hich was severely plain in 1890, now
has little delicate embroidery about the bottom. It will not be
surprising if some day, when the present growing commercial and
industrial enterprise has reaped a more abundant harvest, Japan blooms
forth again in the beautiful garments that went out of fashion when the
great political upheaval cut off the revenues of the old nobility.

_Page 209._

At each encroachment of the enemy those of the population who could not
find refuge at once within the inner defenses were driven to choose
between surrender and self-inflicted death. The unconquerable samurai
spirit flamed out in the choice of hundreds of women and children as
well as men, and whole families were wiped out of existence at once,
the little ones, who were too young to understand the proper method of
_hara-kiri_, kneeling calmly with bowed heads for the death-stroke from
father or brother which should free them from the disgrace of defeat.

_Page 223._

That the spirit of the samurai women is still a living force in Japan,
no one can doubt who listens to the stories of what the women did and
bore in the Japan-China war of 1895. The old self-sacrifice and devotion
showed itself throughout the country in deeds of real, if sometimes
mistaken, heroism. Husbands, sons, and brothers were sent out to danger
and death with smiles and cheerful words, by women dependent upon them
for everything in a way that can hardly be understood by Americans. Even
tears of grief for the dear ones offered in the country's cause were
suppressed as disloyal, and women learned with unmoved countenances of
the death of those they loved best, and found the courage to express, in
the first shock of bereavement, their sense of the honor conferred on
the family by the death of one of its members in the cause of his
country.

A few incidents quoted from an article by Miss Ume Tsuda that appeared
in the New York "Independent" in 1895 will give my readers an idea of
the forms that this devotion assumed:--

"One instance comes into my mind of an old lady who sent out cheerfully
and with a smiling face her young and only son, the sole stay of her old
age. Left a widow while young, she had lived a life of much sorrow and
trouble, and had with almost superhuman efforts managed to give her son
an education that would start him in life. It was only a few years ago
that the son had begun to help in the family support, and to be able to
repay to the mothe