Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 2

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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 2 - "Jacobites" to "Japan" (part)
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 2 - "Jacobites" to "Japan" (part)" ***

Transcriber's notes:

(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
printed in subscript. Letter subscripts are preceded by an
underscore, like C_n.

(2) Characters following a carat (^) were printed in superscript.

(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
paragraphs.

(4) Macrons and breves above letters and dots below letters were not
inserted.

(5) [root] stands for the root symbol; [alpha], [beta], etc. for greek
letters.

(6) The following typographical errors have been corrected:

ARTICLE JAMAICA: "The British government awarded them compensation
at the rate of £19 per slave, the market value of slaves at the
time being £35, but most of this compensation went into the hands
of the planters' creditors." 'compensation' amended from
'conpensation'.

ARTICLE JAMESON, LEANDER STARR: "They were tried in London under
the Foreign Enlistment Act in May 1896, and Dr Jameson was
sentenced to fifteen months' imprisonment at Holloway."
'imprisonment' amended from 'inprisonment'.

ARTICLE JAPAN: "The pots in which these wonders of patient skill
are grown have to be themselves fine specimens of the ceramist's
craft, and as much as £200 is sometimes paid for a notably well
trained tree." "ceramist's" amended from "keramist's".

ARTICLE JAPAN: "... named Iwasa Matahei, had even made a specialty
of this class of motive; but so little is known of Matahei and his
work that even his period is a matter of dispute ..." 'specialty'
amended from 'speciality'.

ARTICLE JAPAN: "At the naval cadet academy--originally situated in
Tokyo but now at Etajima near Kure--aspirants for service as naval
officers receive a 3 years' academical course and 1 year's training
at sea ..." 'Tokyo' amended from 'Tkoyo'.

ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA

A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
AND GENERAL INFORMATION

ELEVENTH EDITION

VOLUME XV, SLICE II

Jacobites to Japan (part)

ARTICLES IN THIS SLICE:

JACOBITES JAMES III.
JACOBS, CHRISTIAN WILHELM JAMES IV.
JACOBS CAVERN JAMES V.
JACOBSEN, JENS PETER JAMES I. (king of Aragon)
JACOB'S WELL JAMES II.
JACOBUS DE VORAGINE JAMES II. (king of Majorca)
JACOTOT, JOSEPH JAMES III. (king of Majorca)
JACQUARD, JOSEPH MARIE JAMES (prince of Wales)
JACQUERIE, THE JAMES, DAVID
JACTITATION JAMES, GEORGE PAYNE RAINSFORD
JADE (estuary of the North Sea) JAMES, HENRY
JADE (ornamental stones) JAMES, JOHN ANGELL
JAEN (province of Spain) JAMES, THOMAS
JAEN (city of Spain) JAMES, WILLIAM (English historian)
JAFARABAD JAMES, WILLIAM (American philosopher)
JAFFNA JAMES OF HEREFORD, HENRY JAMES
JÄGER, GUSTAV JAMES, EPISTLE OF
JÄGERNDORF JAMESON, ANNA BROWNELL
JAGERSFONTEIN JAMESON, GEORGE
JAGO, RICHARD JAMESON, LEANDER STARR
JAGUAR JAMESON, ROBERT
JAGUARONDI JAMESTOWN (North Dakota, U.S.A.)
JAHANABAD JAMESTOWN (New York, U.S.A.)
JAHANGIR JAMESTOWN (Virginia, U.S.A.)
JAHIZ JAMI
JAHN, FRIEDRICH LUDWIG JAMIESON, JOHN
JAHN, JOHANN JAMIESON, ROBERT
JAHN, OTTO JAMKHANDI
JAHRUM JAMMU
JAINS JAMNIA
JAIPUR JAMRUD
JAISALMER JAMS AND JELLIES
JAJCE JANESVILLE
JAJPUR JANET, PAUL
JAKOB, LUDWIG HEINRICH VON JANGIPUR
JAKOVA JANIN, JULES GABRIEL
JAKUNS JANISSARIES
JALALABAD JANIUAY
JALAP JANJIRA
JALAPA JAN MAYEN
JALAUN JANSEN, CORNELIUS
JALISCO JANSENISM
JALNA JANSSEN, CORNELIUS
JALPAIGURI JANSSEN, JOHANNES
JAMAICA (island) JANSSEN, PIERRE JULES CÉSAR
JAMAICA (New York, U.S.A.) JANSSENS, VICTOR HONORIUS
JAMB JANSSENS VAN NUYSSEN, ABRAHAM
JAMES (name) JANUARIUS, ST
JAMES (New Testament) JANUARY
JAMES I. (king of Great Britain) JANUS
JAMES II. JAORA
JAMES I. (king of Scotland) JAPAN (part)
JAMES II.

JACOBITES (from Lat. _Jacobus_, James), the name given after the
revolution of 1688 to the adherents, first of the exiled English king
James II., then of his descendants, and after the extinction of the
latter in 1807, of the descendants of Charles I., i.e. of the exiled
house of Stuart.

The history of the Jacobites, culminating in the risings of 1715 and
1745, is part of the general history of England (q.v.), and especially
of Scotland (q.v.), in which country they were comparatively more
numerous and more active, while there was also a large number of
Jacobites in Ireland. They were recruited largely, but not solely, from
among the Roman Catholics, and the Protestants among them were often
identical with the Non-Jurors. Owing to a variety of causes Jacobitism
began to lose ground after the accession of George I. and the
suppression of the revolt of 1715; and the total failure of the rising
of 1745 may be said to mark its end as a serious political force. In
1765 Horace Walpole said that "Jacobitism, the concealed mother of the
latter (i.e. Toryism), was extinct," but as a sentiment it remained for
some time longer, and may even be said to exist to-day. In 1750, during
a strike of coal workers at Elswick, James III. was proclaimed king; in
1780 certain persons walked out of the Roman Catholic Church at Hexham
when George III. was prayed for; and as late as 1784 a Jacobite rising
was talked about. Northumberland was thus a Jacobite stronghold; and in
Manchester, where in 1777 according to an American observer Jacobitism
"is openly professed," a Jacobite rendezvous known as "John Shaw's Club"
lasted from 1733 to 1892. North Wales was another Jacobite centre. The
"Cycle of the White Rose"--the white rose being the badge of the
Stuarts--composed of members of the principal Welsh families around
Wrexham, including the Williams-Wynns of Wynnstay, lasted from 1710
until some time between 1850 and 1860. Jacobite traditions also lingered
among the great families of the Scottish Highlands; the last person to
suffer death as a Jacobite was Archibald Cameron, a son of Cameron of
Lochiel, who was executed in 1753. Dr Johnson's Jacobite sympathies are
well known, and on the death of Victor Emmanuel I., the ex-king of
Sardinia, in 1824, Lord Liverpool wrote to Canning saying "there are
those who think that the ex-king was the lawful king of Great Britain."
Until the accession of King Edward VII. finger-bowls were not placed
upon the royal dinner-table, because in former times those who secretly
sympathized with the Jacobites were in the habit of drinking to the king
_over the water_. The romantic side of Jacobitism was stimulated by Sir
Walter Scott's _Waverley_, and many Jacobite poems were written during
the 19th century.

The chief collections of Jacobite poems are: Charles Mackay's
_Jacobite Songs and Ballads of Scotland, 1688-1746, with Appendix of
Modern Jacobite Songs_ (1861); G. S. Macquoid's _Jacobite Songs and
Ballads_ (1888); and _English Jacobite Ballads_, edited by A. B.
Grosart from the Towneley manuscripts (1877).

Upon the death of Henry Stuart, Cardinal York, the last of James II.'s
descendants, in 1807, the rightful occupant of the British throne
according to legitimist principles was to be found among the descendants
of Henrietta, daughter of Charles I., who married Philip I., duke of
Orleans. Henrietta's daughter, Anne Marie (1669-1728), became the wife
of Victor Amadeus II., duke of Savoy, afterwards king of Sardinia; her
son was King Charles Emmanuel III., and her grandson Victor Amadeus III.
The latter's son, King Victor Emmanuel I., left no sons, and his eldest
daughter, Marie Beatrice, married Francis IV., duke of Modena, whose
son Ferdinand (d. 1849) left an only daughter, Marie Thérèse (b. 1849).
This lady, the wife of Prince Louis of Bavaria, was in 1910 the senior
member of the Stuart family, and according to the legitimists the
rightful sovereign of Great Britain and Ireland.

_Table showing the succession to the crown of Great Britain and
Ireland according to Jacobite principles._

Charles I. (1600-1649)
|
Henrietta (1644-1670) =
Philip I., duke of Orleans (1640-1701)
|
Anne Marie (1669-1728) =
Victor Amadeus II, king of Sardinia (1666-1732)
|
Charles Emmanuel III.
king of Sardinia (1701-1773)
|
Victor Amadeus III.
king of Sardinia (1726-1796)
|
Victor Emmanuel I.
king of Sardinia (1759-1824)
|
Marie Beatrice (c. 1780-1840) =
Francis IV., duke of Modena (1779-1846)
|
Ferdinand (1821-1849)
|
Marie Thérèse (b. 1849) =
Louis, prince of Bavaria (b. 1845)
|
+--------------------+------------+------------+
| | |
Rupert, prince Charles Francis
of Bavaria (b. 1869) (b. 1874) (b. 1875)
+---------------+--------------+
| | |
Luitpold Albert Rudolph
(b. 1901) (b. 1905) (b. 1909)

Among the modern Jacobite, or legitimist, societies perhaps the most
important is the "Order of the White Rose," which has a branch in
Canada and the United States. The order holds that sovereign authority
is of divine sanction, and that the execution of Charles I. and the
revolution of 1688 were national crimes; it exists to study the
history of the Stuarts, to oppose all democratic tendencies, and in
general to maintain the theory that kingship is independent of all
parliamentary authority and popular approval. The order, which was
instituted in 1886, was responsible for the Stuart exhibition of 1889,
and has a newspaper, the _Royalist_. Among other societies with
similar objects in view are the "Thames Valley Legitimist Club" and
the "Legitimist Jacobite League of Great Britain and Ireland."

See _Historical Papers relating to the Jacobite Period_, edited by J.
Allardyce (Aberdeen, 1895-1896); James Hogg, _The Jacobite Relics of
Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1819-1821); and F. W. Head, _The Fallen Stuarts_
(Cambridge, 1901). The marquis de Ruvigny has compiled _The Jacobite
Peerage_ (Edinburgh, 1904), a work which purports to give a list of
all the titles and honours conferred by the kings of the exiled House
of Stuart. (A. W. H.*)

JACOBS, CHRISTIAN FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1764-1847), German classical
scholar, was born at Gotha on the 6th of October 1764. After studying
philology and theology at Jena and Göttingen, in 1785 he became teacher
in the gymnasium of his native town, and in 1802 was appointed to an
office in the public library. In 1807 he became classical tutor in the
lyceum of Munich, but, disgusted at the attacks made upon him by the old
Bavarian Catholic party, who resented the introduction of "north German"
teachers, he returned to Gotha in 1810 to take charge of the library and
the numismatic cabinet. He remained in Gotha till his death on the 30th
of March 1847. Jacobs was an extremely successful teacher; he took great
interest in the affairs of his country, and was a publicist of no mean
order. But his great work was an edition of the Greek Anthology, with
copious notes, in 13 volumes (1798-1814), supplemented by a revised text
from the Codex Palatinus (1814-1817). He published also notes on Horace,
Stobaeus, Euripides, Athenaeus and the _Iliaca_ of Tzetzes; translations
of Aelian (_History of Animals_); many of the Greek romances;
Philostratus; poetical versions of much of the Greek Anthology;
miscellaneous essays on classical subjects; and some very successful
school books. His translation of the political speeches of Demosthenes
was undertaken with the express purpose of rousing his country against
Napoleon, whom he regarded as a second Philip of Macedon.

See E. F. Wüstemann, _Friderici Jacobsii laudatio_ (Gotha, 1848); C.
Bursian, _Geschichte der classischen Philologie in Deutschland_; and
the appreciative article by C. Regel in _Allgemeine deutsche
Biographie_.

JACOBS CAVERN, a cavern in latitude 36° 35´ N., 2 m. E. of Pineville,
McDonald county, Missouri, named after its discoverer, E. H. Jacobs, of
Bentonville, Arkansas. It was scientifically explored by him, in company
with Professors Charles Peabody and Warren K. Moorehead, in 1903. The
results were published in that year by Jacobs in the _Benton County
Sun_; by C. N. Gould in _Science_, July 31, 1903; by Peabody in the _Am.
Anthropologist_, Sept. 1903; and in the _Am. Journ. Archaeology_, 1904;
and by Peabody and Moorehead, 1904, as _Bulletin I._ of the Dept. of
Archaeology in Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., in the museum of which
are exhibits, maps and photographs.

Jacobs Cavern is one of the smaller caves, hardly more than a
rock-shelter, and is entirely in the "St Joe Limestone" of the
sub-carboniferous age. Its roof is a single flat stratum of limestone;
its walls are well marked by lines of stratification; dripstone also
partly covers the walls, fills a deep fissure at the end of the cave,
and spreads over the floor, where it mingles with an ancient bed of
ashes, forming an ash-breccia (mostly firm and solid) that encloses
fragments of sandstone, flint spalls, flint implements, charcoal and
bones. Underneath is the true floor of the cave, a mass of homogeneous
yellow clay, one metre in thickness. It holds scattered fragments of
limestone, and is itself the result of limestone degeneration. The
length of the opening is over 21 metres; its depth 14 metres, and the
height of roof above the undisturbed ash deposit varied from 1 m. 20 cm.
to 2 m. 60 cm. The bone recess at the end was from 50 cm. to 80 cm. in
height. The stratum of ashes was from 50 cm. to 1 m. 50 cm. thick.

The ash surface was staked off into square metres, and the substance
carefully removed in order. Each stalactite, stalagmite and pilaster was
measured, numbered, and removed in sections. Six human skeletons were
found buried in the ashes. Seven-tenths of a cubic metre of animal bones
were found: deer, bear, wolf, raccoon, opossum, beaver, buffalo, elk,
turkey, woodchuck, tortoise and hog; all contemporary with man's
occupancy. Three stone metates, one stone axe, one celt and fifteen
hammer-stones were found. Jacobs Cavern was peculiarly rich in flint
knives and projectile points. The sum total amounts to 419 objects,
besides hundreds of fragments, cores, spalls and rejects, retained for
study and comparison. Considerable numbers of bone or horn awls were
found in the ashes, as well as fragments of pottery, but no "ceremonial"
objects.

The rude type of the implements, the absence of fine pottery, and the
peculiarities of the human remains, indicate a race of occupants more
ancient than the "mound-builders." The deepest implement observed was
buried 50 cm. under the stalagmitic surface. Dr. Hovey has proved that
the rate of stalagmitic growth in Wyandotte Cave, Indiana, is .0254 cm.
annually; and if that was the rate in Jacobs Cavern, 1968 years would
have been needed for the embedding of that implement. Polished rocks
outside the cavern and pictographs in the vicinity indicate the work of
a prehistoric race earlier than the Osage Indians, who were the historic
owners previous to the advent of the white man. (H. C. H.)

JACOBSEN, JENS PETER (1847-1885), Danish imaginative writer, was born at
Thisted in Jutland, on the 7th of April 1847; he was the eldest of the
five children of a prosperous merchant. He became a student at the
university of Copenhagen in 1868. As a boy he showed a remarkable turn
for science, particularly for botany. In 1870, although he was secretly
writing verses already, Jacobsen definitely adopted botany as a
profession. He was sent by a scientific body in Copenhagen to report on
the flora of the islands of Anholt and Læsö. About this time the
discoveries of Darwin began to exercise a fascination over him, and
finding them little understood in Denmark, he translated into Danish
_The Origin of Species_ and _The Descent of Man_. In the autumn of
1872, while collecting plants in a morass near Ordrup, he contracted
pulmonary disease. His illness, which cut him off from scientific
investigation, drove him to literature. He met the famous critic, Dr
Georg Brandes, who was struck by his powers of expression, and under his
influence, in the spring of 1873, Jacobsen began his great historical
romance of _Marie Grubbe_. His method of composition was painful and
elaborate, and his work was not ready for publication until the close of
1876. In 1879 he was too ill to write at all; but in 1880 an improvement
came, and he finished his second novel, _Niels Lyhne_. In 1882 he
published a volume of six short stories, most of them written a few
years earlier, called, from the first of them, _Mogens_. After this he
wrote no more, but lingered on in his mother's house at Thisted until
the 30th of April 1885. In 1886 his posthumous fragments were collected.
It was early recognized that Jacobsen was the greatest artist in prose
that Denmark has produced. He has been compared with Flaubert, with De
Quincey, with Pater; but these parallelisms merely express a sense of
the intense individuality of his style, and of his untiring pursuit of
beauty in colour, form and melody. Although he wrote so little, and
crossed the living stage so hurriedly, his influence in the North has
been far-reaching. It may be said that no one in Denmark or Norway has
tried to write prose carefully since 1880 whose efforts have not been in
some degree modified by the example of Jacobsen's laborious art.

His _Samlede Skrifter_ appeared in two volumes in 1888; in 1899 his
letters (_Breve_) were edited by Edvard Brandes. In 1896 an English
translation of part of the former was published under the title of
_Siren Voices: Niels Lyhne_, by Miss E. F. L. Robertson. (E. G.)

JACOB'S WELL, the scene of the conversation between Jesus and the "woman
of Samaria" narrated in the Fourth Gospel, is described as being in the
neighbourhood of an otherwise unmentioned "city called Sychar." From the
time of Eusebius this city has been identified with Sychem or Shechem
(modern Nablus), and the well is still in existence 1½ m. E. of the
town, at the foot of Mt Gerizim. It is beneath one of the ruined arches
of a church mentioned by Jerome, and is reached by a few rough steps.
When Robinson visited it in 1838 it was 105 ft. deep, but it is now much
shallower and often dry.

For a discussion of Sychar as distinct from Shechem see T. K. Cheyne,
art. "Sychar," in _Ency. Bibl._, col. 4830. It is possible that Sychar
should be placed at Tulul Balata, a mound about ½ m. W. of the well
(_Palestine Exploration Fund Statement_, 1907, p. 92 seq.); when that
village fell into ruin the name may have migrated to 'Askar, a village
on the lower slopes of Mt Ebal about 1¾ m. E.N.E. from Nablus and ½ m.
N. from Jacob's Well. It may be noted that the difficulty is not with
the location of the well, but with the identification of Sychar.

JACOBUS DE VORAGINE (c. 1230-c. 1298), Italian chronicler, archbishop of
Genoa, was born at the little village of Varazze, near Genoa, about the
year 1230. He entered the order of the friars preachers of St Dominic in
1244, and besides preaching with success in many parts of Italy, taught
in the schools of his own fraternity. He was provincial of Lombardy from
1267 till 1286, when he was removed at the meeting of the order in
Paris. He also represented his own province at the councils of Lucca
(1288) and Ferrara (1290). On the last occasion he was one of the four
delegates charged with signifying Nicholas IV.'s desire for the
deposition of Munio de Zamora, who had been master of the order from
1285, and was deprived of his office by a papal bull dated the 12th of
April 1291. In 1288 Nicholas empowered him to absolve the people of
Genoa for their offence in aiding the Sicilians against Charles II.
Early in 1292 the same pope, himself a Franciscan, summoned Jacobus to
Rome, intending to consecrate him archbishop of Genoa with his own
hands. He reached Rome on Palm Sunday (March 30), only to find his
patron ill of a deadly sickness, from which he died on Good Friday
(April 4). The cardinals, however, "propter honorem Communis Januae,"
determined to carry out this consecration on the Sunday after Easter. He
was a good bishop, and especially distinguished himself by his' efforts
to appease the civil discords of Genoa. He died in 1298 or 1299, and was
buried in the Dominican church at Genoa. A story, mentioned by the
chronicler Echard as unworthy of credit, makes Boniface VIII., on the
first day of Lent, cast the ashes in the archbishop's eyes instead of on
his head, with the words, "Remember that thou art a Ghibelline, and with
thy fellow Ghibellines wilt return to naught."

Jacobus de Voragine left a list of his own works. Speaking of himself
in his _Chronicon januense_, he says, "While he was in his order, and
after he had been made archbishop, he wrote many works. For he
compiled the legends of the saints (_Legendae sanctorum_) in one
volume, adding many things from the _Historia tripartita et
scholastica_, and from the chronicles of many writers." The other
writings he claims are two anonymous volumes of "Sermons concerning
all the Saints" whose yearly feasts the church celebrates. Of these
volumes, he adds, one is very diffuse, but the other short and
concise. Then follow _Sermones de omnibus evangeliis dominicalibus_
for every Sunday in the year; _Sermones de omnibus evangeliis_, i.e. a
book of discourses on all the Gospels, from Ash Wednesday to the
Tuesday after Easter; and a treatise called "_Marialis_, qui totus est
de B. Maria compositus," consisting of about 160 discourses on the
attributes, titles, &c., of the Virgin Mary. In the same work the
archbishop claims to have written his _Chronicon januense_ in the
second year of his pontificate (1293), but it extends to 1296 or 1297.
To this list Echard adds several other works, such as a defence of the
Dominicans, printed at Venice in 1504, and a _Summa virtutum et
vitiorum Guillelmi Peraldi_, a Dominican who died about 1250. Jacobus
is also said by Sixtus of Siena (_Biblioth. Sacra_, lib. ix.) to have
translated the Old and New Testaments into his own tongue. "But," adds
Echard, "if he did so, the version lies so closely hid that there is
no recollection of it," and it may be added that it is highly
improbable that the man who compiled the Golden Legend ever conceived
the necessity of having the Scriptures in the vernacular.

His two chief works are the _Chronicon januense_ and the _Golden
Legend_ or _Lombardica hystoria_. The former is partly printed in
Muratori (_Scriptores Rer. Ital._ ix. 6). It is divided into twelve
parts. The first four deal with the mythical history of Genoa from the
time of its founder, Janus, the first king of Italy, and its enlarger,
a second Janus "citizen of Troy", till its conversion to Christianity
"about twenty-five years after the passion of Christ." Part v.
professes to treat of the beginning, the growth and the perfection of
the city; but of the first period the writer candidly confesses he
knows nothing except by hearsay. The second period includes the
Genoese crusading exploits in the East, and extends to their victory
over the Pisans (c. 1130), while the third reaches down to the days of
the author's archbishopric. The sixth part deals with the constitution
of the city, the seventh and eighth with the duties of rulers and
citizens, the ninth with those of domestic life. The tenth gives the
ecclesiastical history of Genoa from the time of its first known
bishop, St Valentine, "whom we believe to have lived about 530 A.D.,"
till 1133, when the city was raised to archiepiscopal rank. The
eleventh contains the lives of all the bishops in order, and includes
the chief events during their pontificates; the twelfth deals in the
same way with the archbishops, not forgetting the writer himself.

The _Golden Legend_, one of the most popular religious works of the
middle ages, is a collection of the legendary lives of the greater
saints of the medieval church. The preface divides the ecclesiastical
year into four periods corresponding to the various epochs of the
world's history, a time of deviation, of renovation, of reconciliation
and of pilgrimage. The book itself, however, falls into five
sections:--(a) from Advent to Christmas (_cc._ 1-5); (b) from
Christmas to Septuagesima (6-30); (c) from Septuagesima to Easter
(31-53); (d) from Easter Day to the octave of Pentecost (54-76); (e)
from the octave of Pentecost to Advent (77-180). The saints' lives are
full of puerile legend, and in not a few cases contain accounts of
13th-century miracles wrought at special places, particularly with
reference to the Dominicans. The last chapter but one (181), "De
Sancto Pelagio Papa," contains a kind of history of the world from the
middle of the 6th century; while the last (182) is a somewhat
allegorical disquisition, "De Dedicatione Ecclesiae."

The _Golden Legend_ was translated into French by Jean Belet de Vigny
in the 14th century. It was also one of the earliest books to issue
from the press. A Latin edition is assigned to about 1469; and a dated
one was published at Lyons in 1473. Many other Latin editions were
printed before the end of the century. A French translation by Master
John Bataillier is dated 1476; Jean de Vigny's appeared at Paris,
1488; an Italian one by Nic. Manerbi (? Venice, 1475); a Bohemian one
at Pilsen, 1475-1479, and at Prague, 1495; Caxton's English versions,
1483, 1487 and 1493; and a German one in 1489. Several 15th-century
editions of the _Sermons_ are also known, and the Mariale was printed
at Venice in 1497 and at Paris in 1503.

For bibliography see Potthast, _Bibliotheca hist. med. aev._ (Berlin,
1896), p. 634; U. Chevalier, _Répertoire des sources hist. Bio.-bibl._
(Paris, 1905), s.v. "Jacques de Voragine."

