chapter of Japanese History (1875), and The
Japanese Expedition to Formosa (1875). Two
magazine articles appeared in the New Princeton
Review, "The Tariff in Japan" (January 1888)
and "Foreign Jurisdiction in Japan" (March

[The best brief biography is in the Japan Mail (To-
kyo), Dec. 21, 1901; see also the succeeding week's
issue, in which the question of the Okuma subsidy to
the Tokyo Times is thoroughly discussed. W. B. Ma-
son, in The New East (Tokyo), Mar. 1910, gives a
reminiscence of House, attempting to explain why "few
foreigners^ remember him now." H. E. Wildes, Social
Currents in Japan (1927), pp. 266-68, discusses the
Tokyo Times. The Nation (N. Y.), Nov. 3, 1881, and
Jan. 10, 1889, gives a critical estimate of his literary
ability.] H.E.W.
HOUSE, HENRY ALONZO (Apr. 23,1840-
Dec. 18, 1930), inventor, manufacturer, son of
Ezekial Newton and Susan (King) House, and
nephew of Royal Earl House [#.#.], was born in
Brooklyn, N. Y., where his father practised his
profession as an architect. A few years after
Henry's birth his parents moved to Pennsylvania
where the youth obtained his primary education
and began the study of architecture with his fa-
ther. When he was seventeen years old he went
to Chicago and for two years worked in an archi-
tect's office. Late in 1859 the muscles of his right
hand were severed in an accident, so that it was
impossible for him to continue his architectural
work, and he became interested in various inven-
tions. About this time he removed to Brooklyn
and was granted his first patent, Aug. 20, 1860,
for a partly self-operating farm gate. With the