Mobs of screaming students last week swarmed through the vast Shinjuku rail way station, Tokyo's largest. Wearing plastic helmets, the lower half of their faces masked with towels as a protection against tear gas, the students scrambled over tracks and platforms, smashing train windows, disemboweling seats, splintering and setting fire to doors, benches and stairways. One rioter shinnied up a pole to smash the signal lights he touched a high-voltage line and crashed to earth in a shower of sparks, critically injured.
As railway employees raced to put out the fires, riot...