JACOTOT, JOSEPH (1770-1840), French educationist, author of the method
of "emancipation intellectuelle," was born at Dijon on the 4th of March
1770. He was educated at the university of Dijon, where in his
nineteenth year he was chosen professor of Latin, after which he studied
law, became advocate, and at the same time devoted a large amount of his
attention to mathematics. In 1788 he organized a federation of the youth
of Dijon for the defence of the principles of the Revolution; and in
1792, with the rank of captain, he set out to take part in the campaign
of Belgium, where he conducted himself with bravery and distinction.
After for some time filling the office of secretary of the "commission
d'organisation du mouvement des armées," he in 1794 became deputy of the
director of the Polytechnic school, and on the institution of the
central schools at Dijon he was appointed to the chair of the "method of
sciences," where he made his first experiments in that mode of tuition
which he afterwards developed more fully. On the central schools being
replaced by other educational institutions, Jacotot occupied
successively the chairs of mathematics and of Roman law until the
overthrow of the empire. In 1815 he was elected a representative to the
chamber of deputies; but after the second restoration he found it
necessary to quit his native land, and, having taken up his residence at
Brussels, he was in 1818 nominated by the Government teacher of the
French language at the university of Louvain, where he perfected into a
system the educational principles which he had already practised with
success in France. His method was not only adopted in several
institutions in Belgium, but also met with some approval in France,
England, Germany and Russia. It was based on three principles: (1) all
men have equal intelligence; (2) every man has received from God the
faculty of being able to instruct himself; (3) everything is in
everything. As regards (1) he maintained that it is only in the will to
use their intelligence that men differ; and his own process, depending
on (3), was to give any one learning a language for the first time a
short passage of a few lines, and to encourage the pupil to study, first
the words, then the letters, then the grammar, then the meaning, until a
single paragraph became the occasion for learning an entire literature.
After the revolution of 1830 Jacotot returned to France, and he died at
Paris on the 30th of July 1840.

His system was described by him in _Enseignement universel, langue
maternelle_, Louvain and Dijon, 1823--which passed through several
editions--and in various other works; and he also advocated his views
in the _Journal de l'émancipation intellectuelle_. For a complete list
of his works and fuller details regarding his career, see _Biographie
de J. Jacotot_, by Achille Guillard (Paris, 1860).

JACQUARD, JOSEPH MARIE (1752-1834), French inventor, was born at Lyons
on the 7th of July 1752. On the death of his father, who was a working
weaver, he inherited two looms, with which he started business on his
own account. He did not, however, prosper, and was at last forced to
become a lime-burner at Bresse, while his wife supported herself at
Lyons by plaiting straw. In 1793 he took part in the unsuccessful
defence of Lyons against the troops of the Convention; but afterwards
served in their ranks on the Rhône and Loire. After seeing some active
service, in which his young son was shot down at his side, he again
returned to Lyons. There he obtained a situation in a factory, and
employed his spare time in constructing his improved loom, of which he
had conceived the idea several years previously. In 1801 he exhibited
his invention at the industrial exhibition at Paris; and in 1803 he was
summoned to Paris and attached to the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers.
A loom by Jacques de Vaucanson (1700-1782), deposited there, suggested
various improvements in his own, which he gradually perfected to its
final state. Although his invention was fiercely opposed by the
silk-weavers, who feared that its introduction, owing to the saving of
labour, would deprive them of their livelihood, its advantages secured
its general adoption, and by 1812 there were 11,000 Jacquard looms in
use in France. The loom was declared public property in 1806, and
Jacquard was rewarded with a pension and a royalty on each machine. He
died at Oullins (Rhône) on the 7th of August 1834, and six years later a
statue was erected to him at Lyons (see WEAVING).

JACQUERIE, THE, an insurrection of the French peasantry which broke out
in the Île de France and about Beauvais at the end of May 1358. The
hardships endured by the peasants in the Hundred Years' War and their
hatred for the nobles who oppressed them were the principal causes which
led to the rising, though the immediate occasion was an affray which
took place on the 28th of May at the village of Saint-Leu between
"brigands" (militia infantry armoured in brigandines) and countryfolk.
The latter having got the upper hand united with the inhabitants of the
neighbouring villages and placed Guillaume Karle at their head. They
destroyed numerous châteaux in the valleys of the Oise, the Brèche and
the Thérain, where they subjected the whole countryside to fire and
sword, committing the most terrible atrocities. Charles the Bad, king of
Navarre, crushed the rebellion at the battle of Mello on the 10th of
June, and the nobles then took violent reprisals upon the peasants,
massacring them in great numbers.

See Simeon Luce, _Histoire de la Jacquerie_ (Paris, 1859 and 1895).
(J. V.*)

JACTITATION (from Lat. _jactitare_, to throw out publicly), in English
law, the maliciously boasting or giving out by one party that he or she
is married to the other. In such a case, in order to prevent the common
reputation of their marriage that might ensue, the procedure is by suit
of jactitation of marriage, in which the petitioner alleges that the
respondent boasts that he or she is married to the petitioner, and prays
a declaration of nullity and a decree putting the respondent to
perpetual silence thereafter. Previously to 1857 such a proceeding took
place only in the ecclesiastical courts, but by express terms of the
Matrimonial Causes Act of that year it can now be brought in the
probate, divorce and admiralty division of the High Court. To the suit
there are three defences: (1) denial of the boasting; (2) the truth of
the representations; (3) allegation (by way of estoppel) that the
petitioner acquiesced in the boasting of the respondent. In _Thompson_
v. _Rourke_, 1893, Prob. 70, the court of appeal laid down that the
court will not make a decree in a jactitation suit in favour of a
petitioner who has at any time acquiesced in the assertion of the
respondent that they were actually married. Jactitation of marriage is a
suit that is very rare.

JADE, or JAHDE, a deep bay and estuary of the North Sea, belonging to
the grand-duchy of Oldenburg, Germany. The bay, which was for the most
part made by storm-floods in the 13th and 16th centuries, measures 70
sq. m., and has communication with the open sea by a fairway, a mile and
a half wide, which never freezes, and with the tide gives access to the
largest vessels. On the west side of the entrance to the bay is the
Prussian naval port of Wilhelmshaven. A tiny stream, about 14 m. long,
also known as the Jade, enters the head of the bay.

JADE, a name commonly applied to certain ornamental stones, mostly of a
green colour, belonging to at least two distinct species, one termed
nephrite and the other jadeite. Whilst the term jade is popularly used
in this sense, it is now usually restricted by mineralogists to
nephrite. The word jade[1] is derived (through Fr. _le jade_ for
_l'ejade_) from Span. _ijada_ (Lat. _ilia_), the loins, this mineral
having been known to the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru under the
name of _piedra de ijada_ or _yjada_ (colic stone). The reputed value of
the stone in renal diseases is also suggested by the term nephrite (so
named by A. G. Werner from Gr. [Greek: nephros], kidney), and by its old
name _lapis nephriticus_.

Jade, in its wide and popular sense, has always been highly prized by
the Chinese, who not only believe in its medicinal value but regard it
as the symbol of virtue. It is known, with other ornamental stones,
under the name of _yu_ or _yu-chi_ (yu-stone). According to Professor H.
A. Giles, it occupies in China the highest place as a jewel, and is
revered as "the quintessence of heaven and earth." Notwithstanding its
toughness or tenacity, due to a dense fibrous structure, it is wrought
into complicated forms and elaborately carved. On many prehistoric
sites in Europe, as in the Swiss lake-dwellings, celts and other carved
objects both in nephrite and in jadeite have not infrequently been
found; and as no kind of jade had until recent years been discovered _in
situ_ in any European locality it was held, especially by Professor L.
H. Fischer, of Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden, that either the raw material
or the worked objects must have been brought by some of the early
inhabitants from a jade locality probably in the East, or were obtained
by barter, thus suggesting a very early trade-route to the Orient.
Exceptional interest, therefore, attached to the discovery of jade in
Europe, nephrite having been found in Silesia, and jadeite or a similar
rock in the Alps, whilst pebbles of jade have been obtained from many
localities in Austria and north Germany, in the latter case probably
derived from Sweden. It is, therefore, no longer necessary to assign the
old jade implements to an exotic origin. Dr A. B. Meyer, of Dresden,
always maintained that the European jade objects were indigenous, and
his views have become generally accepted. Now that the mineral
characters of jade are better understood, and its identification less
uncertain, it may possibly be found with altered peridotites, or with
amphibolites, among the old crystalline schists of many localities.

Nephrite, or true jade, may be regarded as a finely fibrous or compact
variety of amphibole, referred either to actinolite or to tremolite,
according as its colour inclines to green or white. Chemically it is a
calcium-magnesium silicate, CaMg3(SiO3)4. The fibres are either more
or less parallel or irregularly felted together, rendering the stone
excessively tough; yet its hardness is not great, being only about 6
or 6.5. The mineral sometimes tends to become schistose, breaking with
a splintery fracture, or its structure may be horny. The specific
gravity varies from 2.9 to 3.18, and is of determinative value, since
jadeite is much denser. The colour of jade presents various shades of
green, yellow and grey, and the mineral when polished has a rather
greasy lustre. Professor F. W. Clarke found the colours due to
compounds of iron, manganese and chromium. One of the most famous
localities for nephrite is on the west side of the South Island of New
Zealand, where it occurs as nodules and veins in serpentine and
talcose rocks, but is generally found as boulders. It was known to the
Maoris as _pounamu_, or "green stone," and was highly prized, being
worked with great labour into various objects, especially the
club-like implement known as the _mere_, or _pattoo-pattoo_, and the
breast ornament called _hei-tiki_. The New Zealand jade, called by old
writers "green talc of the Maoris," is now worked in Europe as an
ornamental stone. The green jade-like stone known in New Zealand as
_tangiwai_ is bowenite, a translucent serpentine with enclosures of
magnesite. The mode of occurrence of the nephrite and bowenite of New
Zealand has been described by A. M. Finlayson (_Quart. Jour. Geol.
Soc._, 1909, p. 351). It appears that the Maoris distinguished six
varieties of jade. Difference of colour seems due to variations in the
proportion of ferrous silicate in the mineral. According to Finlayson,
the New Zealand nephrite results from the chemical alteration of
serpentine, olivine or pyroxene, whereby a fibrous amphibole is
formed, which becomes converted by intense pressure and movement into
the dense nephrite.

Nephrite occurs also in New Caledonia, and perhaps in some of the
other Pacific islands, but many of the New Caledonian implements
reputed to be of jade are really made of serpentine. From its use as a
material for axe-heads, jade is often known in Germany as _Beilstein_
("axe-stone"). A fibrous variety, of specific gravity 3.18, found in
New Caledonia, and perhaps in the Marquesas, was distinguished by A.
Damour under the name of "oceanic jade."

Much of the nephrite used by the Chinese has been obtained from
quarries in the Kuen-lun mountains, on the sides of the Kara-kash
valley, in Turkestan. The mineral, generally of pale colour, occurs in
nests and veins running through hornblende-schists and gneissose
rocks, and it is notable that when first quarried it is comparatively
soft. It appears to have a wide distribution in the mountains, and has
been worked from very ancient times in Khotan. Nephrite is said to
occur also in the Pamir region, and pebbles are found in the beds of
many streams. In Turkestan, jade is known as _yashm_ or _yeshm_, a
word which appears in Arabic as _yeshb_, perhaps cognate with [Greek:
iaspis] or jasper. The "jasper" of the ancients may have included
jade. Nephrite is said to have been discovered in 1891 in the Nan-shan
mountains in the Chinese province of Kan-suh, where it is worked. The
great centre of Chinese jade-working is at Peking, and formerly the
industry was active at Su-chow Fu. Siberia has yielded very fine
specimens of dark green nephrite, notably from the neighbourhood of
the Alibert graphite mine, near Batugol, Lake Baikal. The jade seems
to occur as a rock in part of the Sajan mountain system. New deposits
in Siberia were opened up to supply material for the tomb of the tsar
Alexander III. A gigantic monolith exists at the tomb of Tamerlane at
Samarkand. The occurrence of the Siberian jade has been described by
Professor L. von Jaczewski.

Jade implements are widely distributed in Alaska and British Columbia,
being found in Indian graves, in old shell-heaps and on the sites of
deserted villages. Dr G. M. Dawson, arguing from the discovery of some
boulders of jade in the Fraser river valley, held that they were not
obtained by barter from Siberia, but were of native origin; and the
locality was afterwards discovered by Lieut. G. M. Stoney. It is known
as the Jade Mountains, and is situated north of Kowak river, about 150
miles from its mouth. The study of a large collection of jade
implements by Professor F. W. Clarke and Dr G. P. Merrill proved that
the Alaskan jade is true nephrite, not to be distinguished from that
of New Zealand.

Jadeite is a mineral species established by A. Damour in 1863,
differing markedly from nephrite in that its relation lies with the
pyroxenes rather than with the amphiboles. It is an aluminium sodium
silicate, NaAl(SiO3)2, related to spodumene. S. L. Penfield showed, by
measurement, that jadeite is monoclinic. Its colour is commonly very
pale, and white jadeite, which is the purest variety, is known as
"camphor jade." In many cases the mineral shows bright patches of
apple-green or emerald-green, due to the presence of chromium. Jadeite
is much more fusible than nephrite, and is rather harder (6.5 to 7),
but its most readily determined character is found in its higher
specific gravity, which ranges from 3.20 to 3.41. Some jadeite seems
to be a metamorphosed igneous rock.

The Burmese jade, discovered by a Yunnan trader in the 13th century,
is mostly jadeite. The quarries, described by Dr F. Noetling, are
situated on the Uru river, about 120 m. from Mogaung, where the
jadeite occurs in serpentine, and is partly extracted by fire-setting.
It is also found as boulders in alluvium, and when these occur in a
bed of laterite they acquire a red colour, which imparts to them
peculiar value. According to Dr W. G. Bleeck, who visited the jade
country of Upper Burma after Noetling, jadeite occurs at three
localities in the Kachin Hills--Tawmaw, Hweka and Mamon. The jadeite
is known as _chauk-sen_, and is sent either to China or to Mandalay,
by way of Bhamo, whence Bhamo has come erroneously to be regarded as a
locality for jade. Jadeite occurs in association with the nephrite of
Turkestan, and possibly in some other Asiatic localities. In certain
cases nephrite is formed by the alteration of jadeite, as shown by
Professor J. P. Iddings. The Chinese _feits'ui_, sometimes called
"imperial jade," is a beautiful green stone, which seems generally to
be jadeite, but it is said that in some cases it may be chrysoprase.
It is named from its resemblance in colour to the plumage of the
kingfisher. The resonant character of jade has led to its occasional
use as a musical stone.

In Mexico, in Central America and in the northern part of South
America, objects of jadeite are common. The Kunz votive adze from
Oaxaca, in Mexico, is now in the American Museum of Natural History,
New York. At the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico amulets of
green stone were highly venerated, and it is believed that jadeite was
one of the stones prized under the name of _chalchihuitl_. Probably
turquoise was another stone included under this name, and indeed any
green stone capable of being polished, such as the Amazon stone, now
recognized as a green feldspar, may have been numbered among the Aztec
amulets. Dr Kunz suggests that the chalchihuitl was jadeite in
southern Mexico and Central America, and turquoise in northern Mexico
and New Mexico. He thinks that Mexican jadeite may yet be discovered
in places (_Gems and Precious Stones of Mexico_, by G. F. Kunz:
Mexico, 1907).

Chloromelanite is Damour's name for a dense, dark mineral which has
been regarded as a kind of jade, and was used for the manufacture of
celts found in the dolmens of France and in certain Swiss
lake-dwellings. It is a mineral of spinach-green or dark-green colour,
having a specific gravity of 3.4, or even as high as 3.65, and may be
regarded as a variety of jadeite rich in iron. Chloromelanite occurs
in the Cyclops Mountains in New Guinea, and is used for hatchets or
agricultural implements, whilst the sago-clubs of the island are
usually of serpentine. Sillimanite, or fibrolite, is a mineral which,
like chloromelanite, was used by the Neolithic occupants of western
Europe, and is sometimes mistaken for a pale kind of jade. It is an
aluminium silicate, of specific gravity about 3.2, distinguished by
its infusibility. The _jade tenace_ of J. R. Haüy, discovered by H. B.
de Saussure in the Swiss Alps, is now known as saussurite. Among other
substances sometimes taken for jade may be mentioned prehnite, a
hydrous calcium-aluminium silicate, which when polished much resembles
certain kinds of jade. Pectolite has been used, like jade, in Alaska.
A variety of vesuvianite (idocrase) from California, described by Dr.
G. F. Kunz as californite, was at first mistaken for jade. The name
jadeolite has been given by Kunz to a green chromiferous syenite from
the jadeite mines of Burma. The mineral called bowenite, at one time
supposed to be jade, is a hard and tough variety of serpentine. Some
of the common Chinese ornaments imitating jade are carved in steatite
or serpentine, while others are merely glass. The _pâte de riz_ is a
fine white glass. The so-called "pink jade" is mostly quartz,
artificially coloured, and "black jade," though sometimes mentioned,
has no existence.

An exhaustive description of jade will be found in a sumptuous work,
entitled _Investigations and Studies in Jade_ (New York, 1906). This
work, edited by Dr G. F. Kunz, was prepared in illustration of the
famous jade collection made by Heber Reginald Bishop, and presented
by him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The work, which is
in two folio volumes, superbly illustrated, was printed privately, and
after 100 copies had been struck off on American hand-made paper, the
type was distributed and the material used for the illustrations was
destroyed. The second volume is a catalogue of the collection, which
comprises 900 specimens arranged in three classes: mineralogical,
archaeological and artistic. The important section on Chinese jade was
contributed by Dr S. W. Bushell, who also translated for the work a
discourse on jade--_Yü-shuo_ by T'ang Jung-tso, of Peking. Reference
should also be made to Heinrich Fischer's _Nephrit und Jadeit_ (2nd
ed., Stuttgart, 1880), a work which at the date of its publication was
almost exhaustive. (F. W. R.*)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The English use of the word for a worthless, ill-tempered horse,
a "screw," also applied as a term of reproach to a woman, has been
referred doubtfully to the same Spanish source as the O. Sp.
_ijadear_, meaning to pant, of a broken-winded horse.

JAEN, an inland province of southern Spain, formed in 1833 of districts
belonging to Andalusia; bounded on the N. by Ciudad Real and Albacete,
E. by Albacete and Granada, S. by Granada, and W. by Cordova. Pop.
(1900), 474,490; area, 5848 sq. m. Jaen comprises the upper basin of the
river Guadalquivir, which traverses the central districts from east to
west, and is enclosed on the north, south and east by mountain ranges,
while on the west it is entered by the great Andalusian plain. The
Sierra Morena, which divides Andalusia from New Castile, extends along
the northern half of the province, its most prominent ridges being the
Loma de Chiclana and the Loma de Ubeda; the Sierras de Segura, in the
east, derive their name from the river Segura, which rises just within
the border; and between the last-named watershed, its continuation the
Sierra del Pozo, and the parallel Sierra de Cazorla, is the source of
the Guadalquivir. The loftiest summits in the province are those of the
Sierra Magina (7103 ft.) farther west and south. Apart from the
Guadalquivir the only large rivers are its right-hand tributaries the
Jándula and Guadalimar, its left-hand tributary the Guadiana Menor, and
the Segura, which flows east and south to the Mediterranean.

In a region which varies so markedly in the altitude of its surface,
the climate is naturally unequal; and, while the bleak, wind-swept
highlands are only available as sheep-walks, the well-watered and
fertile valleys favour the cultivation of the vine, the olive and all
kinds of cereals. The mineral wealth of Jaen has been known since
Roman times, and mining is an important industry, with its centre at
Lináres. Over 400 lead mines were worked in 1903; small quantities of
iron, copper and salt are also obtained. There is some trade in sawn
timber and cloth; esparto fabrics, alcohol and oil are manufactured.
The roads, partly owing to the development of mining, are more
numerous and better kept than in most Spanish provinces. Railway
communication is also very complete in the western districts, as the
main line Madrid-Cordova-Seville passes through them and is joined
south of Lináres by two important railways--from Algeciras and Malaga
on the south-west, and from Almería on the south-east. The eastern
half of Jaen is inaccessible by rail. In the western half are Jaen,
the capital (pop. (1900), 26,434), with Andujar (16,302), Baeza
(14,379), Bailen (7420), Lináres (38,245), Martos (17,078) and Ubeda
(19,913). Other towns of more than 7000 inhabitants are Alcalá la
Real, Alcaudete, Arjona, La Carolina and Porcuna, in the west; and
Cazorla, Quesada, Torredonjimeno, Villacarillo and Villanueva del
Arzobispo, in the east.

JAEN, the capital of the Spanish province of Jaen, on the Lináres-Puente
Genil railway, 1500 ft. above the sea. Pop. (1900), 26,434. Jaen is
finely situated on the well-wooded northern slopes of the Jabalcuz
Mountains, overlooking the picturesque valleys of the Jaen and
Guadalbullon rivers, which flow north into the Guadalquivir. The
hillside upon which the narrow and irregular city streets rise in
terraces is fortified with Moorish walls and a Moorish citadel. Jaen is
an episcopal see. Its cathedral was founded in 1532; and, although it
remained unfinished until late in the 18th century, its main
characteristics are those of the Renaissance period. The city contains
many churches and convents, a library, art galleries, theatres, barracks
and hospitals. Its manufactures include leather, soap, alcohol and
linen; and it was formerly celebrated for its silk. There are hot
mineral springs in the mountains, 2 m. south.

The identification of Jaen with the Roman Aurinx, which has sometimes
been suggested, is extremely questionable. After the Moorish conquest
Jaen was an important commercial centre, under the name of Jayyan; and
ultimately became capital of a petty kingdom, which was brought to an
end only in 1246 by Ferdinand III. of Castille, who transferred hither
the bishopric of Baeza in 1248. Ferdinand IV. died at Jaen in 1312. In
1712 the city suffered severely from an earthquake.

JAFARABAD, a state of India, in the Kathiawar agency of Bombay, forming
part of the territory of the nawab of Janjira; area, 42 sq. m.; pop.
(1901), 12,097; estimated revenue, £4000. The town of Jafarabad (pop.
6038), situated on the estuary of a river, carries on a large coasting
trade.

JAFFNA, a town of Ceylon, at the northern extremity of the island. The
fort was described by Sir J. Emerson Tennent as "the most perfect little
military work in Ceylon--a pentagon built of blocks of white coral." The
European part of the town bears the Dutch stamp more distinctly than any
other town in the island; and there still exists a Dutch Presbyterian
church. Several of the church buildings date from the time of the
Portuguese. In 1901 Jaffna had a population of 33,879, while in the
district or peninsula of the same name there were 300,851 persons,
nearly all Tamils, the only Europeans being the civil servants and a few
planters. Coco-nut planting has not been successful of recent years. The
natives grow palmyras freely, and have a trade in the fibre of this
palm. They also grow and export tobacco, but not enough rice for their
own requirements. A steamer calls weekly, and there is considerable
trade. The railway extension from Kurunegala due north to Jaffna and the
coast was commenced in 1900. Jaffna is the seat of a government agent
and district judge, and criminal sessions of the supreme court are
regularly held. Jaffna, or, as the natives call it, Yalpannan, was
occupied by the Tamils about 204 B.C., and there continued to be Tamil
rajahs of Jaffna till 1617, when the Portuguese took possession of the
place. As early as 1544 the missionaries under Francis Xavier had made
converts in this part of Ceylon, and after the conquest the Portuguese
maintained their proselytizing zeal. They had a Jesuit college, a
Franciscan and a Dominican monastery. The Dutch drove out the Portuguese
in 1658. The Church of England Missionary Society began its work in
Jaffna in 1818, and the American Missionary Society in 1822.

JÄGER, GUSTAV (1832- ), German naturalist and hygienist, was born at
Bürg in Württemberg on the 23rd of June 1832. After studying medicine at
Tübingen he became a teacher of zoology at Vienna. In 1868 he was
appointed professor of zoology at the academy of Hohenheim, and
subsequently he became teacher of zoology and anthropology at Stuttgart
polytechnic and professor of physiology at the veterinary school. In
1884 he abandoned teaching and started practice as a physician in
Stuttgart. He wrote various works on biological subjects, including _Die
Darwinsche Theorie und ihre Stellung zu Moral und Religion_ (1869),
_Lehrbuch der allgemeinen Zoologie_ (1871-1878), and _Die Entdeckung der
Seele_ (1878). In 1876 he suggested an hypothesis in explanation of
heredity, resembling the germ-plasm theory subsequently elaborated by
August Weismann, to the effect that the germinal protoplasm retains its
specific properties from generation to generation, dividing in each
reproduction into an ontogenetic portion, out of which the individual is
built up, and a phylogenetic portion, which is reserved to form the
reproductive material of the mature offspring. In _Die Normalkleidung
als Gesundheitsschutz_ (1880) he advocated the system of clothing
associated with his name, objecting especially to the use of any kind of
vegetable fibre for clothes.

JÄGERNDORF (Czech, _Krnov_), a town of Austria, in Silesia, 18 m. N.W.
of Troppau by rail. Pop. (1900), 14,675, mostly German. It is situated
on the Oppa and possesses a château belonging to Prince Liechtenstein,
who holds extensive estates in the district. Jägerndorf has large
manufactories of cloth, woollens, linen and machines, and carries on an
active trade. On the neighbouring hill of Burgberg (1420 ft.) are a
church, much visited as a place of pilgrimage, and the ruins of the seat
of the former princes of Jägerndorf. The claim of Prussia to the
principality of Jägerndorf was the occasion of the first Silesian war
(1740-1742), but in the partition, which followed, Austria retained the
larger portion of it. Jägerndorf suffered severely during the Thirty
Years' War, and was the scene of engagements between the Prussians and
Austrians in May 1745 and in January 1779.

