vility. Their children she may even have to adopt as her own.
The lot of the _mekake_ herself is rendered the less endurable, from the
American point of view, by the fact that, should the father of her child
decide to make it his heir, the mother is thenceforth no more to it than
any other of the servants of the household. For instance, suppose a
hitherto childless noble is presented with a son by one of his
concubines, and he decides by legal adoption to make that son his heir:
the child at its birth, or as soon afterwards as is practicable, is
taken from its mother and placed in other hands, and the mother never
sees her own child until, on the thirtieth day after its birth, she goes
with the other servants of the household to pay her respects to her
young master. If it were not for the habit of abject obedience to
parents which Japanese custom has exalted into the one feminine virtue,
few women could be found of respectable families who would take a
position so devoid of either honor or satisfaction of any kind as that
of _mekake_. That these positions are not sought after must be said, to
the honor of Japanese womanhood. A nobleman may obtain _samurai_ women
for his "_O mekake_" (literally, honorable concubines), but they are
never respected by their own class for taking such positions. In the
same way the _mekake_ of _samurai_ are usually from the _heimin_. No
woman who has any chance of a better lot will ever take the unenviable
position of _mekake_.

A law which has recently been promulgated strikes at the root of this
evil, and, if enforced, will in course of time go far toward extirpating
it. Henceforth in Japan, no child of a concubine, or of adoption from
any source, can inherit a noble title. The heir to the throne must
hereafter be the son, not only of the Emperor, but of the Empress, or
the succession passes to some collateral branch of the family. This law
does not apply to Prince Haru, the present heir to the throne, as,
although he is not the son of the Empress, he was legally adopted
before the promulgation of the law; but should he die, it will apply to
all future heirs.

That public opinion is moving in the right direction is shown by the
fact that the young men of the higher classes do not care to marry the
daughters of _mekake_, be they ever so legally adopted by their own
fathers. When the girls born of such unions become a drug in the
matrimonial market, and the boys are unable to keep up the su