ess the Japanese have a
code of morality peculiar to themselves, and any infidelity on the
part of a woman to her husband is punished with severity.

"The great drawback to the prosperity of Japan is a matter that
prevails in some more ancient civilised lands, viz., an enormous issue
of paper-money. Young Japan, finding it easy to print notes to pay
its obligations, printed them to the extent of twenty millions
sterling in all sizes from 5 cents to 100 dollars. The consequence is
that this paper-money has depreciated in value to the extent of 15 per
cent. The Government, however, have seen their mistake, and are
gradually calling it in, and have established a very fine mint with a
gold and silver coinage. Insurrections have also been a drag on Japan
in its progress. The Prince of Satsuma, one of the most powerful of
the ancient Daimios, has never acknowledged the present system of
government and has periodically rebelled against it. This year a
serious rebellion broke out at Kagoshima, and was not quelled without
great loss of life and a heavy expenditure. His followers behaved with
great fanaticism, many of them loading themselves with gunpowder
rushing into the midst of the enemy and setting fire to the powder,
killing themselves by so doing, but also, to the admiration of their
less ardent comrades, killing numbers of the enemy.

"Against no ancient custom has the Japanese Government more set its
face than tattooing. Any persons in Japan now either allowing
themselves to be tattooed or performing the operation on any one else
are liable to imprisonment. Blacking the teeth, a custom prevalent
among the women on being married, is rapidly dying out, being
discouraged by the authorities."

The glimpses of Japan shown us by Thunberg and the American I have
quoted prove clearly enough, even were it not amplified by a host of
other testimony I have not space to refer to, that the Japan of the
sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and early part of the nineteenth
centuries was a highly civilised country in which law and order
reigned supreme, where respect for authority was marked, the standard
of comfort, if not high, was at any rate sufficient, the domestic
relations and family life were almost ideal, clean living was the
custom, crime was at a minimum, education was universal, amusements
were plentiful, the artistic feeling and instincts were not the cult
of a class but were shared by the common people. This was the nati