JAGERSFONTEIN, a town in the Orange Free State, 50 m. N.W. by rail of
Springfontein on the trunk line from Cape Town to Pretoria. Pop. (1904),
5657--1293 whites and 4364 coloured persons. Jagersfontein, which
occupies a pleasant situation on the open veld about 4500 ft. above the
sea, owes its existence to the valuable diamond mine discovered here in
1870. The first diamond, a stone of 50 carats, was found in August of
that year, and digging immediately began. The discovery a few weeks
later of the much richer mines at Bultfontein and Du Toits Pan, followed
by the great finds at De Beers and Colesberg Kop (Kimberley) caused
Jagersfontein to be neglected for several years. Up to 1887 the claims
in the mine were held by a large number of individuals, but coincident
with the efforts to amalgamate the interest in the Kimberley mines a
similar movement took place at Jagersfontein, and by 1893 all the claims
became the property of one company, which has a working arrangement with
the De Beers corporation. The mine, which is worked on the open system
and has a depth of 450 ft., yields stones of very fine quality, but the
annual output does not exceed in value £500,000. In 1909 a shaft 950 ft.
deep was sunk with a view to working the mine on the underground system.
Among the famous stones found in the mine are the "Excelsior" (weighing
971 carats, and larger than any previously discovered) and the "Jubilee"
(see DIAMOND). The town was created a municipality in 1904.

Fourteen miles east of Jagersfontein is Boomplaats, the site of the
battle fought in 1848 between the Boers under A. W. Pretorius and the
British under Sir Harry Smith (see ORANGE FREE STATE: _History_).

JAGO, RICHARD (1715-1781), English poet, third son of Richard Jago,
rector of Beaudesert, Warwickshire, was born in 1715. He went up to
University College, Oxford, in 1732, and took his degree in 1736. He was
ordained to the curacy of Snitterfield, Warwickshire, in 1737, and
became rector in 1754; and, although he subsequently received other
preferments, Snitterfield remained his favourite residence. He died
there on the 8th of May 1781. He was twice married. Jago's best-known
poem, _The Blackbirds_, was first printed in Hawkesworth's _Adventurer_
(No. 37, March 13, 1753), and was generally attributed to Gilbert West,
but Jago published it in his own name, with other poems, in R. Dodsley's
_Collection of Poems_ (vol. iv., 1755). In 1767 appeared a topographical
poem, _Edge Hill, or the Rural Prospect delineated and moralized_; two
separate sermons were published in 1755; and in 1768 _Labour and Genius,
a Fable_. Shortly before his death Jago revised his poems, and they were
published in 1784 by his friend, John Scott Hylton, as _Poems Moral and
Descriptive_.

See a notice prefixed to the edition of 1784; A. Chalmers, _English
Poets_ (vol. xvii., 1810); F. L. Colvile, _Warwickshire Worthies_
(1870); some biographical notes are to be found in the letters of
Shenstone to Jago printed in vol. iii. of Shenstone's _Works_ (1769).

JAGUAR (_Felis onca_), the largest species of the _Felidae_ found on the
American continent, where it ranges from Texas through Central and South
America to Patagonia. In the countries which bound its northern limit it
is not frequently met with, but in South America it is quite common, and
Don Felix de Azara states that when the Spaniards first settled in the
district between Montevideo and Santa Fé, as many as two thousand were
killed yearly. The jaguar is usually found singly (sometimes in pairs),
and preys upon such quadrupeds as the horse, tapir, capybara, dogs or
cattle. It often feeds on fresh-water turtles; sometimes following the
reptiles into the water to effect a capture, it inserts a paw between
the shells and drags out the body of the turtle by means of its sharp
claws. Occasionally after having tasted human flesh, the jaguar becomes
a confirmed man-eater. The cry of this great cat, which is heard at
night, and most frequently during the pairing season, is deep and hoarse
in tone, and consists of the sound _pu, pu_, often repeated. The female
brings forth from two to four cubs towards the close of the year, which
are able to follow their mother in about fifteen days after birth. The
ground colour of the jaguar varies greatly, ranging from white to black,
the rosette markings in the extremes being but faintly visible. The
general or typical coloration is, however, a rich tan upon the head,
neck, body, outside of legs, and tail near the root. The upper part of
the head and sides of the face are thickly marked with small black
spots, and the rest of body is covered with rosettes, formed of rings of
black spots, with a black spot in the centre, and ranged lengthwise
along the body in five to seven rows on each side. These black rings are
heaviest along the back. The lips, throat, breast and belly, the inside
of the legs and the lower sides of tail are pure white, marked with
irregular spots of black, those on the breast being long bars and on the
belly and inside of legs large blotches. The tail has large black spots
near the root, some with light centres, and from about midway of its
length to the tip it is ringed with black. The ears are black behind,
with a large buff spot near the tip. The nose and upper lip are light
rufous brown. The size varies, the total length of a very large specimen
measuring 6 ft. 9 in.; the average length, however, is about 4 ft. from
the nose to root of tail. In form the jaguar is thick-set; it does not
stand high upon its legs; and in comparison with the leopard is heavily
built; but its movements are very rapid, and it is fully as agile as its
more graceful relative. The skull resembles that of the lion and tiger,
but is much broader in proportion to its length, and may be identified
by the presence of a tubercle on the inner edge of the orbit. The
species has been divided into a number of local forms, regarded by some
American naturalists as distinct species, but preferably ranked as
sub-species or races.

[Illustration: The Jaguar (_Felis onca_).]

JAGUARONDI, or YAGUARONDI (_Felis jaguarondi_), a South American wild
cat, found in Brazil, Paraguay and Guiana, ranging to north-eastern
Mexico. This relatively small cat, uniformly coloured, is generally of
some shade of brownish-grey, but in some individuals the fur has a
rufous coat, while in others grey predominates. These cats are said by
Don Felix de Azara to keep to cover, without venturing into open places.
They attack tame poultry and also young fawns. The names jaguarondi and
eyra are applied indifferently to this species and _Felis eyra_.

JAHANABAD, a town of British India in Gaya district, Bengal, situated on
a branch of the East Indian railway. Pop. (1901), 7018. It was once a
flourishing trading town, and in 1760 it formed one of the eight
branches of the East India Company's central factory at Patna. Since the
introduction of Manchester goods, the trade of the town in cotton cloth
has almost entirely ceased; but large numbers of the Jolaha or
Mahommedan weaver caste live in the neighbourhood.

JAHANGIR, or JEHANGIR (1569-1627), Mogul emperor of Delhi, succeeded his
father Akbar the Great in 1605. His name was Salim, but he assumed the
title of Jahangir, "Conqueror of the World," on his accession. It was in
his reign that Sir Thomas Roe came as ambassador of James I., on behalf
of the English company. He was a dissolute ruler, much addicted to
drunkenness, and his reign is chiefly notable for the influence enjoyed
by his wife Nur Jahan, "the Light of the World." At first she influenced
Jahangir for good, but surrounding herself with her relatives she
aroused the jealousy of the imperial princes; and Jahangir died in 1627
in the midst of a rebellion headed by his son, Khurram or Shah Jahan,
and his greatest general, Mahabat Khan. The tomb of Jahangir is situated
in the gardens of Shahdera on the outskirts of Lahore.

JAHIZ (ABU 'UTHMAN 'AMR IBN BAHR UL-JAHIZ; i.e. "the man the pupils of
whose eyes are prominent") (d. 869), Arabian writer. He spent his life
and devoted himself in Basra chiefly to the study of polite literature.
A Mu'tazilite in his religious beliefs, he developed a system of his own
and founded a sect named after him. He was favoured by Ibn uz-Zaiyat,
the vizier of the caliph Wathiq.

His work, the _Kitab ul-Bayan wat-Tabyin_, a discursive treatise on
rhetoric, has been published in two volumes at Cairo (1895). The
_Kitab ul-Mahasin wal-Addad_ was edited by G. van Vloten as _Le Livre
des beautés et des antithèses_ (Leiden, 1898); the _Kitab ul-Bu-hala_.
_Le Livre des avares_, ed. by the same (Leiden, 1900); two other
smaller works, the _Excellences of the Turks_ and the _Superiority in
Glory of the Blacks over the Whites_, also prepared by the same. The
_Kitab ul-Hayawan,_ or "Book of Animals," a philological and literary,
not a scientific, work, was published at Cairo (1906). (G. W. T.)

JAHN, FRIEDRICH LUDWIG (1778-1852), German pedagogue and patriot,
commonly called _Turnvater_ ("Father of Gymnastics"), was born in Lanz
on the 11th of August 1778. He studied theology and philology from 1796
to 1802 at Halle, Göttingen and Greifswald. After Jena he joined the
Prussian army. In 1809 he went to Berlin, where he became a teacher at
the Gymnasium zum Grauen as well as at the Plamann School. Brooding upon
the humiliation of his native land by Napoleon, he conceived the idea of
restoring the spirits of his countrymen by the development of their
physical and moral powers through the practice of gymnastics. The first
_Turnplatz_, or open-air gymnasium, was opened by him at Berlin in 1811,
and the movement spread rapidly, the young gymnasts being taught to
regard themselves as members of a kind of gild for the emancipation of
their fatherland. This patriotic spirit was nourished in no small degree
by the writings of Jahn. Early in 1813 he took an active part at Breslau
in the formation of the famous corps of Lützow, a battalion of which he
commanded, though during the same period he was often employed in secret
service. After the war he returned to Berlin, where he was appointed
state teacher of gymnastics. As such he was a leader in the formation of
the student _Burschenschaften_ (patriotic fraternities) in Jena.

A man of democratic nature, rugged, honest, eccentric and outspoken,
Jahn often came into collision with the reactionary spirit of the time,
and this conflict resulted in 1819 in the closing of the _Turnplatz_ and
the arrest of Jahn himself. Kept in semi-confinement at the fortress of
Kolberg until 1824, he was then sentenced to imprisonment for two years;
but this sentence was reversed in 1825, though he was forbidden to live
within ten miles of Berlin. He therefore took up his residence at
Freyburg on the Unstrut, where he remained until his death, with the
exception of a short period in 1828, when he was exiled to Cölleda on a
charge of sedition. In 1840 he was decorated by the Prussian government
with the Iron Cross for bravery in the wars against Napoleon. In the
spring of 1848 he was elected by the district of Naumburg to the German
National Parliament. Jahn died on the 15th of October 1852 in Freyburg,
where a monument was erected in his honour in 1859.

Among his works are the following: _Bereicherung des hochdeutschen
Sprachschatzes_ (Leipzig, 1806), _Deutsches Volksthum_ (Lübeck, 1810),
_Runenblätter_ (Frankfort, 1814), _Neue Runenblätter_ (Naumburg,
1828), _Merke zum deutschen Volksthum_ (Hildburghausen, 1833), and
_Selbstvertheidigung_ (Vindication) (Leipzig, 1863). A complete
edition of his works appeared at Hof in 1884-1887. See the biography
by Schultheiss (Berlin, 1894), and _Jahn als Erzieher_, by Friedrich
(Munich, 1895).

JAHN, JOHANN (1750-1816), German Orientalist, was born at Tasswitz,
Moravia, on the 18th of June 1750. He studied philosophy at Olmütz, and
in 1772 began his theological studies at the Premonstratensian convent
of Bruck, near Znaim. Having been ordained in 1775, he for a short time
held a cure at Mislitz, but was soon recalled to Bruck as professor of
Oriental languages and Biblical hermeneutics. On the suppression of the
convent by Joseph II. in 1784, Jahn took up similar work at Olmütz, and
in 1789 he was transferred to Vienna as professor of Oriental languages,
biblical archaeology and dogmatics. In 1792 he published his _Einleitung
ins Alte Testament_ (2 vols.), which soon brought him into trouble; the
cardinal-archbishop of Vienna laid a complaint against him for having
departed from the traditional teaching of the Church, e.g. by asserting
Job, Jonah, Tobit and Judith to be didactic poems, and the cases of
demoniacal possession in the New Testament to be cases of dangerous
disease. An ecclesiastical commission reported that the views themselves
were not necessarily heretical, but that Jahn had erred in showing too
little consideration for the views of German Catholic theologians in
coming into conflict with his bishop, and in raising difficult problems
by which the unlearned might be led astray. He was accordingly advised
to modify his expressions in future. Although he appears honestly to
have accepted this judgment, the hostility of his opponents did not
cease until at last (1806) he was compelled to accept a canonry at St
Stephen's, Vienna, which involved the resignation of his chair. This
step had been preceded by the condemnation of his _Introductio in libros
sacros veteris foederis in compendium redacta_, published in 1804, and
also of his _Archaeologia biblica in compendium redacta_ (1805). The
only work of importance, outside the region of mere philology,
afterwards published by him, was the _Enchiridion Hermeneuticae_ (1812).
He died on the 16th of August 1816.

Besides the works already mentioned, he published _Hebräische
Sprachlehre für Anfänger_ (1792); _Aramäische od. Chaldäische u.
Syrische Sprachlehre für Anfänger_(1793); _Arabische Sprachlehre_
(1796); _Elementarbuch der hebr. Sprache_ (1799); _Chaldäische
Chrestomathie_ (1800); _Arabische Chrestomathie_ (1802); _Lexicon
arabico-latinum chrestomathiae accommodatum_ (1802); an edition of
the Hebrew Bible (1806); _Grammatica linguae hebraicae_ (1809); a
critical commentary on the Messianic passages of the Old Testament
(_Vaticinia prophetarum de Jesu Messia_, 1815). In 1821 a collection
of _Nachträge_ appeared, containing six dissertations on Biblical
subjects. The English translation of the _Archaeologia_ by T. C. Upham
(1840) has passed through several editions.

JAHN, OTTO (1813-1869), German archaeologist, philologist, and writer on
art and music, was born at Kiel on the 16th of June 1813. After the
completion of his university studies at Kiel, Leipzig and Berlin, he
travelled for three years in France and Italy; in 1839 he became
privatdocent at Kiel, and in 1842 professor-extraordinary of archaeology
and philology at Greifswald (ordinary professor 1845). In 1847 he
accepted the chair of archaeology at Leipzig, of which he was deprived
in 1851 for having taken part in the political movements of 1848-1849.
In 1855 he was appointed professor of the science of antiquity, and
director of the academical art museum at Bonn, and in 1867 he was called
to succeed E. Gerhard at Berlin. He died at Göttingen, on the 9th of
September 1869.

The following are the most important of his works: 1. Archaeological:
_Palamedes_ (1836); _Telephos u. Troilos_ (1841); _Die Gemälde des
Polygnot_ (1841); _Pentheus u. die Mänaden_ (1841); _Paris u. Oinone_
(1844); _Die hellenische Kunst_ (1846); _Peitho, die Göttin der
Überredung_ (1847); _Über einige Darstellungen des Paris-Urteils_
(1849); _Die Ficoronische Cista_ (1852); _Pausaniae descriptio arcis
Athenarum_ (3rd ed., 1901); _Darstellungen griechischer Dichter auf
Vasenbildern_ (1861). 2. Philological: Critical editions of Juvenal,
Persius and Sulpicia (3rd ed. by F. Bücheler, 1893); Censorinus
(1845); Florus (1852); Cicero's _Brutus_ (4th ed., 1877); and _Orator_
(3rd ed., 1869); the _Periochae_ of Livy (1853); the _Psyche et
Cupido_ of Apuleius (3rd ed., 1884; 5th ed., 1905); Longinus (1867;
3rd ed. by J. Vahlen, 1905). 3. Biographical and aesthetic: _Üeber
Mendelssohn's Paulus_ (1842); _Biographie Mozarts_, a work of
extraordinary labour, and of great importance for the history of music
(3rd ed. by H. Disters, 1889-1891; Eng. trans. by P. D. Townsend,
1891); _Ludwig Uhland_ (1863); _Gesammelte Aufsätze über Musik_
(1866); _Biographische Aufsätze_ (1866). His _Griechische
Bilderchroniken_ was published after his death, by his nephew A.
Michaelis, who has written an exhaustive biography in _Allgemeine
Deutsche Biographie_, xiii.; see also J. Vahlen, _Otto Jahn_ (1870);
C. Bursian, _Geschichte der classischen Philologie in Deutschland_.

JAHRUM, a town and district of Persia in the province of Fars, S.E. of
Shiraz and S.W. of Darab. The district has thirty-three villages and is
famous for its celebrated _sháhán_ dates, which are exported in great
quantities; it also produces much tobacco and fruit. The water supply is
scanty, and most of the irrigation is by water drawn from wells. The
town of Jahrum, situated about 90 m. S.E. of Shiraz, is surrounded by a
mud-wall 3 m. in circuit which was constructed in 1834. It has a
population of about 15,000, one half living inside and the other half
outside the walls. It is the market for the produce of the surrounding
districts, has six caravanserais and a post office.

JAINS, the most numerous and influential sect of heretics, or
nonconformists to the Brahmanical system of Hinduism, in India. They are
found in every province of upper Hindustan, in the cities along the
Ganges and in Calcutta. But they are more numerous to the west--in
Mewar, Gujarat, and in the upper part of the Malabar coast--and are also
scattered throughout the whole of the southern peninsula. They are
mostly traders, and live in the towns; and the wealth of many of their
community gives them a social importance greater than would result from
their mere numbers. In the Indian census of 1901 they are returned as
being 1,334,140 in number. Their magnificent series of temples and
shrines on Mount Abu, one of the seven wonders of India, is perhaps the
most striking outward sign of their wealth and importance.

The Jains are the last direct representatives on the continent of India
of those schools of thought which grew out of the active philosophical
speculation and earnest spirit of religious inquiry that prevailed in
the valley of the Ganges during the 5th and 6th centuries before the
Christian era. For many centuries Jainism was so overshadowed by that
stupendous movement, born at the same time and in the same place, which
we call Buddhism, that it remained almost unnoticed by the side of its
powerful rival. But when Buddhism, whose widely open doors had absorbed
the mass of the community, became thereby corrupted from its pristine
purity and gradually died away, the smaller school of the Jains, less
diametrically opposed to the victorious orthodox creed of the Brahmans,
survived, and in some degree took its place.

Jainism purports to be the system of belief promulgated by Vaddhamana,
better known by his epithet of Maha-vira (the great hero), who was a
contemporary of Gotama, the Buddha. But the Jains, like the Buddhists,
believe that the same system had previously been proclaimed through
countless ages by each one of a succession of earlier teachers. The
Jains count twenty-four such prophets, whom they call Jinas, or
Tirthankaras, that is, conquerors or leaders of schools of thought. It
is from this word Jina that the modern name Jainas, meaning followers of
the Jina, or of the Jinas, is derived. This legend of the twenty-four
Jinas contains a germ of truth. Maha-vira was not an originator; he
merely carried on, with but slight changes, a system which existed
before his time, and which probably owes its most distinguishing
features to a teacher named Parswa, who ranks in the succession of Jinas
as the predecessor of Maha-vira. Parswa is said, in the Jain chronology,
to have been born two hundred years before Maha-vira (that is, about 760
B.C.); but the only conclusion that it is safe to draw from this
statement is that Parswa was considerably earlier in point of time than
Maha-vira. Very little reliance can be placed upon the details reported
in the Jain books concerning the previous Jinas in the list of the
twenty-four Tirthankaras. The curious will find in them many
reminiscences of Hindu and Buddhist legend; and the antiquary must
notice the distinctive symbols assigned to each, in order to recognize
the statues of the different Jinas, otherwise identical, in the
different Jain temples.

The Jains are divided into two great parties--the _Digambaras_, or
Sky-clad Ones, and the _Svetambaras_, or the White-robed Ones. The
latter have only as yet been traced, and that doubtfully, as far back as
the 5th century after Christ; the former are almost certainly the same
as the Niganthas, who are referred to in numerous passages of the
Buddhist Pali Pitakas, and must therefore be at least as old as the 6th
century B.C. In many of these passages the Niganthas are mentioned as
contemporaneous with the Buddha; and details enough are given concerning
their leader Nigantha Nata-putta (that is, the Nigantha of the Jñatrika
clan) to enable us to identify him, without any doubt, as the same
person as the Vaddhamana Maha-vira of the Jain books. This remarkable
confirmation, from the scriptures of a rival religion, of the Jain
tradition is conclusive as to the date of Maha-vira. The Niganthas are
referred to in one of Asoka's edicts (_Corpus Inscriptionum_, Plate
xx.). Unfortunately the account of the teachings of Nigantha Nata-putta
given in the Buddhist scriptures are, like those of the Buddha's
teachings given in the Brahmanical literature, very meagre.

_Jain Literature._--The Jain scriptures themselves, though based on
earlier traditions, are not older in their present form than the 5th
century of our era. The most distinctively sacred books are called the
forty-five Agamas, consisting of eleven Angas, twelve Upangas, ten
Pakinnakas, six Chedas, four Mula-sutras and two other books. Devaddhi
Ganin, who occupies among the Jains a position very similar to that
occupied among the Buddhists by Buddhaghosa, collected the then
existing traditions and teachings of the sect into these forty-five
Agamas. Like the Buddhist scriptures, the earlier Jain books are
written in a dialect of their own, the so-called Jaina Prakrit; and it
was not till between A.D. 1000 and 1100 that the Jains adopted
Sanskrit as their literary language. Considerable progress has been
made in the publication and elucidation of these original authorities.
But a great deal remains yet to be done. The oldest books now in the
possession of the modern Jains purport to go back, not to the
foundation of the existing order in the 6th century B.C., but only to
the time of Bhadrabahu, three centuries later. The whole of the still
older literature, on which the revision then made was based, the
so-called _Purvas_, have been lost. And the existing canonical books,
while preserving a great deal that was probably derived from them,
contain much later material. The problem remains to sort out the older
from the later, to distinguish between the earlier form of the faith
and its subsequent developments, and to collect the numerous data for
the general, social, industrial, religious and political history of
India. Professor Weber gave a fairly full and carefully-drawn-up
analysis of the whole of the more ancient books in the second part of
the second volume of his _Catalogue of the Sanskrit MSS. at Berlin_,
published in 1888, and in vols. xvi. and xvii. of his _Indische
Studien_. An English translation of these last was published first in
the _Indian Antiquary_, and then separately at Bombay, 1893. Professor
Bhandarkar gave an account of the contents of many later works in his
_Report on the Search for Sanskrit MSS._, Bombay, 1883. Only a small
beginning has been made in editing and translating these works. The
best _précis_ of a long book can necessarily only deal with the more
important features in it. And in the choice of what should be included
the _précis_-writer will often omit the points some subsequent
investigator may most especially want. All the older works ought
therefore to be edited and translated in full and properly indexed.
The Jains themselves have now printed in Bombay a complete edition of
their sacred books. But the critical value of this edition, and of
other editions of separate texts printed elsewhere in India, leaves
much to be desired. Professor Jacobi has edited and translated the
_Kalpa Sutra_, containing a life of the founder of the Jain order; but
this can scarcely be older than the 5th century of our era. He has
also edited and translated the _Ayaranya Sutta_ of the Svetambara
Jains. The text, published by the Pali Text Society, is of 140 pages
octavo. The first part of it, about 50 pages, is a very old document
on the Jain views as to conduct, and the remainder consists of
appendices, added at different times, on the same subject. The older
part may go back as early as the 3rd century B.C., and it sets out
more especially the Jain doctrine of _tapas_ or self-mortification, in
contradistinction to the Buddhist view, which condemned asceticism.
The rules of conduct in this book are for members of the order. Dr
Rudolf Hoernle edited and translated an ancient work on the rules of
conduct for laymen, the _Uvasaga Dasao_.[1] Professor Leumann edited
another of the older works, the _Aupapatika Sutra_, and a fourth,
entitled the _Dasa-vaikalika Satra_, both of them published by the
German Oriental Society. Professor Jacobi translated two more, the
_Uttaradhyayana_ and the _Sutra Kritanga_.[2] Finally Dr Barnett has
translated two others in vol. xvii. of the _Oriental Translation Fund_
(new series, London, 1907). Thus about one-fiftieth part of these
interesting and valuable old records is now accessible to the European
scholar. The sect of the Svetambaras has preserved the oldest
literatures. Dr Hoernle has treated of the early history of the sect
in the _Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal_ for 1898.
Several scholars--notably Bhagvanlal Indraji, Mr Lewis Rice and
Hofrath Bühler[3]--have treated of the remarkable archaeological
discoveries lately made. These confirm the older records in many
details, and show that the Jains, in the centuries before the
Christian era, were a wealthy and important body in widely separated
parts of India.

_Jainism._--The most distinguishing outward peculiarity of Maha-vira and
of his earliest followers was their practice of going quite naked,
whence the term _Digambara_. Against this custom, Gotama, the Buddha,
especially warned his followers; and it is referred to in the well-known
Greek phrase, _Gymnosophist_, used already by Megasthenes, which applies
very aptly to the Niganthas. Even the earliest name Nigantha, which
means "free from bonds," may not be without allusions to this curious
belief in the sanctity of nakedness, though it also alluded to freedom
from the bonds of sin and of transmigration. The statues of the Jinas in
the Jain temples, some of which are of enormous size, are still always
quite naked; but the Jains themselves have abandoned the practice, the
Digambaras being sky-clad at meal-time only, and the Svetambaras being
always completely clothed. And even among the Digambaras it is only the
recluses or _Yatis_, men devoted to a religious life, who carry out this
practice. The Jain laity--the _Sravakas_, or disciples--do not adopt it.

