java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError at driver load attempt.

This short Java Class:

import java.sql.*;

public class TestIt
{
    static public void main (String args[])
    {
        try {
            // Load the driver here ...
            Class.forName ("org.postgresql.Driver");
        }
        catch (Exception e) {
            System.out.println ("Yep, got an exception.");
            e.printStackTrace();
            return;
        }
    }
}

give this Java stack trace (at the Class.forName call):

java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError: [exception was
kaffe.util.NotImplemented: java.lang.Runtime.addShutdownHook()]
        at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:native)
        at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:52)
        at TestIt.main(TestIt.java:9)
kaffe.util.NotImplemented: java.lang.Runtime.addShutdownHook()
        at java.lang.Throwable.fillInStackTrace(Throwable.java:native)
        at java.lang.Throwable.<init>(Throwable.java:38)
        at java.lang.Error.<init>(Error.java:21)
        at kaffe.util.NotImplemented.<init>(NotImplemented.java:22)
        at java.lang.Runtime.addShutdownHook(Runtime.java:163)
        at org.postgresql.core.ConnectionHook.<init>(ConnectionHook.java:54)
        at org.postgresql.core.ConnectionHook.<clinit>(ConnectionHook.java:41)
        at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:native)
        at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:52)
        at TestIt.main(TestIt.java:9)

Any idea what is going on here?  The postmaster was started with pg_ctl start
-l logfile -o "-i".

I have the Java J2SE (Java 2) jdk 1.3.1_02 installed in /usr/java.
I am using the RedHat 7.2 supplied precompiled driver which is installed in
the /usr/share/pgsql/jdbc7.1-1.2.jar file.

My system is a AMD k6-2 550MHz.

Has anyone ever seen this error before?

Thanks.