The Jain views of life were, in the most important and essential
respects, the exact reverse of the Buddhist views. The two orders,
Buddhist and Jain, were not only, and from the first, independent, but
directly opposed the one to the other. In philosophy the Jains are the
most thorough-going supporters of the old animistic position. Nearly
everything, according to them, has a soul within its outward visible
shape--not only men and animals, but also all plants, and even particles
of earth, and of water (when it is cold), and fire and wind. The
Buddhist theory, as is well known, is put together without the
hypothesis of "soul" at all. The word the Jains use for soul is _jiva_,
which means life; and there is much analogy between many of the
expressions they use and the view that the ultimate cells and atoms are
all, in a more or less modified sense, alive. They regard good and evil
and space as ultimate substances which come into direct contact with the
minute souls in everything. And their best-known position in regard to
the points most discussed in philosophy is _Syad-vada_, the doctrine
that you may say "Yes" and at the same time "No" to everything. You can
affirm the eternity of the world, for instance, from one point of view,
and at the same time deny it from another; or, at different times and in
different connexions, you may one day affirm it and another day deny it.
This position both leads to vagueness of thought and explains why
Jainism has had so little influence over other schools of philosophy in
India. On the other hand, the Jains are as determined in their views of
asceticism (_tapas_) as they were compromising in their views of
philosophy. Any injury done to the "souls" being one of the worst of
iniquities, the good monk should not wash his clothes (indeed, the most
austere will reject clothes altogether), nor even wash his teeth, for
fear of injuring living things. "Subdue the body, chastise thyself,
weaken thyself, just as fire consumes dry wood." It was by suppressing,
through such self-torture, the influence on his soul of all sensations
that the Jain could obtain salvation. It is related of the founder
himself, the Maha-vira, that after twelve years' penance he thus
obtained Nirvana (Jacobi, _Jaina Sutras_, i. 201) before he entered upon
his career as a teacher. And through the rest of his life, till he died
at Pava, shortly before the Buddha, he followed the same habit of
continual self-mortification. The Buddha, on the other hand, obtained
Nirvana in his 35th year, under the Bo tree, after he had abandoned
penance; and through the rest of his life he spoke of penance as quite
useless from his point of view.

There is no manual of Jainism as yet published, but there is a great
deal of information on various points in the introductions to the works
referred to above. Professor Jacobi, who is the best authority on the
history of this sect, thus sums up the distinction between the Maha-vira
and the Buddha: "Maha-vira was rather of the ordinary class of religious
men in India. He may be allowed a talent for religious matters, but he
possessed not the genius which Buddha undoubtedly had.... The Buddha's
philosophy forms a system based on a few fundamental ideas, whilst that
of Maha-vira scarcely forms a system, but is merely a sum of opinions
(_pannattis_) on various subjects, no fundamental ideas being there to
uphold the mass of metaphysical matter. Besides this ... it is the
ethical element that gives to the Buddhist writings their superiority
over those of the Jains. Maha-vira treated ethics as corollary and
subordinate to his metaphysics, with which he was chiefly concerned."

ADDITIONAL AUTHORITIES.--Bhadrabahu's _Kalpa Sutra_, the recognized
and popular manual of the Svetambara Jains, edited with English
introduction by Professor Jacobi (Leipzig, 1879); Hemacandra's "Yoga
S'astram," edited by Windisch, in the _Zeitschrift der deutschen morg.
Ges._ for 1874; "Zwei Jaina Stotra," edited in the _Indische Studien_,
vol. xv.; _Ein Fragment der Bhagavati_, by Professor Weber; _Mémoires
de l'Académie de Berlin_ (1866); _Nirayavaliya Sutta_, edited by Dr
Warren, with Dutch introduction (Amsterdam, 1879); _Over de
godsdienstige en wijsgeerige Begrippen der Jainas_, by Dr Warren (his
doctor-dissertation, Zwolle, 1875); _Beiträge zur Grammatik des
Jaina-prakrit_, by Dr Edward Müller (Berlin, 1876); Colebrooke's
_Essays_, vol. ii. Mr J. Burgess has an exhaustive account of the Jain
Cave Temples (none older than the 7th century) in Fergusson and
Burgess's _Cave Temples in India_ (London, 1880).

See also Hopkins' _Religions of India_ (London, 1896), pp. 280-96, and
J. G. Bühler _On the Indian Sect of the Jainas_, edited by J. Burgess
(London, 1904). (T. W. R. D.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Published in the _Bibliotheca Indica_, Calcutta, 1888.

[2] These two, and the other two mentioned above, form vols. i. and
ii. of his _Jaina Sutras_, published in the _Sacred Books of the
East_ (1884, 1895).

[3] The _Hatthi Gumpha_ and three other inscriptions at Cuttack
(Leyden, 1885); _Sravana Belgola_ inscriptions (Bangalore, 1889);
_Vienna Oriental Journal_, vols. ii.-v.; _Epigraphia Indica_, vols.
i-vii.

JAIPUR, or JEYPORE, a city and native state of India in the Rajputana
agency. The city is a prosperous place of comparatively recent date. It
derives its name from the famous Maharaja Jai Singh II., who founded it
in 1728. It is built of pink stucco in imitation of sandstone, and is
remarkable for the width and regularity of its streets. It is the only
city in India that is laid out in rectangular blocks, and it is divided
by cross streets into six equal portions. The main streets are 111 ft.
wide and are paved, while the city is lighted by gas. The regularity of
plan, and the straight streets with the houses all built after the same
pattern, deprive Jaipur of the charm of the East, while the painted mud
walls of the houses give it the meretricious air of stage scenery. The
huge palace of the maharaja stands in the centre of the city. Another
noteworthy building is Jai Singh's observatory. The chief industries are
in metals and marble, which are fostered by a school of art, founded in
1868. There is also a wealthy and enterprising community of native
bankers. The city has three colleges and several hospitals. Pop. (1901),
160,167. The ancient capital of Jaipur was Amber.

The STATE OF JAIPUR, which takes its name from the city, has a total
area of 15,579 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 2,658,666, showing a decrease of 6%
in the decade. The estimated revenue is £430,000, and the tribute
£27,000. The centre of the state is a sandy and barren plain 1,600 ft.
above sea-level, bounded on the E. by ranges of hills running north and
south. On the N. and W. it is bounded by a broken chain of hills, an
offshoot of the Aravalli mountains, beyond which lies the sandy desert
of Rajputana. The soil is generally sandy. The hills are more or less
covered with jungle trees, of no value except for fuel. Towards the S.
and E. the soil becomes more fertile. Salt is largely manufactured and
exported from the Sambhar lake, which is worked by the government of
India under an arrangement with the states of Jaipur and Jodhpur. It
yields salt of a very high quality. The state is traversed by the
Rajputana railway, with branches to Agra and Delhi.

The maharaja of Jaipur belongs to the Kachwaha clan of Rajputs, claiming
descent from Rama, king of Ajodhya. The state is said to have been
founded about 1128 by Dhula Rai, from Gwalior, who with his Kachwahas is
said to have absorbed or driven out the petty chiefs. The Jaipur house
furnished to the Moguls some of their most distinguished generals. Among
them were Man Singh, who fought in Orissa and Assam; Jai Singh,
commonly known by his imperial title of Mirza Raja, whose name appears
in all the wars of Aurangzeb in the Deccan; and Jai Singh II., or Sawai
Jai Singh, the famous mathematician and astronomer, and the founder of
Jaipur city. Towards the end of the 18th century the Jats of Bharatpur
and the chief of Alwar each annexed a portion of the territory of
Jaipur. By the end of the century the state was in great confusion,
distracted by internal broils and impoverished by the exactions of the
Mahrattas. The disputes between the chiefs of Jaipur and Jodhpur had
brought both states to the verge of ruin, and Amir Khan with the
Pindaris was exhausting the country. By a treaty in 1818 the protection
of the British was extended to Jaipur and an annual tribute fixed. In
1835 there was a serious disturbance in the city, after which the
British government took measures to insist upon order and to reform the
administration as well as to support its effective action; and the state
has gradually become well-governed and prosperous. During the Mutiny of
1857 the maharaja assisted the British in every way that lay in his
power. Maharaja Madho Singh, G.C.S.I., G.C.V.O., was born in 1861, and
succeeded in 1882. He is distinguished for his enlightened
administration and his patronage of art. He was one of the princes who
visited England at the time of King Edward's coronation in 1902. It was
he who started and endowed with a donation of 15 lakhs, afterwards
increased to 20 lakhs, of rupees (£133,000) the "Indian People's Famine
Fund." The Jaipur imperial service transport corps saw service in the
Chitral and Tirah campaigns.

JAISALMER, or JEYSULMERE, a town and native state of India in the
Rajputana agency. The town stands on a ridge of yellowish sandstone,
crowned by a fort, which contains the palace and several ornate Jain
temples. Many of the houses and temples are finely sculptured. Pop.
(1901), 7137. The area of the state is 16,062 sq. m. In 1901 the
population was 73,370, showing a decrease of 37% in ten years, as a
consequence of famine. The estimated revenue is about £6000; there is no
tribute. Jaisalmer is almost entirely a sandy waste, forming a part of
the great Indian desert. The general aspect of the country is that of an
interminable sea of sandhills, of all shapes and sizes, some rising to a
height of 150 ft. Those in the west are covered with _phog_ bushes,
those in the east with tufts of long grass. Water is scarce, and
generally brackish; the average depth of the wells is said to be about
250 ft. There are no perennial streams, and only one small river, the
Kakni, which, after flowing a distance of 28 m., spreads over a large
surface of flat ground, and forms a lake or _jhil_ called the Bhuj-Jhil.
The climate is dry and healthy. Throughout Jaisalmer only rain-crops,
such as _bajra_, _joar_, _moth_, _til_, &c., are grown; spring crops of
wheat, barley, &c., are very rare. Owing to the scant rainfall,
irrigation is almost unknown.

The main part of the population lead a wandering life, grazing their
flocks and herds. Large herds of camels, horned cattle, sheep and
goats are kept. The principal trade is in wool, _ghi_, camels, cattle
and sheep. The chief imports are grain, sugar, foreign cloth,
piece-goods, &c. Education is at a low ebb. Jain priests are the chief
schoolmasters, and their teaching is elementary. The ruler of
Jaisalmer is styled _maharawal_. The state suffered from famine in
1897, 1900 and other years, to such an extent that it has had to incur
a heavy debt for extraordinary expenditure. There are no railways.

The majority of the inhabitants are Bhatti Rajputs, who take their
name from an ancestor named Bhatti, renowned as a warrior when the
tribe were located in the Punjab. Shortly after this the clan was
driven southwards, and found a refuge in the Indian desert, which was
thenceforth its home. Deoraj, a famous prince of the Bhatti family, is
esteemed the real founder of the present Jaisalmer dynasty, and with
him the title of _rawal_ commenced. In 1156 Jaisal, the sixth in
succession from Deoraj, founded the fort and city of Jaisalmer, and
made it his capital. In 1294 the Bhattis so enraged the emperor
Ala-ud-din that his army captured and sacked the fort and city of
Jaisalmer, so that for some time it was quite deserted. After this
there is nothing to record till the time of Rawal Sabal Singh, whose
reign marks an epoch in Bhatti history in that he acknowledged the
supremacy of the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan. The Jaisalmer princes had
now arrived at the height of their power, but from this time till the
accession of Rawal Mulraj in 1762 the fortunes of the state rapidly
declined, and most of its outlying provinces were lost. In 1818 Mulraj
entered into political relations with the British. Maharawal
Salivahan, born in 1887, succeeded to the chief ship in 1891.

JAJCE (pronounced _Yaïtse_), a town of Bosnia, situated on the Pliva and
Vrbas rivers, and at the terminus of a branch railway from Serajevo, 62
m. S.E. Pop. (1895), about 4000. Jajce occupies a conical hill,
overlooking one of the finest waterfalls in Europe, where the Pliva
rushes down into the Vrbas, 100 ft. below. The 14th century citadel
which crowns this hill is said to have been built for Hrvoje, duke of
Spalato, on the model of the Castel del' Uovo at Naples; but the
resemblance is very slight, and although both _jajce_ and _uovo_ signify
"an egg," the town probably derives its name from the shape of the hill.
The ruined church of St Luke, said by legend to be the Evangelist's
burial place, has a fine Italian belfry, and dates from the 15th
century. Jezero, 5 m. W. of Jajce, contains the Turkish fort of
Djöl-Hissar, or "the Lake-Fort." In this neighbourhood a line of
waterfalls and meres, formed by the Pliva, stretches for several miles,
enclosed by steep rocks and forest-clad mountains. The power supplied by
the main fall, at Jajce, is used for industrial purposes, but the beauty
of the town remains unimpaired.

From 1463 to 1528 Jajce was the principal outwork of eastern Christendom
against the Turks. Venice contributed money for its defence, and Hungary
provided armies; while the pope entreated all Christian monarchs to
avert its fall. In 1463 Mahomet II. had seized more than 75 Bosnian
fortresses, including Jajce itself; and the last independent king of
Bosnia, Stephen Tomasevic, had been beheaded, or, according to one
tradition, flayed alive, before the walls of Jajce, on a spot still
called _Kraljeva Polje_, the "King's Field." His coffin and skeleton are
still displayed in St Luke's Church. The Hungarians, under King Matthias
I., came to the rescue, and reconquered the greater part of Bosnia
during the same year; and, although Mahomet returned in 1464, he was
again defeated at Jajce, and compelled to flee before another Hungarian
advance. In 1467 Hungarian bans, or military governors, were appointed
to rule in north-west Bosnia, and in 1472 Matthias appointed Nicolaus
Ujlaki king of the country, with Jajce for his capital. This kingdom
lasted, in fact, for 59 years; but, after the death of Ujlaki, in 1492,
its rulers only bore the title of _ban_, and of _vojvod_. In 1500 the
Turks, under Bajazet II., were crushed at Jajce by the Hungarians under
John Corvinus; and several other attacks were repelled between 1520 and
1526. But in 1526 the Hungarian power was destroyed at Mohács; and in
1528 Jajce was forced to surrender.

See Bräss, "Jajce, die alte Königstadt Bosniens," in _Deutsche geog.
Blätter_, pp. 71-85 (Bremen, 1899).

JAJPUR, or JAJPORE, a town of British India, in Cuttack district,
Bengal, situated on the right bank of the Baitarani river. Pop. (1901),
12,111. It was the capital of Orissa under the Kesari dynasty until the
11th century, when it was superseded by Cuttack. In Jajpur are numerous
ruins of temples, sculptures, &c., and a large and beautiful sun pillar.

JAKOB, LUDWIG HEINRICH VON (1759-1827), German economist, was born at
Wettin on the 26th of February 1759. In 1777 he entered the university
of Halle. In 1780 he was appointed teacher at the gymnasium, and in 1791
professor of philosophy at the university. The suppression of the
university of Halle having been decreed by Napoleon, Jakob betook
himself to Russia, where in 1807 he was appointed professor of political
economy at Kharkoff, and in 1809 a member of the government commission
to inquire into the finances of the empire. In the following year he
became president of the commission for the revision of criminal law, and
he at the same time obtained an important office in the finance
department, with the rank of counsellor of state; but in 1816 he
returned to Halle to occupy the chair of political economy. He died at
Lauchstädt on the 22nd of July 1827.

Shortly after his first appointment to a professorship in Halle Jakob
had begun to turn his attention rather to the practical than the
speculative side of philosophy, and in 1805 he published at Halle
_Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie_, in which he was the first to
advocate in Germany the necessity of a distinct science dealing
specially with the subject of national wealth. His principal other
works are _Grundriss der allgemeinen Logik_ (Halle, 1788); _Grundsätze
der Polizeigesetzgebung und Polizeianstalten_ (Leipzig, 1809);
_Einleitung in das Studium der Staatswissenschaften_ (Halle, 1819);
_Entwurf eines Criminalgesetzbuchs für das russische Reich_ (Halle,
1818) and _Staatsfinanzwissenschaft_ (2 vols., Halle, 1821).

JAKOVA (also written DIAKOVA, GYAKOVO and GJAKOVICA), a town of Albania,
European Turkey, in the vilayet of Kossovo; on the river Erenik, a
right-hand tributary of the White Drin. Pop. (1905) about 12,000. Jakova
is the chief town of the Alpine region which extends from the
Montenegrin frontier to the Drin and White Drin. This region has never
been thoroughly explored, or brought under effective Turkish rule, on
account of the inaccessible character of its mountains and forests, and
the lawlessness of its inhabitants--a group of two Roman Catholic and
three Moslem tribes, known collectively as the Malsia Jakovs, whose
official representative resides in Jakova.

JAKUNS, an aboriginal race of the Malay Peninsula. They have become much
mixed with other tribes, and are found throughout the south of the
peninsula and along the coasts. The purest types are straight-haired,
exhibit marked Mongolian characteristics and are closely related to the
Malays. They are probably a branch of the Pre-Malays, the "savage
Malays" of A. R. Wallace. They are divided into two groups: (1) Jakuns
of the jungle, (2) Jakuns of the sea or Orang Laut. The latter set of
tribes now comprise the remnants of the pirates or "sea-gipsies" of the
Malaccan straits. The Jakuns, who must be studied in conjunction with
the other aboriginal peoples of the Malay Peninsula, the Semangs and the
Sakais, are not so dwarfish as those. The head is round; the skin varies
from olive-brown to dark copper; the face is flat and the lower jaw
square. The nose is thick and short, with wide, open nostrils. The
cheekbones are high and well marked. The hair has a blue-black tint,
eyes are black and the beard is scanty. The Jakuns live a wild forest
life, and in general habits much resemble the Sakai, being but little in
advance of the latter in social conditions except where they come into
close contact with the Malay peoples.

JALALABAD, or JELLALABAD, a town and province of Afghanistan. The town
lies at a height of 1950 ft. in a plain on the south side of the Kabul
river, 96 m. from Kabul and 76 from Peshawar. Estimated pop., 4000.
Between it and Peshawar intervenes the Khyber Pass, and between it and
Kabul the passes of Jagdalak, Khurd Kabul, &c. The site was chosen by
the emperor Baber, and he laid out some gardens here; but the town
itself was built by his grandson Akbar in A.D. 1560. It resembles the
city of Kabul on a smaller scale, and has one central bazaar, the
streets generally being very narrow. The most notable episode in the
history of the place is the famous defence by Sir Robert Sale during the
first Afghan war, when he held the town from November 1841 to April
1842. On its evacuation in 1842 General Pollock destroyed the defences,
but they were rebuilt in 1878. The town is now fortified, surrounded by
a high wall with bastions and loopholes. The province of Jalalabad is
about 80 m. in length by 35 in width, and includes the large district of
Laghman north of the Kabul river, as well as that on the south called
Ningrahar. The climate of Jalalabad is similar to that of Peshawar. As a
strategical centre Jalalabad is one of the most important positions in
Afghanistan, for it dominates the entrances to the Laghman and the Kunar
valleys; commanding routes to Chitral or India north of the Khyber, as
well as the Kabul-Peshawar road.

JALAP, a cathartic drug consisting of the tuberous roots of _Ipomaea
Purga_, a convolvulaceous plant growing on the eastern declivities of
the Mexican Andes at an elevation of 5000 to 8000 ft. above the level of
the sea, more especially about the neighbourhood of Chiconquiaco, and
near San Salvador on the eastern slope of the Cofre de Perote. Jalap has
been known in Europe since the beginning of the 17th century, and
derives its name from the city of Jalapa in Mexico, near which it grows,
but its botanical source was not accurately determined until 1829, when
Dr. J. R. Coxe of Philadelphia published a description and coloured
figure taken from living plants sent him two years previously from
Mexico. The jalap plant has slender herbaceous twining stems, with
alternately placed heart-shaped pointed leaves and salver-shaped deep
purplish-pink flowers. The underground stems are slender and creeping;
their vertical roots enlarge and form turnip-shaped tubers. The roots
are dug up in Mexico throughout the year, and are suspended to dry in a
net over the hearth of the Indians' huts, and hence acquire a smoky
odour. The large tubers are often gashed to cause them to dry more
quickly. In their form they vary from spindle-shaped to ovoid or
globular, and in size from a pigeon's egg to a man's fist. Externally
they are brown and marked with small transverse paler scars, and
internally they present a dirty white resinous or starchy fracture. The
ordinary drug is distinguished in commerce as Vera Cruz jalap, from the
name of the port whence it is shipped.

[Illustration: Jalap (_Ipomaea Purga_); about half natural size.]

Jalap has been cultivated for many years in India, chiefly at
Ootacamund, and grows there as easily as a yam, often producing clusters
of tubers weighing over 9 lb.; but these, as they differ in appearance
from the commercial article, have not as yet obtained a place in the
English market. They are found, however, to be rich in resin, containing
18%. In Jamaica also the plant has been grown, at first amongst the
cinchona trees, but more recently in new ground, as it was found to
exhaust the soil.

Besides Mexican or Vera Cruz jalap, a drug called Tampico jalap has been
imported for some years in considerable quantity. It has a much more
shrivelled appearance and paler colour than ordinary jalap, and lacks
the small transverse scars present in the true drug. This kind of jalap,
the Purga de Sierra Gorda of the Mexicans, was traced by Hanbury to
_Ipomaea simulans_. It grows in Mexico along the mountain range of the
Sierra Gorda in the neighbourhood of San Luis de la Paz, from which
district it is carried down to Tampico, whence it is exported. A third
variety of jalap known as woody jalap, male jalap, or Orizaba root, or
by the Mexicans as Purgo macho, is derived from _Ipomaea orizabensis_, a
plant of Orizaba. The root occurs in fibrous pieces, which are usually
rectangular blocks of irregular shape, 2 in. or more in diameter, and
are evidently portions of a large root. It is only occasionally met with
in commerce.

The dose of jalap is from five to twenty grains, the British
Pharmacopeia directing that it must contain from 9 to 11% of the resin,
which is given in doses of two to five grains. One preparation of this
drug is in common use, the _Pulvis Jalapae Compositus_, which consists
of 5 parts of jalap, 9 of cream of tartar, and 1 of ginger. The dose is
from 20 grains to a drachm. It is best given in the maximum dose which
causes the minimum of irritation.

The chief constituents of jalap resin are two glucosides--_convolvulin_
and _jalapin_--sugar, starch and gum. Convolvulin constitutes nearly
20% of the resin. It is insoluble in ether, and is more active than
jalapin. It is not used separately in medicine. Jalapin is present in
about the same proportions. It dissolves readily in ether, and has a
soft resinous consistence. It may be given in half-grain doses. It is
the active principle of the allied drug _scammony_. According to Mayer,
the formula of convolvulin is C34H50O16, and that of jalapin C31H50O16.

Jalap is a typical hydragogue purgative, causing the excretion of more
fluid than scammony, but producing less stimulation of the muscular
wall of the bowel. For both reasons it is preferable to scammony. It
was shown by Professor Rutherford at Edinburgh to be a powerful
secretory cholagogue, an action possessed by few hydragogue purgatives.
The stimulation of the liver is said to depend upon the solution of the
resin by the intestinal secretion. The drug is largely employed in
cases of Bright's disease and dropsy from any cause, being especially
useful when the liver shares in the general venous congestion. It is
not much used in ordinary constipation.

JALAPA, XALAPA, or HALAPA, a city of the state of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 70
m. by rail N.W. of the port of Vera Cruz. Pop. (1900), 20,388. It is
picturesquely situated on the slopes of the sierra which separates the
central plateau from the _tierra caliente_ of the Gulf Coast, at an
elevation of 4300 ft., and with the Cofre de Perote behind it rising to
a height of 13,419 ft. Its climate is cool and healthy and the town is
frequented in the hot season by the wealthier residents of Vera Cruz.
The city is well built, in the old Spanish style. Among its public
buildings are a fine old church, a Franciscan convent founded by Cortez
in 1556, and three hospitals, one of which, that of San Juan de Dios,
dates from colonial times. The neighbouring valleys and slopes are
fertile, and in the forests of this region is found the plant (jalap),
which takes its name from the place. Jalapa was for a time the capital
of the state, but its political and commercial importance has declined
since the opening of the railway between Vera Cruz and the city of
Mexico. It manufactures pottery and leather.

JALAUN, a town and district of British India, in the Allahabad division
of the United Provinces. Pop. of town (1901), 8573. Formerly it was the
residence of a Mahratta governor, but never the headquarters of the
district, which are at Orai.

The DISTRICT OF JALAUN has an area of 1477 sq. m. It lies entirely
within the level plain of Bundelkhand, north of the hill country, and is
almost surrounded by the Jumna and its tributaries the Betwa and Pahuj.
The central region thus enclosed is a dead level of cultivated land,
almost destitute of trees, and sparsely dotted with villages. The
southern portion presents almost one unbroken sheet of cultivation. The
boundary rivers form the only interesting feature in Jalaun. The river
Non flows through the centre of the district, which it drains by
innumerable small ravines instead of watering. Jalaun has suffered much
from the noxious _kans_ grass, owing to the spread of which many
villages have been abandoned and their lands thrown out of cultivation.
Pop. (1901), 399,726, showing an increase of 1%. The two largest towns
are Kunch (15,888), and Kalpi (10,139). The district is traversed by the
line of the Indian Midland railway from Jhansi to Cawnpore. A small part
of it is watered by the Betwa canal. Grain, oil-seeds, cotton and _ghi_
are exported.

In early times Jalaun seems to have been the home of two Rajput clans,
the Chandels in the east and the Kachwahas in the west. The town of
Kalpi on the Jumna was conquered for the princes of Ghor as early as
1196. Early in the 14th century the Bundelas occupied the greater part
of Jalaun, and even succeeded in holding the fortified post of Kalpi.
That important possession was soon recovered by the Mussulmans, and
passed under the sway of the Mogul emperors. Akbar's governors at Kalpi
maintained a nominal authority over the surrounding district; and the
Bundela chiefs were in a state of chronic revolt, which culminated in
the war of independence under Chhatar Sal. On the outbreak of his
rebellion in 1671 he occupied a large province to the south of the
Jumna. Setting out from this basis, and assisted by the Mahrattas, he
reduced the whole of Bundelkhand. On his death he bequeathed one-third
of his dominions to his Mahratta allies, who before long succeeded in
annexing the whole of Bundelkhand. Under Mahratta rule the country was a
prey to constant anarchy and intestine strife. To this period must be
traced the origin of the poverty and desolation which are still
conspicuous throughout the district. In 1806 Kalpi was made over to the
British, and in 1840, on the death of Nana Gobind Ras, his possessions
lapsed to them also. Various interchanges of territory took place, and
in 1856 the present boundaries were substantially settled. Jalaun had a
bad reputation during the Mutiny. When the news of the rising at
Cawnpore reached Kalpi, the men of the 53rd native infantry deserted
their officers, and in June the Jhansi mutineers reached the district,
and began their murder of Europeans. The inhabitants everywhere revelled
in the licence of plunder and murder which the Mutiny had spread through
all Bundelkhand, and it was not till September 1858 that the rebels were
finally defeated.

JALISCO, XALISCO, or GUADALAJARA, a Pacific coast state of Mexico, of
very irregular shape, bounded, beginning on the N., by the territory of
Tepic and the states of Durango, Zacatecas, Aguas Calientes, Guanajuato,
Michoacán, and Colima. Pop. (1900), 1,153,891. Area, 31,846 sq. m.
Jalisco is traversed from N.N.W. to S.S.E. by the Sierra Madre, locally
known as the Sierra de Nayarit and Sierra de Jalisco, which divides the
state into a low heavily forested coastal plain and a high plateau
region, part of the great Anáhuac table-land, with an average elevation
of about 5000 ft., broken by spurs and flanking ranges of moderate
height. The sierra region is largely volcanic and earthquakes are
frequent; in the S. are the active volcanoes of Colima (12,750 ft.) and
the Nevado de Colima (14,363 ft.). The _tierra caliente_ zone of the
coast is tropical, humid, and unfavourable to Europeans, while the
inland plateaus vary from subtropical to temperate and are generally
drier and healthful. The greater part of the state is drained by the Rio
Grande de Lerma (called the Santiago on its lower course) and its
tributaries, chief of which is the Rio Verde. Lakes are numerous; the
largest are the Chapala, about 80 m. long by 10 to 35 m. wide, which is
considered one of the most beautiful inland sheets of water in Mexico,
the Sayula and the Magdalena, noted for their abundance of fish. The
agricultural products of Jalisco include Indian corn, wheat and beans on
the uplands, and sugar-cane, cotton, rice, indigo and tobacco in the
warmer districts. Rubber and palm oil are natural forest products of the
coastal zone. Stock-raising is an important occupation in some of the
more elevated districts. The mineral resources include silver, gold,
cinnabar, copper, bismuth, and various precious stones. There are
reduction works of the old-fashioned type and some manufactures,
including cotton and woollen goods, pottery, refined sugar and leather.
The commercial activities of the state contribute much to its
prosperity. There is a large percentage of Indians and mestizos in the
population. The capital is Guadalajara, and other important towns with
their populations in 1900 (unless otherwise stated) are: Zapotlanejo
(20,275), 21 m. E. by N. of Guadalajara; Ciudad Guzmán (17,374 in 1895),
60 m. N.E. of Colima; Lagos (14,716 in 1895), a mining town 100 m.
E.N.E. of Guadalajara on the Mexican Central railway; Tamazula (8783 in
1895); Sayula (7883); Autlán (7715); Teocaltiche (8881); Ameca (7212 in
1895), in a fertile agricultural region on the western slopes of the
sierras; Cocula (7090 in 1895); and Zacoalco (6516). Jalisco was first
invaded by the Spaniards about 1526 and was soon afterwards conquered by
Nuño de Guzman. It once formed part of the reyno of Nueva Galicia, which
also included Aguas Calientes and Zacatecas. In 1889 its area was much
reduced by a subdivision of its coastal zone, which was set apart as the
territory of Tepic.

JALNA, or JAULNA, a town in Hyderabad state, India, on the Godavari
branch of the Nizam's railway, and 210 m. N.E. of Bombay. Pop. (1901),
20,270. Until 1903 it was a cantonment of the Hyderabad contingent,
originally established in 1827. Its gardens produce fruit, which is
largely exported. On the opposite bank of the river Kundlika is the
trading town of Kadirabad; pop. (1901), 11,159.

JALPAIGURI, or JULPIGOREE, a town and district of British India, in the
Rajshahi division of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The town is on the right
bank of the river Tista, with a station on the Eastern Bengal railway
about 300 m. due N. of Calcutta. Pop. (1901), 9708. It is the
headquarters of the commissioner of the division.

The DISTRICT OF JALPAIGURI (organized in 1869) occupies an irregularly
shaped tract south of Darjeeling and Bhutan and north of the state of
Kuch Behar. It includes the Western Dwars, annexed from Bhutan after the
war of 1864-1865. Area, 2,962 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 787,380, an increase
of 16% in the decade. The district is divided into a "regulation" tract,
lying towards the south-west, and a strip of country, about 22 m. in
width, running along the foot of the Himalayas, and known as the Western
Dwars. The former is a continuous expanse of level paddy fields, only
broken by groves of bamboos, palms, and fruit-trees. The frontier
towards Bhutan is formed by the Sinchula mountain range, some peaks of
which attain an elevation of 6000 ft. It is thickly wooded from base to
summit. The principal rivers, proceeding from west to east, are the
Mahananda, Karatoya, Tista, Jaldhaka, Duduya, Mujnai, Tursa, Kaljani,
Raidak, and Sankos. The most important is the Tista, which forms a
valuable means of water communication. Lime is quarried in the lower
Bhutan hills. The Western Dwars are the principal centre of tea
cultivation in Eastern Bengal. The other portion of the district
produces jute. Jalpaiguri is traversed by the main line of the Eastern
Bengal railway to Darjeeling. It is also served by the Bengal Dwars
railway.

JAMAICA, the largest island in the British West Indies. It lies about 80
m. S. of the eastern extremity of Cuba, between 17° 43´ and 18° 32´ N.
and 76° 10´ and 78° 20´ W., is 144 m. long, 50 m. in extreme breadth,
and has an area of 4207 sq. m. The coast-line has the form of a turtle,
the mountain ridges representing the back. A mountainous backbone runs
through the island from E. to W., throwing off a number of subsidiary
ridges, mostly in a north-westerly or south-easterly direction. In the
east this range is more distinctly marked, forming the Blue Mountains,
with cloud-capped peaks and numerous bifurcating branches. They trend W.
by N., and are crossed by five passes at altitudes varying from 3000 to
4000 ft. They culminate in Blue Mountain Peak (7360 ft.), after which
the heights gradually decrease until the range is merged into the hills
of the western plateau. Two-thirds of the island are occupied by this
limestone plateau, a region of great beauty broken by innumerable hills,
valleys and sink-holes, and covered with luxuriant vegetation. The
uplands usually terminate in steep slopes or bluffs, separated from the
sea, in most cases, by a strip of level land. On the south coast,
especially, the plains are often large, the Liguanea plain, on which
Kingston stands, having an area of 200 sq. m. Upwards of a hundred
rivers and streams find their way to the sea, besides the numerous
tributaries which issue from every ravine in the mountains. These
streams for the most part are not navigable, and in times of flood they
become devastating torrents. In the parish of Portland, the Rio Grande
receives all the smaller tributaries from the west. In St Thomas in the
east the main range is drained by the Plantain Garden river, the
tributaries of which form deep ravines and narrow gorges. The valley of
the Plantain Garden expands into a picturesque and fertile plain. The
Black river flows through a level country, and is navigable by small
craft for about 30 m. The Salt river and the Cabaritta, also in the
south, are navigable by barges. Other rivers of the south are the Rio
Cobre (on which are irrigation works for the sugar and fruit
plantations), the Yallahs and the Rio Minho; in the north are the Martha
Brae, the White river, the Great Spanish river, and the Rio Grande.
Vestiges of intermittent volcanic action occur, and there are several
medicinal springs. Jamaica has 16 harbours, the chief of which are Port
Morant, Kingston, Old Harbour, Montego Bay, Falmouth, St Ann's Bay, Port
Maria and Port Antonio.

_Geology._--The greater part of Jamaica is covered by Tertiary
deposits, but in the Blue Mountain and some of the other ranges the
older rocks rise to the surface. The foundation of the island is
formed by a series of stratified shales and conglomerates, with tuffs
and other volcanic rocks and occasional bands of marine limestone. The
limestones contain Upper Cretaceous fossils, and the whole series has
been strongly folded. Upon this foundation rests unconformably a
series of marls and limestones of Eocene and early Oligocene age. Some
of the limestones are made of Foraminifera, together with Radiolaria,
and indicate a subsidence to abyssal depths. Nevertheless, the higher
peaks of the island still remained above the sea. Towards the middle
of the Oligocene period, mountain folding took place on an extensive
scale, and the island was raised far above its present level and was
probably connected with the rest of the Greater Antilles and perhaps
with the mainland also. At the same time plutonic rocks of various
kinds were intruded into the deposits already formed, and in some
cases produced considerable metamorphism. During the Miocene and
Pliocene periods the island again sank, but never to the depths which
it reached in the Eocene period. The deposits formed were
shallow-water conglomerates, marls and limestones, with mollusca,
brachiopoda, corals, &c. Finally, a series of successive elevations of
small amount, less than 500 ft. in the aggregate, raised the island to
its present level. The terraces which mark the successive stages in
this elevation are well shown in Montego Bay and elsewhere. The
remarkable depressions of the Cockpit country and the closed basin of
the Hector river are similar in origin to swallow-holes, and were
formed by the solution of a limestone layer resting upon insoluble
rocks. The island produces a great variety of marbles, porphyrites,
granite and ochres. Traces of gold have been found associated with
some of the oxidized copper ores (blue and green carbonates) in the
Clarendon mines. Copper ores are widely diffused but are very
expensive to work; as are the lead and cobalt which are also found.
Manganese iron ores and a form of arsenic occur.

_Climate._--The climate is one of the island's chief attractions. Near
the coast it is warm and humid, but that of the uplands is delightfully
mild and equable. At Kingston the temperature ranges from 70.7° to 87.8°
F., and this is generally the average of all the low-lying coast land.
At Cinchona, 4907 ft. above the sea, it varies from 57.5° to 68.5°. The
vapours from the rivers and the ocean produce in the upper regions
clouds saturated with moisture which induce vegetation belonging to a
colder climate. During the rainy seasons there is such an accumulation
of these vapours as to cause a general coolness and occasion sudden
heavy showers, and sometimes destructive floods. The rainy seasons, in
May and October, last for about three weeks, although, as a rule no
month is quite without rain. The fall varies greatly; while the annual
average for the island is 66.3 in., at Kingston it is 32.6 in., at
Cinchona 105.5 in., and at some places in the north-east it exceeds 200
in. The climate of the Santa Cruz Mountains is extremely favourable to
sufferers from tubercular and rheumatic diseases. Excepting near
morasses and lagoons, the island is very healthy, and yellow fever, once
prevalent, now rarely occurs. In the early part of the 19th century,
hurricanes often devastated Jamaica, but now, though they pass to the
N.E. and S.W. with comparative frequency, they rarely strike the island
itself.

_Flora._--The flora is remarkable, showing types from North, Central,
and South America, with a few European forms, besides the common
plants found everywhere in the tropics. Of flowering plants there are
2180 distinct species, and of ferns 450 species, several of both being
indigenous. The largeness of these numbers may be to some extent
accounted for by differences of altitude, temperature and humidity.
There are many beautiful flowers, such as the aloe, the yucca, the
datura, the mountain pride and the _Victoria regia_; and the cactus
tribe is well represented. The Sensitive Plant grows in pastures, and
orchids in the woods. There are forest trees fit for every purpose;
including the ballata, rosewood, satinwood, mahogany, lignum vitae,
lancewood and ebony. The logwood and fustic are exported for dyeing.
There are also the Jamaica cedar, and the silk cotton tree (_Ceiba
Bombax_). Pimento (peculiar to Jamaica) is indigenous, and furnishes
the allspice. The bamboo, coffee and cocoa are well known. Several
species of palm abound,--the macaw, the fan palm, screw palm, and
palmetto royal. There are plantations of coconut palm. The other
noticeable trees and plants are the mango, the breadfruit tree, the
papaw, the lacebark tree, and the guava. The _Palma Christi_, from
which castor oil is made, is a very abundant annual. English
vegetables grow in the hills, and the plains produce plantains, cocoa,
yams, cassava, ochra, beans, pease, ginger and arrowroot. Maize and
guinea-corn are cultivated, and the guinea-grass, accidentally
introduced in 1750, is very valuable for horses and cattle,--so much
so that pen-keeping or cattle farming is a highly profitable
occupation. Among the principal fruits are the orange, shaddock, lime,
grape or cluster fruit, pine-apple, mango, banana, grapes, melons,
avocado pear, breadfruit, and tamarind.

_Fauna._--There are fourteen sorts of _lampyridae_ or fireflies,
besides the _elateridae_ or lantern beetles. There are no venomous
serpents, but numerous harmless snakes and lizards exist. The
land-crab is considered a table delicacy, and the land-turtle also is
eaten. The scorpion and centipede, though poisonous, are not very
dangerous. Ants, sandflies and mosquitoes swarm in the lowlands. There
are twenty different song-birds, and forty-three varieties of birds
are presumed to be peculiar to the island. The sea and the rivers
swarm with fish. Turtles abound, and the seal, the manatee and the
crocodile are sometimes found. The coral reefs, with their varied
polyps and anemones, the numerous alcyonarians and diverse
coral-dwelling animals are readily accessible to the student, and the
island is also celebrated for the number of species of its
land-shells.

_People._--The population of the island was estimated in 1905 at
806,690. Jamaica is rich in traces of its former Arawâk inhabitants.
Aboriginal petaloid celts and other implements, flattened skulls and
vessels are common, and images are sometimes found in the large
limestone caverns of the island. The present inhabitants, of whom only
2% are white, include Maroons, the descendants of the slaves of the
Spaniards who fled into the interior when the island was captured by the
British; descendants of imported African slaves; mixed race of British
and African blood; coolies from India; a few Chinese, and the British
officials and white settlers. The Maroons live by themselves and are few
in number, while the half-castes enter into trade and sometimes into the
professions. The number of white inhabitants other than British is very
small. A negro peasant population is encouraged, with a view to its
being a support to the industries of the island; but, in many cases a
field negro will not work for his employer more than four days a week.
He may till his own plot of ground on one of the other days or not, as
the spirit moves him, but four days' work a week will keep him easily.
He has little or no care for the future. He has probably squatted on
someone's land, and has no rent to pay. Clothes he need hardly buy, fuel
he needs only for cooking, and food is ready to his hand for the
picking. Unfortunately a widespread indulgence in predial larceny is a
great hindrance to agriculture as well as to moral progress. But that
habits of thrift are being inculcated is shown by the steady increase in
the accounts in the government savings banks. That gross superstition is
still prevalent is shown by the cases of _obeah_ or witchcraft that come
before the courts from time to time. Another indication of the status of
the negro may be found in the fact that more than 60% of the births are
illegitimate, a percentage that shows an unfortunate tendency to
increase rather than diminish.

The capital, Kingston, stands on the south-east coast, and near it is
the town of Port Royal. Spanish Town (pop. 5019), the former capital,
is in the parish of St Catherine, Middlesex, 11¾ m. by rail west of
Kingston. Since the removal of the seat of government to Kingston, the
town has gradually sunk in importance. In the cathedral many of the
governors of the island are buried. A marble statue of Rodney
commemorates his victory over the count de Grasse off Dominica in
1782. Montego Bay (pop. 4803), on the north-west coast, is the second
town on the island, and is also a favourite bathing resort. Port
Antonio (1784) lies between two secure harbours on the north-east, and
owes its prosperity mainly to the development of the trade in fruit,
for which it is the chief place of shipment.

_Industries._--Agricultural enterprise falls into two
classes--planting and pen-keeping, i.e. the breeding of horses, mules,
cattle and sheep. The chief products are bananas, oranges, coffee,
sugar, rum, logwood, cocoa, pimento, ginger, coco-nuts, limes,
nutmegs, pineapples, tobacco, grape-fruit and mangoes. There is a
board of agriculture, with an experimental station at Hope; there is
also an agricultural society with 26 branches throughout the colony.
Bee-keeping is a growing industry, especially among the peasants. The
land as a rule is divided into small holdings, the vast majority
consisting of five acres and less. The manufactures are few. In
addition to the sugar and coffee estates and cigar factories, there
are tanneries, distilleries, breweries, electric light and gas works,
ironfoundries, potteries and factories for the production of coconut
oil, essential oils, ice, matches and mineral waters. There is an
important establishment at Spanish Town for the production of logwood
extract. The exports, more than half of which go to the United States,
mostly comprise fruit, sugar and rum. The United States also
contributes the majority of the imports. More than half the revenue of
the colony is derived from import duties, the remainder is furnished
by excise, stamps and licences. With the exception of that of the
parish boards, there is no direct taxation.

_Communications._--In 1900 an Imperial Direct West India Line of
steamers was started by Elder, Dempster & Co., to encourage the fruit
trade with England; it had a subsidy of £40,000, contributed jointly
by the Imperial and Jamaican governments. Two steamers go round the
island once a week, calling at the principal ports, the circuit
occupying about 120 hours. A number of sailing "droghers" also ply
from port to port. Jamaica has a number of good roads and bridle
paths; the main roads, controlled by the public works department,
encircle the island, with several branches from north to south. The
parochial roads are maintained by the parish boards. A railway
traverses the island from Kingston in the south-east to Montego Bay in
the north-west, and also branches to Port Antonio and to Ewarton.
Jamaica is included in the Postal Union and in the Imperial penny
post, and there is a weekly mail service to and from England by the
Royal Mail Line, but mails are also carried by other companies. The
island is connected by cable with the United States via Cuba, and with
Halifax, Nova Scotia via Bermuda.

[Illustration: Map of Jamaica.]

There is a government savings bank at Kingston with branches
throughout the island, and there are also branches of the Colonial
Bank of London and the Bank of Nova Scotia. The coins in circulation
are British gold and silver, but not bronze, instead of which local
nickel is used. United States gold passes as currency. English weights
and measures are used.

_Administration, &c._--The island is divided into three counties, Surrey
in the east, Middlesex in the centre, and Cornwall in the west, and each
of these is subdivided into five parishes. The parish is the unit of
local government, and has jurisdiction over roads, markets, sanitation,
poor relief and waterworks. The management is vested in a parish board,
the members of which are elected. The chairman or custos is appointed by
the governor. The island is administered by a governor, who bears the
old Spanish title of captain-general, assisted by a legislative council
of five _ex officio_ members, not more than ten nominated members, and
fourteen members elected on a limited suffrage. There is also a privy
council of three _ex officio_ and not more than eight nominated members.
There is an Imperial garrison of about 2000 officers and men, with
headquarters at Newcastle, consisting of Royal Engineers, Royal
Artillery, infantry and four companies of the West India Regiment. There
is a naval station at Port Royal, and the entrance to its harbour is
strongly fortified. In addition there is a militia of infantry and
artillery, about 800 strong.

Previous to 1870 the Church of England was established in Jamaica, but
in that year a disestablishment act was passed which provided for
gradual disendowment. It is still the most numerous body, and is
presided over by the bishop of Jamaica, who is also archbishop of the
West Indies. The Baptists, Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Moravians and
Roman Catholics are all represented; there is a Jewish synagogue at
Kingston, and the Salvation Army has a branch on the island. The Church
of England maintains many schools, a theological college, a deaconesses'
home and an orphanage. The Baptists have a theological college; and the
Roman Catholics support a training college for teachers, two industrial
schools and two orphanages. Elementary education is in private hands,
but fostered, since 1867, by government grants; it is free but not
compulsory, although the governor has the right to compel the attendance
of all children from 6 to 14 years of age in such towns and districts as
he may designate. The teachers in these schools are for the most part
trained in the government-aided training colleges of the various
denominations. For higher education there are the University College and
high school at Hope near Kingston, Potsdam School in St Elizabeth, the
Mico School and Wolmer's Free School in Kingston, founded (for boys and
girls) in 1729, the Montego Bay secondary school, and numerous other
endowed and self-supporting establishments. The Cambridge Local
Examinations have been held regularly since 1882.

_History._--Jamaica was discovered by Columbus on the 3rd of May 1494.
Though he called it Santiago, it has always been known by its Indian
name Jaymaca, "the island of springs," modernized in form and
pronunciation into Jamaica. Excepting that in 1505 Columbus once put in
for shelter, the island remained unvisited until 1509, when Diego, the
discoverer's son, sent Don Juan d'Esquivel to take possession, and
thenceforward it passed under Spanish rule. Sant' Iago de la Vega, or
Spanish Town, which remained the capital of the island until 1872, was
founded in 1523. Sir Anthony Shirley, a British admiral, attacked the
island in 1596, and plundered and burned the capital, but did not follow
up his victory. Upon his retirement the Spaniards restored their capital
and were unmolested until 1635, when the island was again raided by the
British under Colonel Jackson. The period of the Spanish occupation is
mainly memorable for the annihilation of the gentle and peaceful Arawâk
Indian inhabitants; Don Pedro d'Esquivel was one of their cruellest
oppressors. The whole island was divided among eight noble Spanish
families, who discouraged immigration to such an extent that when
Jamaica was taken by the British the white and slave population together
did not exceed 3000. Under the vigorous foreign policy of Cromwell an
attempt was made to crush the Spanish power in the West Indies, and an
expedition under Admirals Penn and Venables succeeded in capturing and
holding Jamaica in 1655. The Spanish were entirely expelled in 1658.
Their slaves then took to the mountains, and down to the end of the 18th
century the disaffection of these Maroons, as they were called, caused
constant trouble. Jamaica continued to be governed by military authority
until 1661, when Colonel D'Oyley was appointed captain-general and
governor-in-chief with an executive council, and a constitution was
introduced resembling that of England. He was succeeded in the next year
by Lord Windsor, under whom a legislative council was established.
Jamaica soon became the chief resort of the buccaneers, who not
infrequently united the characters of merchant or planter with that of
pirate or privateer. By the Treaty of Madrid, 1670, the British title to
the island was recognized, and the buccaneers were suppressed. The Royal
African Company was formed in 1672 with a monopoly of the slave trade,
and from this time Jamaica was one of the greatest slave marts in the
world. The sugar-industry was introduced about this period, the first
pot of sugar being sent to London in 1673. An attempt was made in 1678
to saddle the island with a yearly tribute to the Crown and to restrict
the free legislature. The privileges of the legislative assembly,
however, were restored in 1682; but not till 46 years later was the
question of revenue settled by a compromise by which Jamaica undertook
to settle £8000 (an amount afterwards commuted to £6000) per annum on
the Crown, provided that English statute laws were made binding in
Jamaica.

During these years of political struggle the colony was thrice afflicted
by nature. A great earthquake occurred in 1692, when the chief part of
the town of Port Royal, built on a shelving bank of sand, slipped into
the sea. Two dreadful hurricanes devastated the island in 1712 and 1722,
the second of which did so much damage that the seat of commerce had to
be transferred from Port Royal to Kingston.

The only prominent event in the history of the island during the later
years of the 18th century, was the threatened invasion by the French and
Spanish in 1782, but Jamaica was saved by the victory of Rodney and Hood
off Dominica. The last attempt at invasion was made in 1806, when the
French were defeated by Admiral Duckworth. When the slave trade was
abolished the island was at the zenith of its prosperity; sugar, coffee,
cocoa, pimento, ginger and indigo were being produced in large
quantities, and it was the dépôt of a very lucrative trade with the
Spanish main. The anti-slavery agitation in Great Britain found its echo
in the island, and in 1832 the negroes revolted, believing that
emancipation had been granted. They killed a number of whites and
destroyed a large amount of valuable property. Two years later the
Emancipation Act was passed, and, subject to a short term of
apprenticeship, the slaves were free. Emancipation left the planters in
a pitiable condition financially. The British government awarded them
compensation at the rate of £19 per slave, the market value of slaves at
the time being £35, but most of this compensation went into the hands of
the planters' creditors. They were left with over-worked estates, a poor
market and a scarcity of labour. Nor was this the end of their
misfortunes. During the slavery times the British government had
protected the planter by imposing a heavy differential duty on foreign
sugar; but on the introduction of free trade the price of sugar fell by
one-half and reduced the profits of the already impoverished planter.
Many estates, already heavily mortgaged, were abandoned, and the trade
of the island was at a standstill. Differences between the executive,
the legislature, and the home government, as to the means of retrenching
the public expenditure, created much bitterness. Although some slight
improvement marked the administration of Sir Charles Metcalfe and the
earl of Elgin, when coolie immigration was introduced to supply the
scarcity and irregularity of labour and the railway was opened, the
improvement was not permanent. In 1865 Edward John Eyre became governor.
Financial affairs were at their lowest ebb and the colonial treasury
showed a deficit of £80,000. To meet this difficulty new taxes were
imposed and discontent was rife among the negroes. Dr Underhill, the
secretary of a Baptist organization known as the British Union, wrote to
the colonial secretary in London, pointing out the state of affairs.
This letter became public in Jamaica, and in the opinion of the governor
added in no small measure to the popular excitement. On the 11th of
October 1865 the negroes rose at Morant Bay and murdered the custos and
most of the white inhabitants. The slight encounter which followed
filled the island with terror, and there is no doubt that many excesses
were committed on both sides. The assembly passed an act by which
martial law was proclaimed, and the legislature passed an act abrogating
the constitution.

The action of Governor Eyre, though generally approved throughout the
West Indies, caused much controversy in England, and he was recalled. A
prosecution was instituted against him, resulting in an elaborate
exposition of martial law by Chief Justice Cockburn, but the jury threw
out the bill and Eyre was discharged. He was succeeded in the government
of Jamaica by Sir Henry Storks, and under the crown colony system of
government the state of the island made slow but steady progress. In
1868 the first fruit shipment took place from Port Antonio, the
immigration of coolies was revived, and cinchona planting was
introduced. The method of government was changed in 1884, when a new
constitution, slightly modified in 1895, was granted to the island.

In the afternoon of the 14th of January 1907 a terrible earthquake
visited Kingston. Almost every building in the capital and in Port
Royal, and many in St Andrews, were destroyed or seriously injured. The
loss of life was variously estimated, but probably exceeded one
thousand. Among those killed was Sir James Fergusson, 6th baronet (b.
1832). The principal shock was followed by many more of slighter
intensity during the ensuing fortnight and later. On the 17th of January
assistance was brought by three American war-ships under Rear-Admiral
Davis, who however withdrew them on the 19th, owing to a
misunderstanding with the governor of the island, Sir Alexander
Swettenham, on the subject of the landing of marines from the vessels
with a view to preserving order. The incident caused considerable
sensation, and led to Sir A. Swettenham's resignation in the following
March, Sir Sydney Olivier, K.C.M.G., being appointed governor. Order was
speedily restored; but the destructive effect of the earthquake was a
severe check to the prosperity of the island.

See Bryan Edwards, _History of the West Indies_ (London, 1809, and
appendix, 1819); P. H. Gosse, _Journal of a Naturalist in Jamaica_
(London, 1851) and _Birds of Jamaica_ (1847); _Jamaica Handbook_
(London, annual); Bacon and Aaron, _New Jamaica_ (1890); W. P.
Livingstone, _Black Jamaica_ (London, 1900), F. Cundall, _Bibliotheca
Jamaicensis_. (Kingston, 1895), and _Studies in Jamaica History_
(1900); W. J. Gardner, _History of Jamaica_ (New York, 1909). For
geology, see R. T. Hill, "The Geology and Physical Geography of
Jamaica," _Bull. Mus. Com. Zool. Harvard_, xxxiv. (1899).

JAMAICA, formerly a village of Queens county, Long Island, New York,
U.S.A., but after the 1st of January 1898 a part of the borough of
Queens, New York City. Pop. (1890) 5361. It is served by the Long Island
railroad, the lines of which from Brooklyn and Manhattan meet here and
then separate to serve the different regions of the island.[1] King's
Park (about 10 acres) comprises the estate of John Alsop King
(1788-1867), governor of New York in 1857-1859, from whose heirs in 1897
the land was purchased by the village trustees. In South Jamaica there
is a race track, at which meetings are held in the spring and autumn.
The headquarters of the Queens Borough Department of Public Works and
Police are in the Jamaica town-hall, and Jamaica is the seat of a city
training school for teachers (until 1905 one of the New York State
normal schools). For two guns, a coat, and a quantity of powder and
lead, several New Englanders obtained from the Indians a deed for a
tract of land here in September 1655. In March 1657 they received
permission from Governor Stuyvesant to found a town, which was chartered
in 1660 and was named Rustdorp by Stuyvesant, but the English called it
Jamaica; it was rechartered in 1666, 1686 and 1788. The village was
incorporated in 1814 and reincorporated in 1855. In 1665 it was made the
seat of justice of the north riding; in 1683-1788 it was the shire town
of Queens county. With Hempstead, Gravesend, Newtown and Flushing, also
towns of New England origin and type, Jamaica was early disaffected
towards the provincial government of New York. In 1669 these towns
complained that they had no representation in a popular assembly, and in
1670 they protested against taxation without representation. The
founders of Jamaica were mostly Presbyterians, and they organized one of
the first Presbyterian churches in America. At the beginning of the War
of Independence Jamaica was under the control of Loyalists; after the
defeat of the Americans in the battle of Long Island (27th August 1776)
it was occupied by the British; and until the end of the war it was the
headquarters of General Oliver Delancey, who had command of all Long
Island.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] In June 1908 the subway lines of the interborough system of New
York City were extended to the Flatbush (Brooklyn) station of the Long
Island railroad, thus bringing Jamaica into direct connexion with
Manhattan borough by way of the East river tunnel, completed in the
same year.

JAMB (from Fr. _jambe_, leg), in architecture, the side-post or lining
of a doorway or other aperture. The jambs of a window outside the frame
are called "reveals." Small shafts to doors and windows with caps and
bases are known as "jamb-shafts"; when in the inside arris of the jamb
of a window they are sometimes called "scoinsons."

JAMES (a variant of the name Jacob, Heb. [Hebrew: Yaacov], one who holds
by the heel, outwitter, through O. Fr. _James_, another form of
_Jacques_, _Jaques_, from Low Lat. _Jacobus_; cf. Ital. _Jacopo_
[Jacob], _Giacomo_ [James], Prov. _Jacme_, Cat. _Jaume_, Cast.
_Jaime_), a masculine proper name popular in Christian countries as
having been that of two of Christ's apostles. It has been borne by many
sovereigns and other princes, the most important of whom are noticed
below, after the heading devoted to the characters in the New Testament,
in the following order: (1) kings of England and Scotland, (2) other
kings in the alphabetical order of their countries, (3) the "Old
Pretender." The article on the Epistle of James in the New Testament
follows after the remaining biographical articles in which James is a
surname.

JAMES (Gr. [Greek: Iakôbos], the Heb. _Ya'akob_ or Jacob), the name of
several persons mentioned in the New Testament.

1. JAMES, the son of Zebedee. He was among the first who were called to
be Christ's immediate followers (Mark i. 19 seq.; Matt. iv. 21 seq., and
perhaps Luke v. 10), and afterwards obtained an honoured place in the
apostolic band, his name twice occupying the second place after Peter's
in the lists (Mark iii. 17; Acts i. 13), while on at least three notable
occasions he was, along with Peter and his brother John, specially
chosen by Jesus to be with him (Mark v. 37; Matt. xvii. i, xxvi. 37).
This same prominence may have contributed partly to the title
"Boanerges" or "sons of thunder" which, according to Mark iii. 17, Jesus
himself gave to the two brothers. But its most natural interpretation is
to be found in the impetuous disposition which would have called down
fire from heaven on the offending Samaritan villagers (Luke ix. 54), and
afterwards found expression, though in a different way, in the ambitious
request to occupy the places of honour in Christ's kingdom (Mark x. 35
seq.). James is included among those who after the ascension waited at
Jerusalem (Acts i. 13) for the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of
Pentecost. And though on this occasion only his name is mentioned, he
must have been a zealous and prominent member of the Christian
community, to judge from the fact that when a victim had to be chosen
from among the apostles, who should be sacrificed to the animosity of
the Jews, it was on James that the blow fell first. The brief notice is
given in Acts xii. 1, 2. Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._ ii. 9) has preserved
for us from Clement of Alexandria the additional information that the
accuser of the apostle "beholding his confession and moved thereby,
confessed that he too was a Christian. So they were both led away to
execution together; and on the road the accuser asked James for
forgiveness. Gazing on him for a little while, he said, 'Peace be with
thee,' and kissed him. And then both were beheaded together."

The later, and wholly untrustworthy, legends which tell of the
apostle's preaching in Spain, and of the translation of his body to
Santiago de Compostela, are to be found in the _Acta Sanctorum_ (July
25), vi. 1-124; see also Mrs Jameson's _Sacred and Legendary Art_, i.
230-241.

2. JAMES, the son of Alphaeus. He also was one of the apostles, and is
mentioned in all the four lists (Matt. x. 3; Mark iii. 18; Luke vi. 15;
Acts i. 13) by this name. We know nothing further regarding him, unless
we believe him to be the same as James "the little."

3. JAMES, the little. He is described as the son of a Mary (Matt, xxvii.
56; Mark xv. 40), who was in all probability the wife of Clopas (John
xix. 25). And on the ground that Clopas is another form of the name
Alphaeus, this James has been thought by some to be the same as 2. But
the evidence of the Syriac versions, which render Alphaeus by
_Chalphai_, while Clopas is simply transliterated _Kleopha_, makes it
extremely improbable that the two names are to be identified. And as we
have no better ground for finding in Clopas the Cleopas of Luke xxiv.
18, we must be content to admit that James the little is again an almost
wholly unknown personality, and has no connexion with any of the other
Jameses mentioned in the New Testament.

4. JAMES, the father of Judas. There can be no doubt that in the mention
of "Judas of James" in Luke vi. 16 the ellipsis should be supplied by
"the son" and not as in the A.V. by "the brother" (cf. Luke iii. 1, vi.
14; Acts xii. 2, where the word [Greek: adelphos] is inserted). This
Judas, known as Thaddaeus by Matthew and Mark, afterwards became one of
the apostles, and is expressly distinguished by St John from the traitor
as "not Iscariot" (John xiv. 22).

5. JAMES, the Lord's brother. In Matt. xiii. 55 and Mark vi. 3 we read
of a certain James as, along with Joses and Judas and Simon, a "brother"
of the Lord. The exact nature of the relationship there implied has been
the subject of much discussion. Jerome's view (_de vir. ill._ 2), that
the "brothers" were in reality cousins, "sons of Mary the sister of the
Lord's mother," rests on too many unproved assumptions to be entitled to
much weight, and may be said to have been finally disposed of by Bishop
Lightfoot in his essay on "The Brothers of the Lord" (_Galatians_, pp.
252 sqq., _Dissertations on the Apostolic Age_, pp. 1 sqq.). Even
however if we understand the word "brethren" in its natural sense, it
may be applied either to the sons of Joseph by a former wife, in which
case they would be the step-brothers of Jesus, or to sons born to Joseph
and Mary after the birth of Jesus. The former of these views, generally
known as the _Epiphanian_ view from its most zealous advocate in the 4th
century, can claim for its support the preponderating voice of tradition
(see the catena of references given by Lightfoot, _loc. cit._, who
himself inclines to this view). On the other hand the _Helvidian_ theory
as propounded by Helvidius, and apparently accepted by Tertullian (cf.
_adv. Marc._ iv. 29), which makes James a brother of the Lord, as truly
as Mary was his mother, undoubtedly seems more in keeping with the
direct statements of the Gospels, and also with the after history of the
brothers in the Church (see W. Patrick, _James the Brother of the Lord_,
1906, p. 5). In any case, whatever the exact nature of James's
antecedents, there can be no question as to the important place which he
occupied in the early Church. Converted to a full belief in the living
Lord, perhaps through the special revelation that was granted to him (1
Cor. xv. 7), he became the recognized head of the Church at Jerusalem
(Acts xii. 17, xv. 13, xxi. 18), and is called by St Paul (Gal. ii. 9),
along with Peter and John, a "pillar" of the Christian community. He was
traditionally the author of the epistle in the New Testament which bears
his name (see JAMES, EPISTLE OF). From the New Testament we learn no
more of the history of James the Lord's brother, but Eusebius (_Hist.
Eccl._ ii. 23) has preserved for us from Hegesippus the earliest
ecclesiastical traditions concerning him. By that authority he is
described as having been a Nazarite, and on account of his eminent
righteousness called "Just" and "Oblias." So great was his influence
with the people that he was appealed to by the scribes and Pharisees for
a true and (as they hoped) unfavourable judgment about the Messiahship
of Christ. Placed, to give the greater publicity to his words, on a
pinnacle of the temple, he, when solemnly appealed to, made confession
of his faith, and was at once thrown down and murdered. This happened
immediately before the siege. Josephus (_Antiq._ xx. 9, 1) tells that it
was by order of Ananus the high priest, in the interval between the
death of Festus and the arrival of his successor Albinus, that James was
put to death; and his narrative gives the idea of some sort of judicial
examination, for he says that along with some others James was brought
before an assembly of judges, by whom they were condemned and delivered
to be stoned. Josephus is also cited by Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._ ii. 23)
to the effect that the miseries of the siege were due to divine
vengeance for the murder of James. Later writers describe James as an
[Greek: episkopos] (Clem. Al. _apud_ Eus. _Hist. Ecc._ ii. 1) and even
as an [Greek: episkopos episkopôn] (Clem. _Hom., ad init._). According
to Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._ vii. 19) his episcopal chair was still shown
at Jerusalem at the time when Eusebius wrote.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--In addition to the relevant literature cited above, see
the articles under the heading "James" in Hastings's _Dictionary of
the Bible_ (Mayor) and _Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels_
(Fulford), and in the _Encycl. Biblica_ (O. Cone); also the
introductions to the Commentaries on the Epistle of James by Mayor and
Knowling. Zahn has an elaborate essay on _Brüder und Vettern Jesu_
("The Brothers and Cousins of Jesus") in the _Forschungen zur
Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Kanons_, vi. 2 (Leipzig, 1900).
(G. Mi.)

JAMES I. (1566-1625), king of Great Britain and Ireland, formerly king
of Scotland as James VI., was the only child of Mary Queen of Scots, and
her second husband, Henry Stewart Lord Darnley. He was born in the
castle of Edinburgh on the 19th of June 1566, and was proclaimed king of
Scotland on the 24th of July 1567, upon the forced abdication of his
mother. Until 1578 he was treated as being incapable of taking any real
part in public affairs, and was kept in the castle of Stirling for
safety's sake amid the confused fighting of the early years of his
minority.

The young king was a very weakly boy. It is said that he could not stand
without support until he was seven, and although he lived until he was
nearly sixty, he was never a strong man. In after life he was a constant
and even a reckless rider, but the weakness in his legs was never quite
cured. During a great part of his life he found it necessary to be tied
to the saddle. When on one occasion in 1621 his horse threw him into the
New River near his palace of Theobalds in the neighbourhood of London,
he had a very narrow escape of being drowned; yet he continued to ride
as before. At all times he preferred to lean on the shoulder of an
attendant when walking. This feebleness of body, which had no doubt a
large share in causing certain corresponding deficiencies of character,
was attributed to the agitations and the violent efforts forced on his
mother by the murder of her secretary Rizzio when she was in the sixth
month of her pregnancy. The fact that James was a bold rider, in spite
of this serious disqualification for athletic exercise, should be borne
in mind when he is accused of having been a coward.

The circumstances surrounding him in boyhood were not favourable to the
development of his character. His immediate guardian or foster-father,
the earl of Mar, was indeed an honourable man, and the countess, who had
charge of the nursing of the king, discharged her duty so as to win his
lasting confidence. James afterwards entrusted her with the care of his
eldest son, Henry. When the earl died in 1572 his place was well filled
by his brother, Sir Alexander Erskine. The king's education was placed
under the care of George Buchanan, assisted by Peter Young, and two
other tutors. Buchanan, who did not spare the rod, and the other
teachers, who had more reverence for the royal person, gave the boy a
sound training in languages. The English envoy, Sir Henry Killigrew, who
saw him in 1574, testified to his proficiency in translating from and
into Latin and French. As it was very desirable that he should be
trained a Protestant king, he was well instructed in theology. The
exceptionally scholastic quality of his education helped to give him a
taste for learning, but also tended to make him a pedant.

James was only twelve when the earl of Morton was driven from the
regency, and for some time after he can have been no more than a puppet
in the hands of intriguers and party leaders. When, for instance, in
1582 he was seized by the faction of nobles who carried out the
so-called raid of Ruthven, which was in fact a kidnapping enterprise
carried out in the interest of the Protestant party, he cried like a
child. One of the conspirators, the master of Glamis, Sir Thomas Lyon,
told him that it was better "bairns should greet [children should cry]
than bearded men." It was not indeed till 1583, when he broke away from
his captors, that James began to govern in reality.

For the history of his reign reference may be made to the articles on
the histories of England and Scotland. James's work as a ruler can be
divided, without violating any sound rule of criticism, into black and
white--into the part which was a failure and a preparation for future
disaster, and the part which was solid achievement, honourable to
himself and profitable to his people. His native kingdom of Scotland had
the benefit of the second. Between 1583 and 1603 he reduced the
anarchical baronage of Scotland to obedience, and replaced the
subdivision of sovereignty and consequent confusion, which had been the
very essence of feudalism, by a strong centralized royal authority. In
fact he did in Scotland the work which had been done by the Tudors in
England, by Louis XI. in France, and by Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain.
It was the work of all the strong rulers of the Renaissance. But James
not only brought his disobedient and intriguing barons to order--that
was a comparatively easy achievement and might well have been performed
by more than one of his predecessors, had their lives been prolonged--he
also quelled the attempts of the Protestants to found what Hallam has
well defined as a "Presbyterian Hildebrandism." He enforced the
superiority of the state over the church. Both before his accession to
the throne of England (1603) and afterwards he took an intelligent
interest in the prosperity of his Scottish kingdom, and did much for the
pacification of the Hebrides, for the enforcement of order on the
Borders, and for the development of industry. That he did so much
although the crown was poor (largely it must be confessed because he
made profuse gifts of the secularized church lands), and although the
armed force at his disposal was so small that to the very end he was
exposed to the attacks of would-be kidnappers (as in the case of the
Gowrie conspiracy of 1600), is proof positive that he was neither the
mere poltroon nor the mere learned fool he has often been called.

James's methods of achieving ends in themselves honourable and
profitable were indeed of a kind which has made posterity unjust to his
real merits. The circumstances in which he passed his youth developed in
him a natural tendency to craft. He boasted indeed of his "king-craft"
and probably believed that he owed it to his studies. But it was in
reality the resource of the weak, the art of playing off one possible
enemy against another by trickery, and so deceiving all. The marquis de
Fontenay, the French ambassador, who saw him in the early part of his
reign, speaks of him as cowed by the violence about him. It is certain
that James was most unscrupulous in making promises which he never meant
to keep, and the terror in which he passed his youth sufficiently
explains his preference for guile. He would make promises to everybody,
as when he wrote to the pope in 1584 more than hinting that he would be
a good Roman Catholic if helped in his need. His very natural desire to
escape from the poverty and insecurity of Scotland to the opulent
English throne not only kept him busy in intrigues to placate the Roman
Catholics or anybody else who could help or hinder him, but led him to
behave basely in regard to the execution of his mother in 1587. He
blustered to give himself an air of courage, but took good care to do
nothing to offend Elizabeth. When the time came for fulfilling his
promises and half-promises, he was not able, even if he had been
willing, to keep his word to everybody. The methods which had helped him
to success in Scotland did him harm in England, where his reign prepared
the way for the great civil war. In his southern kingdom his failure was
in fact complete. Although England accepted him as the alternative to
civil war, and although he was received and surrounded with fulsome
flattery, he did not win the respect of his English subjects. His
undignified personal appearance was against him, and so were his
garrulity, his Scottish accent, his slovenliness and his toleration of
disorders in his court, but, above all, his favour for handsome male
favourites, whom he loaded with gifts and caressed with demonstrations
of affection which laid him open to vile suspicions. In ecclesiastical
matters he offended many, who contrasted his severity and rudeness to
the Puritan divines at the Hampton Court conference (1604) with his
politeness to the Roman Catholics, whom he, however, worried by fits and
starts. In a country where the authority of the state had been firmly
established and the problem was how to keep it from degenerating into
the mere instrument of a king's passions, his insistence on the doctrine
of divine right aroused distrust and hostility. In itself, and in its
origin, the doctrine was nothing more than a necessary assertion of the
independence of the state in face of the "Hildebrandism" of Rome and
Geneva alike. But when Englishmen were told that the king alone had
indefeasible rights, and that all the privileges of subjects were
revocable gifts, they were roused to hostility. His weaknesses cast
suspicion on his best-meant schemes. His favour for his countrymen
helped to defeat his wise wish to bring about a full union between
England and Scotland. His profusion, which had been bad in the poverty
of Scotland and was boundless amid the wealth of England, kept him
necessitous, and drove him to shifts. Posterity can give him credit for
his desire to forward religious peace in Europe, but his Protestant
subjects were simply frightened when he sought a matrimonial alliance
with Spain. Sagacious men among his contemporaries could not see the
consistency of a king who married his daughter Elizabeth to the elector
palatine, a leader of the German Protestants, and also sought to marry
his son to an infanta of Spain. The king's subservience to Spain was
indeed almost besotted. He could not see her real weakness, and he
allowed himself to be befooled by the ministers of Philip III. and
Philip IV. The end of his scheming was that he was dragged into a
needless war with Spain by his son Charles and his favourite George
Villiers, duke of Buckingham, just before his death on the 5th of March
1625 at his favourite residence, Theobalds.

James married in 1589 Anne, second daughter of Frederick II., king of
Denmark. His voyage to meet his bride, whose ship had been driven into a
Norwegian port by bad weather, is the only episode of a romantic
character in the life of this very prosaic member of a poetic family. By
this wife James had three children who survived infancy: Henry
Frederick, prince of Wales, who died in 1612; Charles, the future king;
and Elizabeth, wife of the elector palatine, Frederick V.

Not the least of James's many ambitions was the desire to excel as an
author. He left a body of writings which, though of mediocre quality as
literature, entitle him to a unique place among English kings since
Alfred for width of intellectual interest and literary faculty. His
efforts were inspired by his preceptor George Buchanan, whose memory he
cherished in later years. His first work was in verse, _Essayes of a
Prentise in the Divine Art of Poesie_ (Edin. Vautrollier, 1584),
containing fifteen sonnets, "Ane Metaphoricall invention of a tragedie
called Phoenix," a short poem "Of Time," translations from Du Bartas,
Lucan and the Book of Psalms ("out of Tremellius"), and a prose tract
entitled "Ane short treatise, containing some Reulis and Cautelis to be
observit and eschewit in Scottis Poesie." The volume is introduced by
commendatory sonnets, including one by Alexander Montgomerie. The chief
interest of the book lies in the "Treatise" and the prefatory sonnets
"To the Reader" and "Sonnet decifring the perfyte poete." There is
little originality in this youthful production. It has been surmised
that it was compiled from the exercises written when the author was
Buchanan's pupil at Stirling, and that it was directly suggested by his
preceptor's _De Prosodia_ and his annotations on Vives. On the other
hand, it shows intimate acquaintance with the critical reflections of
Ronsard and Du Bellay, and of Gascoigne in his _Notes of Instruction_
(1575). In 1591 James published _Poeticall Exercises at Vacant Houres_,
including a translation of the _Furies_ of Du Bartas, his own _Lepanto_,
and Du Bartas's version of it, _La Lepanthe_. His _Daemonologie_, a
prose treatise denouncing witchcraft and exhorting the civil power to
the strongest measures of suppression, appeared in 1599. In the same
year he printed the first edition (seven copies) of his _Basilikon
Doron_, strongly Protestant in tone. A French edition, specially
translated for presentation to the pope, has a disingenuous preface
explaining that certain phrases (e.g. "papistical doctrine") are
omitted, because of the difficulty of rendering them in a foreign
tongue. The original edition was, however, translated by order of the
suspicious pope, and was immediately placed on the Index. Shortly after
going to England James produced his famous _Counterblaste to Tobacco_
(London, 1604), in which he forsakes his Scots tongue for Southern
English. The volume was published anonymously. James's prose works
(including his speeches) were collected and edited (folio, 1616) by
James Montagu, bishop of Winchester, and were translated into Latin by
the same hand in a companion folio, in 1619 (also Frankfort, 1689). A
tract, entitled "The True Law of Free Monarchies," appeared in 1603; "An
Apology for the Oath of Allegiance" in 1607; and a "_Déclaration du Roy
Jacques I. ... pour le droit des Rois_" in 1615. In 1588 and 1589 James
issued two small volumes of _Meditations_ on some verses of (a)
Revelations and (b) 1 Chronicles. Other two "meditations" were printed
posthumously.

See T. F. Henderson, _James I. and VI._ (London, 1904); P. Hume Brown,
_History of Scotland_, vol. ii. (Edinburgh and Cambridge, 1902); and
Andrew Lang, _History of Scotland_, vol. ii. (Edinburgh, 1902) and
_James VI. and the Gowrie Mystery_ (London, 1902); _The Register of
the Privy Council of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1877, &c.), vols. ii. to
xiii.; S. R. Gardiner, _History of England 1603-1642_ (London,
1883-1884). A comprehensive bibliography will be found in the
_Cambridge Modern Hist._ iii. 847 (Cambridge, 1904).

For James's literary work, see Edward Arber's reprint of the _Essayes
and Counterblaste_ ("English Reprints," 1869, &c.); R. S. Rait's
_Lusus Regius_ (1900); G. Gregory Smith's _Elizabethan Critical
Essays_ (1904), vol. i., where the _Treatise_ is edited for the first
time; A. O. Meyer's "Clemens VIII. und Jacob I. von England" in
_Quellen und Forschungen_ (Preuss. Hist. Inst.), VII. ii., for an
account of the issues of the _Basilikon Doron_; P. Hume Brown's
_George Buchanan_ (1890), pp. 250-261, for a sketch of James's
association with Buchanan.

JAMES II. (1633-1701), king of Great Britain and Ireland, second
surviving son of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, was born at St James's
on the 15th of October 1633, and created duke of York in January 1643.
During the Civil War James was taken prisoner by Fairfax (1646), but
contrived to escape to Holland in 1648. Subsequently he served in the
French army under Turenne, and in the Spanish under Condé, and was
applauded by both commanders for his brilliant personal courage.
Returning to England with Charles II. in 1660 he was appointed lord high
admiral and warden of the Cinque Ports. Pepys, who was secretary to the
navy, has recorded the patient industry and unflinching probity of his
naval administration. His victory over the Dutch in 1665, and his drawn
battle with De Ruyter in 1672, show that he was a good naval commander
as well as an excellent administrator. These achievements won him a
reputation for high courage, which, until the close of 1688, was amply
deserved. His private record was not as good as his public. In December
1660 he admitted to having contracted, under discreditable
circumstances, a secret marriage with Anne Hyde (1637-1671), daughter of
Lord Clarendon, in the previous September. Both before and after the
marriage he seems to have been a libertine as unblushing though not so
fastidious as Charles himself. In 1672 he made a public avowal of his
conversion to Roman Catholicism. Charles II. had opposed this project,
but in 1673 allowed him to marry the Catholic Mary of Modena as his
second wife. Both houses of parliament, who viewed this union with
abhorrence, now passed the Test Act, forbidding Catholics to hold
office. In consequence of this James was forced to resign his posts. It
was in vain that he married his daughter Mary to the Protestant prince
of Orange in 1677. Anti-Catholic feeling ran so high that, after the
discovery of the Popish Plot, he found it wiser to retire to Brussels
(1679), while Shaftesbury and the Whigs planned to exclude him from the
succession. He was lord high commissioner of Scotland (1680-1682), where
he occupied himself in a severe persecution of the Covenanters. In 1684
Charles, having triumphed over the Exclusionists, restored James to the
office of high admiral by use of his dispensing power.

James ascended the throne on the 16th of February 1685. The nation
showed its loyalty by its firm adherence to him during the rebellions of
Argyll in Scotland and Monmouth in England (1685). The savage reprisals
on their suppression, in especial the "Bloody Assizes" of Jeffreys,
produced a revulsion of public feeling. James had promised to defend the
existing Church and government, but the people now became suspicious.
James was not a mere tyrant and bigot, as the popular imagination
speedily assumed him to be. He was rather a mediocre but not altogether
obtuse man, who mistook tributary streams for the main currents of
national thought. Thus he greatly underrated the strength of the
Establishment, and preposterously exaggerated that of Dissent and
Catholicism. He perceived that opinion was seriously divided in the
Established Church, and thought that a vigorous policy would soon prove
effective. Hence he publicly celebrated Mass, prohibited preaching
against Catholicism, and showed exceptional favour to renegades from the
Establishment. By undue pressure he secured a decision of the judges, in
the test case of _Godden_ v. _Hale_ (1687), by which he was allowed to
dispense Catholics from the Test Act. Catholics were now admitted to the
chief offices in the army, and to some important posts in the state, in
virtue of the dispensing power of James. The judges had been intimidated
or corrupted, and the royal promise to protect the Establishment
violated. The army had been increased to 20,000 men and encamped at
Hounslow Heath to overawe the capital. Public alarm was speedily
manifested and suspicion to a high degree awakened. In 1687 James made a
bid for the support of the Dissenters by advocating a system of joint
toleration for Catholics and Dissenters. In April 1687 he published a
Declaration of Indulgence--exempting Catholics and Dissenters from penal
statutes. He followed up this measure by dissolving parliament and
attacking the universities. By an unscrupulous use of the dispensing
power he introduced Dissenters and Catholics into all departments of
state and into the municipal corporations, which were remodelled in
their interests. Then in April 1688 he took the suicidal step of issuing
a proclamation to force the clergy and bishops to read the Declaration
in their pulpits, and thus personally advocate a measure they detested.
Seven bishops refused, were indicted by James for libel, but acquitted
amid the indescribable enthusiasm of the populace. Protestant nobles of
England, enraged at the tolerant policy of James, had been in
negotiation with William of Orange since 1687. The trial of the seven
bishops, and the birth of a son to James, now induced them to send
William a definite invitation (June 30, 1688). James remained in a
fool's paradise till the last, and only awakened to his danger when
William landed at Torbay (November 5, 1688) and swept all before him.
James pretended to treat, and in the midst of the negotiations fled to
France. He was intercepted at Faversham and brought back, but the
politic prince of Orange allowed him to escape a second time (December
23, 1688).

At the end of 1688 James seemed to have lost his old courage. After his
defeat at the Boyne (July 1, 1690) he speedily departed from Ireland,
where he had so conducted himself that his English followers had been
ashamed of his incapacity, while French officers had derided him. His
proclamations and policy towards England during these years show
unmistakable traces of the same incompetence. On the 17th of May 1692 he
saw the French fleet destroyed before his very eyes off Cape La Hogue.
He was aware of, though not an open advocate of the "Assassination
Plot," which was directed against William. By its revelation and failure
(February 10, 1696) the third and last serious attempt of James for his
restoration failed. He refused in the same year to accept the French
influence in favour of his candidature to the Polish throne, on the
ground that it would exclude him from the English. Henceforward he
neglected politics, and Louis of France ceased to consider him as a
political factor. A mysterious conversion had been effected in him by an
austere Cistercian abbot. The world saw with astonishment this vicious,
rough, coarse-fibred man of the world transformed into an austere
penitent, who worked miracles of healing. Surrounded by this odour of
sanctity, which greatly edified the faithful, James lived at St Germain
until his death on the 17th of September 1701.

The political ineptitude of James is clear; he often showed firmness
when conciliation was needful, and weakness when resolution alone could
have saved the day. Moreover, though he mismanaged almost every
political problem with which he personally dealt, he was singularly
tactless and impatient of advice. But in general political morality he
was not below his age, and in his advocacy of toleration decidedly above
it. He was more honest and sincere than Charles II., more genuinely
patriotic in his foreign policy, and more consistent in his religious
attitude. That his brother retained the throne while James lost it is an
ironical demonstration that a more pitiless fate awaits the ruler whose
faults are of the intellect, than one whose faults are of the heart.

By Anne Hyde James had eight children, of whom two only, Mary and Anne,
both queens of England, survived their father. By Mary of Modena he had
seven children, among them being James Francis Edward (the Old
Pretender) and Louisa Maria Theresa, who died at St Germain in 1712. By
one mistress, Arabella Churchill (1648-1730), he had two sons, James,
duke of Berwick, and Henry (1673-1702), titular duke of Albemarle and
grand prior of France, and a daughter, Henrietta (1667-1730), who
married Sir Henry Waldegrave, afterwards Baron Waldegrave; and by
another, Catherine Sedley, countess of Dorchester (1657-1717), a
daughter, Catherine (d. 1743), who married James Annesley, 5th earl of
Anglesey, and afterwards John Sheffield, duke of Buckingham and
Normanby.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--_Original Authorities_: J. S. Clarke, _James II. Life_
(London, 1816); James Macpherson, _Original Papers_ (2 vols., London,
1775); Gilbert Burnet, _Supplement to History_, ed. H. C. Foxcroft
(Oxford, 1902); Earl of Clarendon and Earl of Rochester,
_Correspondence_, vol. ii. (London, 1828); John Evelyn, _Diary and
Correspondence and Life_, edited by Bray and Wheatley (London, 1906);
Sir John Reresby, _Memoirs_, ed. A. Ivatt (1904); _Somers Tracts_,
vols, ix.-xi. (London, 1823). _Modern Works_: Lord Acton, _Lectures on
Modern History_, pp. 195-276 (London, 1906); Moritz Brosch,
_Geschichte von England_, Bd. viii. (Gotha, 1903); Onno Klopp, _Der
Fall des Hauses Stuart_, Bde. i.-ix. (Vienna, 1875-1878); L. von
Ranke, _History of England_, vols, iv.-vi. (Oxford, 1875); and Allan
Fea, _James II. and his Wives_ (1908).

JAMES I. (1394-1437), king of Scotland and poet, the son of King Robert
III., was born at Dunfermline in July 1394. After the death of his
mother, Annabella Drummond of Stobhall, in 1402, he was placed under the
care of Henry Wardlaw (d. 1440), who became bishop of St Andrews in
1403, but soon his father resolved to send him to France. Robert
doubtless decided upon this course owing to the fact that in 1402 his
elder son, David, duke of Rothesay, had met his death in a mysterious
fashion, being probably murdered by his uncle, Robert, duke of Albany,
who, as the king was an invalid, was virtually the ruler of Scotland. On
the way to France, however, James fell into the hands of some English
sailors and was sent to Henry IV., who refused to admit him to ransom.
The chronicler Thomas Walsingham, says that James's imprisonment began
in 1406, while the future king himself places it in 1404; February 1406
is probably the correct date. On the death of Robert III. in April 1406
James became nominally king of Scotland, but he remained a captive in
England, the government being conducted by his uncle, Robert of Albany,
who showed no anxiety to procure his nephew's release. Dying in 1420,
Albany was succeeded as regent by his son, Murdoch. At first James was
confined in the Tower of London, but in June 1407 he was removed to the
castle at Nottingham, whence about a month later he was taken to
Evesham. His education was continued by capable tutors, and he not only
attained excellence in all manly sports, but became perhaps more
cultured than any other prince of his age. In person he was short and
stout, but well-proportioned and very strong. His agility was not less
remarkable than his strength; he excelled in all athletic feats which
demanded suppleness of limb and quickness of eye. As regards his
intellectual attainments he is reported to have been acquainted with
philosophy, and it is evident from his subsequent career that he had
studied jurisprudence; moreover, besides being proficient in vocal and
instrumental music, he cultivated the art of poetry with much success.
When Henry V. became king in March 1413, James was again imprisoned in
the Tower of London, but soon afterwards he was taken to Windsor and was
treated with great consideration by the English king. In 1420, with the
intention of detaching the Scottish auxiliaries from the French
standard, he was sent to take part in Henry's campaign in France; this
move failed in its immediate object and he returned to England after
Henry's death in 1422. About this time negotiations for the release of
James were begun in earnest, and in September 1423 a treaty was signed
at York, the Scottish nation undertaking to pay a ransom of 60,000 marks
"for his maintenance in England." By the terms of the treaty James was
to wed a noble English lady, and on the 12th of February 1424 he was
married at Southwark to Jane, daughter of John Beaufort, earl of
Somerset, a lady to whom he was faithful through life. Ten thousand
marks of his ransom were remitted as Jane's dowry, and in April 1424
James and his bride entered Scotland.

With the reign of James I., whose coronation took place at Scone on the
21st of May 1424, constitutional sovereignty may be said to begin in
Scotland. By the introduction of a system of statute law, modelled to
some extent on that of England, and by the additional importance
assigned to parliament, the leaven was prepared which was to work
towards the destruction of the indefinite authority of the king, and of
the unbridled licence of the nobles. During the parliament held at Perth
in March 1425 James arrested Murdoch, duke of Albany, and his son,
Alexander; together with Albany's eldest son, Walter, and Duncan, earl
of Lennox, who had been seized previously; they were sentenced to death,
and the four were executed at Stirling. In a parliament held at
Inverness in 1427 the king arrested many turbulent northern chiefs, and
his whole policy was directed towards crushing the power of the nobles.
In this he was very successful. Expeditions reduced the Highlands to
order; earldom after earldom was forfeited; but this vigour aroused the
desire for revenge, and at length cost James his life. Having been
warned that he would never again cross the Forth, the king went to
reside in Perth just before Christmas 1436. Among those whom he had
angered was Sir Robert Graham (d. 1437), who had been banished by his
orders. Instigated by the king's uncle, Walter Stewart, earl of Atholl
(d. 1437), and aided by the royal chamberlain, Sir Robert Stewart, and
by a band of Highlanders, Graham burst into the presence of James on the
night of the 20th of February 1437 and stabbed the king to death. Graham
and Atholl were afterwards tortured and executed. James had two sons:
Alexander, who died young, and James II., who succeeded to the throne;
and six daughters, among them being Margaret, the queen of Louis XI. of
France. His widow, Jane, married Sir James Stewart, the "black knight of
Lorne," and died on the 15th of July 1445.

During the latter part of James's reign difficulties arose between
Scotland and England and also between Scotland and the papacy. Part of
the king's ransom was still owing to England; other causes of discord
between the two nations existed, and in 1436 these culminated in a short
war. In ecclesiastical matters James showed himself merciless towards
heretics, but his desire to reform the Scottish Church and to make it
less dependent on Rome brought him into collision with Popes Martin V.
and Eugenius IV.

James was the author of two poems, the _Kingis Quair_ and _Good Counsel_
(a short piece of three stanzas). The _Song of Absence_, _Peblis to the
Play_ and _Christis Kirk on the Greene_ have been ascribed to him
without evidence. _The Kingis Quair_ (preserved in the Selden MS. B. 24
in the Bodleian) is an allegorical poem of the _cours d'amour_ type,
written in seven-lined Chaucerian stanzas and extending to 1379 lines.
It was composed during James's captivity in England and celebrates his
courtship of Lady Jane Beaufort. Though in many respects a Chaucerian
_pastiche_, it not rarely equals its model in verbal and metrical
felicity. Its language is an artificial blend of northern and southern
(Chaucerian) forms, of the type shown in _Lancelot of the Laik_ and the
_Quair of Jelusy_.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The contemporary authorities for the reign of James I.
are Andrew of Wyntoun, _The Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland_, edited by
D. Laing (Edinburgh, 1872-1879); and Walter Bower's continuation of
John of Fordun's _Scotichronicon_, edited by T. Hearne (Oxford, 1722).
See also J. Pinkerton, _History of Scotland_ (1797); A. Lang, _History
of Scotland_, vol. i. (1900); and G. Burnett, _Introduction to the
Exchequer Rolls of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1878-1901). _The Kingis
Quair_ was first printed in the _Poetical Remains of James the First_,
edited by William Tytler (1783). Later editions are Morison's reprint
(Perth, 1786); J. Sibbald's, in his _Chronicle of Scottish Poetry_
(1802, vol. i.); Thomson's in 1815 and 1824; G. Chalmers's, in his
_Poetic Remains of some of the Scottish Kings_ (1824); Rogers's
_Poetical Remains of King James the First_ (1873); Skeat's edition
published by the Scottish Text Society (1884). An attempt has been
made to dispute James's authorship of the poem, but the arguments
elaborated by J. T. T. Brown (_The Authorship of the Kingis Quair_,
Glasgow, 1896) have been convincingly answered by Jusserand in his
_Jacques I^{er} d'Écosse fut-il poète? Étude sur l'authenticité du
cahier du roi_ (Paris, 1897, reprinted from the _Revue historique_,
vol. lxiv.). See also the full correspondence in the _Athenaeum_
(July-Aug. 1896 and Dec. 1899); W. A. Neilson, _Origins and Sources of
the Court of Love_ (Boston, 1899) pp. 152 &c., 235 &c.; and Gregory
Smith, _Transition Period_ (1900), pp. 40, 41.

JAMES II. (1430-1460), king of Scotland, the only surviving son of James
I. and his wife, Jane, daughter of John Beaufort, earl of Somerset, was
born on the 16th of October 1430. Crowned king at Holyrood in March
1437, shortly after the murder of his father, he was at first under the
guardianship of his mother, while Archibald, 5th earl of Douglas, was
regent of the kingdom, and considerable power was possessed by Sir
Alexander Livingstone and Sir William Crichton (d. 1454). When about
1439 Queen Jane was married to Sir James Stewart, the knight of Lorne,
Livingstone obtained the custody of the young king, whose minority was
marked by fierce hostility between the Douglases and the Crichtons, with
Livingstone first on one side and then on the other. About 1443 the
royal cause was espoused by William, 8th earl of Douglas, who attacked
Crichton in the king's name, and civil war lasted until about 1446. In
July 1449 James was married to Mary (d. 1463), daughter of Arnold, duke
of Gelderland, and undertook the government himself; and almost
immediately Livingstone was arrested, but Douglas retained the royal
favour for a few months more. In 1452, however, this powerful earl was
invited to Stirling by the king, and, charged with treachery, was
stabbed by James and then killed by the attendants. Civil war broke out
at once between James and the Douglases, whose lands were ravaged; but
after the Scots parliament had exonerated the king, James, the new earl
of Douglas, made his submission. Early in 1455 this struggle was
renewed. Marching against the rebels James gained several victories,
after which Douglas was attainted and his lands forfeited. Fortified by
this success and assured of the support of the parliament and of the
great nobles, James, acting as an absolute king, could view without
alarm the war which had broken out with England. After two expeditions
across the borders, a truce was made in July 1457, and the king employed
the period of peace in strengthening his authority in the Highlands.
During the Wars of the Roses he showed his sympathy with the Lancastrian
party after the defeat of Henry VI. at Northampton by attacking the
English possessions to the south of Scotland. It was while conducting
the siege of Roxburgh Castle that James was killed, through the bursting
of a cannon, on the 3rd of August 1460. He left three sons, his
successor, James III., Alexander Stewart, duke of Albany, and John
Stewart, earl of Mar (d. 1479); and two daughters. James, who is
sometimes called "Fiery Face," was a vigorous and popular prince, and,
although not a scholar like his father, showed interest in education.
His reign is a period of some importance in the legislative history of
Scotland, as measures were passed with regard to the tenure of land, the
reformation of the coinage, and the protection of the poor, while the
organization for the administration of justice was greatly improved.

JAMES III. (1451-1488), king of Scotland, eldest son of James II., was
born on the 10th of July 1451. Becoming king in 1460 he was crowned at
Kelso. After the death of his mother in 1463, and of her principal
supporter, James Kennedy, bishop of St Andrews, two years later, the
person of the young king, and with it the chief authority in the
kingdom, were seized by Sir Alexander Boyd and his brother Lord Boyd,
while the latter's son, Thomas, was created earl of Arran and married to
the king's sister, Mary. In July 1469 James himself was married to
Margaret (d. 1486), daughter of Christian I., king of Denmark and
Norway, but before the wedding the Boyds had lost their power. Having
undertaken the government in person, the king received the submission of
the powerful earl of Ross, and strengthened his authority in other ways.
But his preference for a sedentary and not for an active life and his
increasing attachment to favourites of humble birth diminished his
popularity, and he had some differences with his parliament. About 1479,
probably with reason both suspicious and jealous, James arrested his
brothers, Alexander, duke of Albany, and John, earl of Mar; Mar met his
death in a mysterious fashion at Craigmillar, but Albany escaped to
France and then visited England, where in 1482 Edward IV. recognized him
as king of Scotland by the gift of the king of England. War broke out
with England, but James, made a prisoner by his nobles, was unable to
prevent Albany and his ally, Richard, duke of Gloucester (afterwards
Richard III.), from taking Berwick and marching to Edinburgh. Peace with
Albany followed, but soon afterwards the duke was again in
communication with Edward, and was condemned by the parliament after
the death of the English king in April 1483. Albany's death in France in
1485 did not end the king's troubles. His policy of living at peace with
England and of arranging marriages between the members of the royal
families of the two countries did not commend itself to the turbulent
section of his nobles; his artistic tastes and lavish expenditure added
to the discontent, and a rebellion broke out. Fleeing into the north of
his kingdom James collected an army and came to terms with his foes; but
the rebels, having seized the person of the king's eldest son,
afterwards James IV., renewed the struggle. The rival armies met at the
Sauchieburn near Bannockburn, and James soon fled. Reaching Beaton's
Mill he revealed his identity, and, according to the popular story, was
killed on the 11th of June 1488 by a soldier in the guise of a priest
who had been called in to shrive him. He left three sons--his successor,
James IV.; James Stewart, duke of Ross, afterwards archbishop of St
Andrews, and John Stewart, earl of Mar. James was a cultured prince with
a taste for music and architecture, but was a weak and incapable king.
His character is thus described by a chronicler: "He was ane man that
loved solitude, and desired nevir to hear of warre, bot delighted more
in musick and policie and building nor he did in the government of the
realme."

JAMES IV. (1473-1513), king of Scotland, eldest son of James III., was
born on the 17th of March 1473. He was nominally the leader of the
rebels who defeated the troops of James III. at the Sauchieburn in June
1488, and became king when his father was killed. As he adopted an
entirely different policy with the nobles from that of his father, and,
moreover, showed great affability towards the lower class of his
subjects, among whom he delighted to wander incognito, few if any of the
kings of Scotland have won such general popularity, or passed a reign so
untroubled by intestine strife. Crowned at Scone a few days after his
accession, James began at once to take an active part in the business of
government. A slight insurrection was easily suppressed, and a plot
formed by some nobles to hand him over to the English king, Henry VII.,
came to nothing. In spite of this proceeding Henry wished to live at
peace with his northern neighbour, and soon contemplated marrying his
daughter to James, but the Scottish king was not equally pacific. When,
in 1495, Perkin Warbeck, pretending to be the duke of York, Edward IV.'s
younger son, came to Scotland, James bestowed upon him both an income
and a bride, and prepared to invade England in his interests. For
various reasons the war was confined to a few border forays. After
Warbeck left Scotland in 1497, the Spanish ambassador negotiated a
peace, and in 1502 a marriage was definitely arranged between James and
Henry's daughter Margaret (1489-1541). The wedding took place at
Holyrood in August 1503, and it was this union which led to the
accession of the Stewart dynasty to the English throne.

About the same time James crushed a rebellion in the western isles, into
which he had previously led expeditions, and parliament took measures to
strengthen the royal authority therein. At this date too, or a little
earlier, the king of Scotland began to treat as an equal with the
powerful princes of Europe, Maximilian I., Louis XII. and others;
sending assistance to his uncle Hans, king of Denmark, and receiving
special marks of favour from Pope Julius II., anxious to obtain his
support. But his position was weakened when Henry VIII. followed Henry
VII. on the English throne in 1509. Causes of quarrel already existed,
and other causes, both public and private, soon arose between the two
kings; sea-fights took place between their ships, while war was brought
nearer by the treaty of alliance which James concluded with Louis XII.
in 1512. Henry made a vain effort to prevent, or to postpone, the
outbreak of hostilities; but urged on by his French ally and his queen,
James declared for war, in spite of the counsels of some of his
advisers, and (it is said) of the warning of an apparition. Gathering a
large and well-armed force, he took Norham and other castles in August
1513, spending some time at Ford Castle, where, according to report, he
was engaged in an amorous intrigue with the wife of its owner. Then he
moved out to fight the advancing English army under Thomas Howard, earl
of Surrey. The battle, which took place at Flodden, or more correctly,
at the foot of Brankston Hill, on Friday the 9th of September 1513, is
among the most famous and disastrous, if not among the most momentous,
in the history of Scotland. Having led his troops from their position of
vantage, the king himself was killed while fighting on foot, together
with nearly all his nobles; there was no foundation for the rumour that
he had escaped from the carnage. He left one legitimate child, his
successor James V., but as his gallantries were numerous he had many
illegitimate children, among them (by Marion Boyd) Alexander Stewart,
archbishop of St Andrews and chancellor of Scotland, who was killed at
Flodden, and (by Janet Kennedy) James Stewart, earl of Moray (d. 1544).
One of his other mistresses was Margaret Drummond (d. 1501).

James appears to have been a brave and generous man, and a wise and
energetic king. According to one account, he was possessed of
considerable learning; during his reign the Scottish court attained some
degree of refinement, and Scotland counted in European politics as she
had never done before. Literature flourished under the royal patronage,
education was encouraged, and the material condition of the country
improved enormously. Prominent both as an administrator and as a
lawgiver, the king by his vigorous rule did much to destroy the
tendencies to independence which existed in the Highlands and Islands;
but, on the other hand, his rash conduct at Flodden brought much misery
upon his kingdom. He was specially interested in his navy. The
tournaments which took place under his auspices were worthy of the best
days of chivalry in France and England. James shared to the full in the
superstitions of the age which was quickly passing away. He is said to
have worn an iron belt as penance for his share in his father's death;
and by his frequent visits to shrines, and his benefactions to religious
foundations, he won a reputation for piety.

JAMES V. (1512-1542), king of Scotland, son of James IV., was born at
Linlithgow on the 10th of April 1512, and became king when his father
was killed at Flodden in 1513. The regency was at first vested in his
mother, but after Queen Margaret's second marriage, with Archibald
Douglas, 6th earl of Angus, in August 1514, it was transferred by the
estates to John Stewart, duke of Albany. Henceforward the minority of
James was disturbed by constant quarrels between a faction, generally
favourable to England, under Angus, and the partisans of France under
Albany; while the queen-mother and the nobles struggled to gain and to
regain possession of the king's person. The English had not followed up
their victory at Flodden, although there were as usual forays on the
borders, but Henry VIII. was watching affairs in Scotland with an
observant eye, and other European sovereigns were not indifferent to the
possibility of a Scotch alliance. In 1524, when Albany had retired to
France, the parliament declared that James was fit to govern, but that
he must be advised by his mother and a council. This "erection" of James
as king was mainly due to the efforts of Henry VIII. In 1526 Angus
obtained control of the king, and kept him in close confinement until
1528, when James, escaping from Edinburgh to Stirling, put vigorous
measures in execution against the earl, and compelled him to flee to
England. In 1529 and 1530 the king made a strong effort to suppress his
turbulent vassals in the south of Scotland; and after several raids and
counter-raids negotiations for peace with England were begun, and in May
1534 a treaty was signed. At this time, as on previous occasions, Henry
VIII. wished James to marry his daughter Mary, while other ladies had
been suggested by the emperor Charles V.; but the Scottish king,
preferring a French bride, visited France, and in January 1537 was
married at Paris to Madeleine, daughter of King Francis I. Madeleine
died soon after her arrival in Scotland, and in 1538 James made a much
more important marriage, being united to Mary (1515-1560), daughter of
Claude, duke of Guise, and widow of Louis of Orleans, duke of
Longueville. It was this connexion, probably, which finally induced
James to forsake his vacillating foreign policy, and to range himself
definitely among the enemies of England. In 1536 he had refused to meet
Henry VIII. at York, and in the following year had received the gift of
a cap and sword from Pope Paul III., thus renouncing the friendship of
his uncle. Two plots to murder the king were now discovered, and James
also foiled the attempts of Henry VIII. to kidnap him. Although in 1540
the English king made another attempt to win the support, or at least
the neutrality, of James for his religious policy, the relations between
the two countries became very unfriendly, and in 1542 Henry sent an army
to invade Scotland. James was not slow to make reprisals, but his nobles
were angry or indifferent, and on the 25th of November 1542 his forces
were easily scattered at the rout of Solway Moss. This blow preyed upon
the king's mind, and on the 14th of December he died at Falkland, having
just heard of the birth of his daughter. His two sons had died in
infancy, and his successor was his only legitimate child, Mary. He left
several bastards, among them James Stewart, earl of Murray (the regent
Murray), Lord John Stewart (1531-1563) prior of Coldingham, and Lord
Robert Stewart, earl of Orkney (d. 1592).

Although possessing a weak constitution, which was further impaired by
his irregular manner of life, James showed great vigour and independence
as a sovereign, both in withstanding the machinations of his uncle,
Henry VIII., and in opposing the influence of the nobles. The
persecutions to which heretics were exposed during this reign were due
mainly to the excessive influence exercised by the ecclesiastics,
especially by David Beaton, archbishop of St Andrews. The king's habit
of mingling with the peasantry secured for him a large amount of
popularity, and probably led many to ascribe to him the authorship of
poems describing scenes in peasant life, _Christis Kirk on the Grene_,
_The Gaberlunzie Man_ and _The Jolly Beggar_. There is no proof that he
was the author of any of these poems, but from expressions in the poems
of Sir David Lindsay, who was on terms of intimacy with him, it appears
that occasionally he wrote verses.

JAMES I., the Conqueror (1208-1276), king of Aragon, son of Peter II.,
king of Aragon, and of Mary of Montpellier, whose mother was Eudoxia
Comnena, daughter of the emperor Manuel, was born at Montpellier on the
2nd of February 1208. His father, a man of immoral life, was with
difficulty persuaded to cohabit with his wife. He endeavoured to
repudiate her, and she fled to Rome, where she died in April 1213.
Peter, whose possessions in Provence entangled him in the wars between
the Albigenses and Simon of Montfort, endeavoured to placate the
northern crusaders by arranging a marriage between his son James and
Simon's daughter. In 1211 the boy was entrusted to Montfort's care to be
educated, but the aggressions of the crusaders on the princes of the
south forced Peter to take up arms against them, and he was slain at
Muret on the 12th of September 1213. Montfort would willingly have used
James as a means of extending his own power. The Aragonese and Catalans,
however, appealed to the pope, who forced Montfort to surrender him in
May or June 1214. James was now entrusted to the care of Guillen de
Monredon, the head of the Templars in Spain and Provence. The kingdom
was given over to confusion till in 1216 the Templars and some of the
more loyal nobles brought the young king to Saragossa. At the age of
thirteen he was married to Leonora, daughter of Alphonso VIII. of
Castile, whom he divorced later on the ground of consanguinity. A son
born of the marriage, Alphonso, was recognized as legitimate, but died
before his father, childless. It was only by slow steps that the royal
authority was asserted, but the young king, who was of gigantic stature
and immense strength, was also astute and patient. By 1228 he had so far
brought his vassals to obedience, that he was able to undertake the
conquest of the Balearic Islands, which he achieved within four years.
At the same time he endeavoured to bring about a union of Aragon with
Navarre, by a contract of mutual adoption between himself and the
Navarrese king, Sancho, who was old enough to be his grandfather. The
scheme broke down, and James abstained from a policy of conquest. He
wisely turned to the more feasible course of extending his dominions at
the expense of the decadent Mahommedan princes of Valencia. On the 28th
of September 1238 the town of Valencia surrendered, and the whole
territory was conquered in the ensuing years. Like all the princes of
his house, James took part in the politics of southern France. He
endeavoured to form a southern state on both sides of the Pyrenees,
which should counterbalance the power of France north of the Loire. Here
also his policy failed against physical, social and political obstacles.
As in the case of Navarre, he was too wise to launch into perilous
adventures. By the Treaty of Corbeil, with Louis IX., signed the 11th of
May 1258, he frankly withdrew from conflict with the French king, and
contented himself with the recognition of his position, and the
surrender of antiquated French claims to the overlordship of Catalonia.
During the remaining twenty years of his life, James was much concerned
in warring with the Moors in Murcia, not on his own account, but on
behalf of his son-in-law Alphonso the Wise of Castile. As a legislator
and organizer he occupies a high place among the Spanish kings. He would
probably have been more successful but for the confusion caused by the
disputes in his own household. James, though orthodox and pious, had an
ample share of moral laxity. After repudiating Leonora of Castile he
married Yolande (in Spanish Violante) daughter of Andrew II. of Hungary,
who had a considerable influence over him. But she could not prevent him
from continuing a long series of intrigues. The favour he showed his
bastards led to protest from the nobles, and to conflicts between his
sons legitimate and illegitimate. When one of the latter, Fernan
Sanchez, who had behaved with gross ingratitude and treason to his
father, was slain by the legitimate son Pedro, the old king recorded his
grim satisfaction. At the close of his life King James divided his
states between his sons by Yolande of Hungary, Pedro and James, leaving
the Spanish possessions on the mainland to the first, the Balearic
Islands and the lordship of Montpellier to the second--a division which
inevitably produced fratricidal conflicts. The king fell very ill at
Alcira, and resigned his crown, intending to retire to the monastery of
Poblet, but died at Valencia on the 27th of July 1276.

King James was the author of a chronicle of his own life, written or
dictated apparently at different times, which is a very fine example
of autobiographical literature. A translation into English by J.
Forster, with notes by Don Pascual de Gayangos, was published in
London in 1883. See also _James I. of Aragon_, by F. Darwin Swift
(Clarendon Press, 1894), in which are many references to authorities.

JAMES II. (c. 1260-1327), king of Aragon, grandson of James I., and son
of Peter III. by his marriage with Constance, daughter of Manfred of
Beneventum, was left in 1285 as king of Sicily by his father. In 1291,
on the death of his elder brother, Alphonso, to whom Aragon had fallen,
he resigned Sicily and endeavoured to arrange the quarrel between his
own family and the Angevine House, by marriage with Blanca, daughter of
Charles of Anjou, king of Naples.

JAMES II. (1243-1311), king of Majorca, inherited the Balearic Islands
from his father James I. of Aragon. He was engaged in constant conflict
with his brother Pedro III. of Aragon, and in alliance with the French
king against his own kin.

JAMES III. (1315-1349), king of Majorca, grandson of James II., was
driven out of his little state and finally murdered by his cousin Pedro
IV. of Aragon, who definitely reannexed the Balearic Islands to the
crown.

JAMES (JAMES FRANCIS EDWARD STUART) (1688-1766), prince of Wales, known
to the Jacobites as James III. and to the Hanoverian party as the Old
Pretender, the son and heir of James II. of England, was born in St
James's Palace, London, on the 10th of June 1688. The scandalous story
that he was a supposititious child, started and spread abroad by
interested politicians at the time of his birth, has been completely
disproved, and most contemporary writers allude to his striking family
likeness to the Royal Stuarts. Shortly before the flight of the king to
Sheerness, the infant prince together with his mother was sent to
France, and afterwards he continued to reside with his father at the
court of St Germain. On the death of his father, on the 16th of
September 1701, he was immediately proclaimed king by Louis XIV. of
France, but a fantastic attempt to perform a similar ceremony in London
so roused the anger of the populace that the mock pursuivants barely
escaped with their lives. A bill of attainder against him received the
royal assent a few days before the death of William III. in 1702, and
the Princess Anne, half-sister of the Pretender, succeeded William on
the throne. An influential party still, however, continued to adhere to
the Jacobite cause; but an expedition from Dunkirk planned in favour of
James in the spring of 1708 failed of success, although the French ships
under the comte de Fourbin, with James himself on board, reached the
Firth of Forth in safety. At the Peace of Utrecht James withdrew from
French territory to Bar-le-Duc in Lorraine. A rebellion in the Highlands
of Scotland was inaugurated in September 1715 by the raising of the
standard on the braes of Mar, and by the solemn proclamation of James
Stuart, "the chevalier of St George," in the midst of the assembled
clans, but its progress was arrested in November by the indecisive
battle of Sheriffmuir and by the surrender at Preston. Unaware of the
gloomy nature of his prospects, the chevalier landed in December 1715 at
Peterhead, and advanced as far south as Scone, accompanied by a small
force under the earl of Mar; but on learning of the approach of the duke
of Argyll, he retreated to Montrose, where the Highlanders dispersed to
the mountains, and he embarked again for France. A Spanish expedition
sent out in his behalf in 1719, under the direction of Alberoni, was
scattered by a tempest, only two frigates reaching the appointed
rendezvous in the island of Lewis.

In 1718 James had become affianced to the young princess Maria
Clementina Sobieski, grand-daughter of the warrior king of Poland, John
Sobieski. The intended marriage was forbidden by the emperor, who in
consequence kept the princess and her mother in honourable confinement
at Innsbruck in Tirol. An attempt to abduct the princess by means of a
ruse contrived by a zealous Jacobite gentleman, Charles Wogan, proved
successful; Clementina reached Italy in safety, and she and James were
ultimately married at Montefiascone on the 1st of September 1719. James
and Clementina were now invited to reside in Rome at the special request
of Pope Clement XI., who openly acknowledged their titles of British
King and Queen, gave them a papal guard of troops, presented them with a
villa at Albano and a palace (the Palazzo Muti in the Piazza dei Santi
Apostoli) in the city, and also made them an annual allowance of 12,000
crowns out of the papal treasury. At the Palazzo Muti, which remained
the chief centre of Jacobite intriguing, were born James's two sons,
Charles Edward (the Young Pretender) and Henry Benedict Stuart. James's
married life proved turbulent and unhappy, a circumstance that was
principally due to the hot temper and jealous nature of Clementina, who
soon after Henry's birth in 1725 left her husband and spent over two
years in a Roman convent. At length a reconciliation was effected, which
Clementina did not long survive, for she died at the early age of 32 in
February 1735. Full regal honours were paid to the Stuart queen at her
funeral, and the splendid but tasteless monument by Pietro Bracchi
(1700-1773) in St Peter's was erected to her memory by order of Pope
Benedict XIV.

His wife's death seems to have affected James's health and spirits
greatly, and he now began to grow feeble and indifferent, so that the
political adherents of the Stuarts were gradually led to fix their hopes
upon the two young princes rather than upon their father. Travellers to
Rome at this period note that James appeared seldom in public, and that
much of his time was given up to religious exercises; he was _dévot à
l'excès_, so Charles de Brosses, an unprejudiced Frenchman, informs us.
It was with great reluctance that James allowed his elder son to leave
Italy for France in 1744; nevertheless in the following year, he
permitted Henry to follow his brother's example, but with the news of
Culloden he evidently came to regard his cause as definitely lost. The
estrangement from his elder and favourite son, which arose over Henry's
adoption of an ecclesiastical career, so embittered his last years that
he sank into a moping invalid and rarely left his chamber. With the
crushing failure of the "Forty-five" and his quarrel with his heir, the
once-dreaded James soon became a mere cipher in British politics, and
his death at Rome on the 2nd of January 1766 passed almost unnoticed in
London. He was buried with regal pomp in St Peter's, where Canova's
famous monument, erected by Pius VII. in 1819, commemorates him and his
two sons. As to James's personal character, there is abundant evidence
to show that he was grave, high-principled, industrious, abstemious and
dignified, and that the unflattering portrait drawn of him by Thackeray
in _Esmond_ is utterly at variance with historical facts. Although a
fervent Roman Catholic, he was far more reasonable and liberal in his
religious views than his father, as many extant letters testify.

See Earl Stanhope, _History of England and Decline of the Last
Stuarts_ (1853); _Calendar of the Stuart Papers at Windsor Castle_; J.
H. Jesse, _Memories of the Pretenders and their Adherents_ (1845); Dr
John Doran, _"Mann" and Manners at the Court of Florence_ (1876);
_Relazione della morte di Giacomo III., Rè d'Inghilterra_; and Charles
de Brosses, _Lettres sur l'Italie_ (1885). (H. M. V.)

JAMES, DAVID (1839-1893), English actor, was born in London, his real
name being Belasco. He began his stage career at an early age, and after
1863 gradually made his way in humorous parts. His creation, in 1875, of
the part of Perkyn Middlewick in Our Boys made him famous as a comedian,
the performance obtaining for the piece a then unprecedented run from
the 16th of January 1875 till the 18th of April 1879. In 1885 he had
another notable success as Blueskin in _Little Jack Sheppard_ at the
Gaiety Theatre, his principal associates being Fred Leslie and Nellie
Farren. His song in this burlesque, "Botany Bay," became widely popular.
In the part of John Dory in _Wild Oats_ he again made a great hit at the
Criterion Theatre in 1886; and among his other most successful
impersonations were Simon Ingot in _David Garrick_, Tweedie in
_Tweedie's Rights_, Macclesfield in _The Guv'nor_, and Eccles in
_Caste_. His unctuous humour and unfailing spirits made him a great
favourite with the public. He died on the 2nd of October 1893.

JAMES, GEORGE PAYNE RAINSFORD (1799-1860), English novelist, son of
Pinkstan James, physician, was born in George Street, Hanover Square,
London, on the 9th of August 1799. He was educated at a private school
at Putney, and afterwards in France. He began to write early, and had,
according to his own account, composed the stories afterwards published
as _A String of Pearls_ before he was seventeen. As a contributor to
newspapers and magazines, he came under the notice of Washington Irving,
who encouraged him to produce his _Life of Edward the Black Prince_
(1822). _Richelieu_ was finished in 1825, and was well thought of by Sir
Walter Scott (who apparently saw it in manuscript), but was not brought
out till 1829. Perhaps Irving and Scott, from their natural amiability,
were rather dangerous advisers for a writer so inclined by nature to
abundant production as James. But he took up historical romance writing
at a lucky moment. Scott had firmly established the popularity of the
style, and James in England, like Dumas in France, reaped the reward of
their master's labours as well as of their own. For thirty years the
author of _Richelieu_ continued to pour out novels of the same kind
though of varying merit. His works in prose fiction, verse narrative,
and history of an easy kind are said to number over a hundred, most of
them being three-volume novels of the usual length. Sixty-seven are
catalogued in the British Museum. The best examples of his style are
perhaps _Richelieu_ (1829); _Philip Augustus_ (1831); _Henry Masterton_,
probably the best of all (1832); _Mary of Burgundy_ (1833); _Darnley_
(1839); _Corse de Léon_ (1841); _The Smuggler_ (1845). His poetry does
not require special mention, nor does his history, though for a short
time during the reign of William IV. he held the office of
historiographer royal. After writing copiously for about twenty years,
James in 1850 went to America as British Consul for Massachusetts. He
was consul at Richmond, Virginia, from 1852 to 1856, when he was
appointed to a similar post at Venice, where he died on the 9th of June
1860.

James has been compared to Dumas, and the comparison holds good in
respect of kind, though by no means in respect of merit. Both had a
certain gift of separating from the picturesque parts of history what
could without much difficulty be worked up into picturesque fiction, and
both were possessed of a ready pen. Here, however, the likeness ends. Of
purely literary talent James had little. His plots are poor, his
descriptions weak, his dialogue often below even a fair average, and he
was deplorably prone to repeat himself. The "two cavaliers" who in one
form or another open most of his books have passed into a proverb, and
Thackeray's good-natured but fatal parody of _Barbazure_ is likely to
outlast _Richelieu_ and _Darnley_ by many a year. Nevertheless, though
James cannot be allowed any very high rank among novelists, he had a
genuine narrative gift, and, though his very best books fall far below
_Les trois mousquetaires_ and _La reine Margot_, there is a certain even
level of interest to be found in all of them. James never resorted to
illegitimate methods to attract readers, and deserves such credit as may
be due to a purveyor of amusement who never caters for the less
creditable tastes of his guests.

His best novels were published in a revised form in 21 volumes
(1844-1849).

JAMES, HENRY (1843- ), American author, was born in New York on the
15th of April 1843. His father was Henry James (1811-1882), a
theological writer of great originality, from whom both he and his
brother Professor William James derived their psychological subtlety and
their idiomatic, picturesque English. Most of Henry's boyhood was spent
in Europe, where he studied under tutors in England, France and
Switzerland. In 1860 he returned to America, and began reading law at
Harvard, only to find speedily that literature, not law, was what he
most cared for. His earliest short tale, "The Story of a Year," appeared
in 1865, in the _Atlantic Monthly_, and frequent stories and sketches
followed. In 1869 he again went to Europe, where he subsequently made
his home, for the most part living in London, or at Rye in Sussex. Among
his specially noteworthy works are the following: _Watch and Ward_
(1871); _Roderick Hudson_ (1875); _The American_ (1877); _Daisy Miller_
(1878); _French Poets and Novelists_ (1878); _A Life of Hawthorne_
(1879); _The Portrait of a Lady_ (1881); _Portraits of Places_ (1884);
_The Bostonians_ (1886); _Partial Portraits_ (1888); _The Tragic Muse_
(1890); _Essays in London_ (1893); _The Two Magics_ (1898); _The Awkward
Age_ (1898); _The Wings of the Dove_ (1902); _The Ambassadors_ (1903);
_The Golden Bowl_ (1904); _English Hours_ (1905); _The American Scene_
(1907); _The High Bid_ (1909); _Italian Hours_ (1909).

As a novelist, Henry James is a modern of the moderns both in subject
matter and in method. He is entirely loyal to contemporary life and
reverentially exact in his transcription of the phase. His characters
are for the most part people of the world who conceive of life as a fine
art and have the leisure to carry out their theories. Rarely are they at
close quarters with any ugly practical task. They are subtle and complex
with the subtlety and the complexity that come from conscious
preoccupation with themselves. They are specialists in conduct and past
masters in casuistry, and are full of variations and shadows of turning.
Moreover, they are finely expressive of _milieu_; each belongs
unmistakably to his class and his race; each is true to inherited moral
traditions and delicately illustrative of some social code. To reveal
the power and the tragedy of life through so many minutely limiting and
apparently artificial conditions, and by means of characters who are
somewhat self-conscious and are apt to make of life only a pleasant
pastime, might well seem an impossible task. Yet it is precisely in this
that Henry James is pre-eminently successful. The essentially human is
what he really cares for, however much he may at times seem preoccupied
with the _technique_ of his art or with the mask of conventions through
which he makes the essentially human reveal itself. Nor has "the vista
of the spiritual been denied him." No more poignant spiritual tragedy
has been recounted in recent fiction than the story of Isabel Archer in
_The Portrait of a Lady_. His method, too, is as modern as his subject
matter. He early fell in love with the "point of view," and the good
and the bad qualities of his work all follow from this literary passion.
He is a very sensitive impressionist, with a technique that can fix the
most elusive phase of character and render the most baffling surface.
The skill is unending with which he places his characters in such
relations and under such lights that they flash out in due succession
their continuously varying facets. At times he may seem to forget that a
character is something incalculably more than the sum of all its phases;
and then his characters tend to have their existence, as Positivists
expect to have their immortality, simply and solely in the minds of
other people. But when his method is at its best, the delicate phases of
character that he transcribes coalesce perfectly into clearly defined
and suggestive images of living, acting men and women. Doubtless, there
is a certain initiation necessary for the enjoyment of Mr James. He
presupposes a cosmopolitan outlook, a certain interest in art and in
social artifice, and no little abstract curiosity about the workings of
the human mechanism. But for speculative readers, for readers who care
for art in life as well as for life in art, and for readers above all
who want to encounter and comprehend a great variety of very modern and
finely modulated characters, Mr James holds a place of his own,
unrivalled as an interpreter of the world of to-day.

For a list of the short stories of Mr Henry James, collections of them
in volume form, and other works, see bibliographies by F. A. King, in
_The Novels of Henry James_, by Elisabeth L. Cary (New York and
London, 1905), and by Le Roy Phillips, _A Bibliography of the Writings
of Henry James_ (Boston, Mass., 1906). In 1909 an _édition de luxe_ of
Henry James's novels was published in 24 volumes.

JAMES, JOHN ANGELL (1785-1859), English Nonconformist divine, was born
at Blandford, Dorsetshire, on the 6th of June 1785. At the close of his
seven years' apprenticeship to a linen-draper at Poole he decided to
become a preacher, and in 1802 he went to David Bogue's training
institution at Gosport. A year and a half later, on a visit to
Birmingham, his preaching was so highly esteemed by the congregation of
Carr's Lane Independent chapel that they invited him to exercise his
ministry amongst them; he settled there in 1805, and was ordained in May
1806. For several years his success as a preacher was comparatively
small; but he jumped into popularity about 1814, and began to attract
large crowds wherever he officiated. At the same time his religious
writings, the best known of which are _The Anxious Inquirer_ and _An
Earnest Ministry_, acquired a wide circulation. James was a typical
Congregational preacher of the early 19th century, massive and elaborate
rather than original. His preaching displayed little or nothing of
Calvinism, the earlier severity of which had been modified in Birmingham
by Edward Williams, one of his predecessors. He was one of the founders
of the Evangelical Alliance and of the Congregational Union of England
and Wales. Municipal interests appealed strongly to him, and he was also
for many years chairman of Spring Hill (afterwards Mansfield) College.
He died at Birmingham on the 1st of October 1859.

A collected edition of James's works appeared in 1860-1864. See _A
Review of the Life and Character of J. Angell James_ (1860), by J.
Campbell, and _Life and Letters of J. A. James_ (1861), edited by his
successor, R. W. Dale, who also contributed a sketch of his
predecessor to _Pulpit Memorials_ (1878).

JAMES, THOMAS (c. 1573-1629), English librarian, was born at Newport,
Isle of Wight. He was educated at Winchester and New College, Oxford,
and became a fellow of New College in 1593. His wide knowledge of books,
together with his skill in deciphering manuscripts and detecting
literary forgeries, secured him in 1602 the post of librarian to the
library founded in that year by Sir Thomas Bodley at Oxford. At the same
time he was made rector of St Aldate's, Oxford. In 1605 he compiled a
classified catalogue of the books in the Bodleian Library, but in 1620
substituted for it an alphabetical catalogue. The arrangement in 1610,
whereby the Stationers' Company undertook to supply the Bodleian Library
with every book published, was James's suggestion. Ill health compelled
him to resign his post in 1620, and he died at Oxford in August 1629.

JAMES, WILLIAM (d. 1827), English naval historian, author of the _Naval
History of Great Britain from the Declaration of War by France in 1793
to the Accession of George IV._, practised as a proctor in the admiralty
court of Jamaica between 1801 and 1813. He was in the United States when
the war of 1812 broke out, and was detained as a prisoner, but escaped
to Halifax. His literary career began by letters to the _Naval
Chronicle_ over the signature of "Boxer." In 1816 he published _An
Inquiry into the Merits of the Principal Naval Actions between Great
Britain and the United States_. In this pamphlet, which James reprinted
in 1817, enlarged and with a new title, his object was to prove that the
American frigates were stronger than their British opponents nominally
of the same class. In 1819 he began his _Naval History_, which appeared
in five volumes (1822-1824), and was reprinted in six volumes (1826). It
is a monument of painstaking accuracy in all such matters as dates,
names, tonnage, armament and movements of ships, though no attempt is
ever made to show the connexion between the various movements. James
died on the 28th of May 1827 in London, leaving a widow who received a
civil list pension of £100.

An edition of the _Naval History_ in six volumes, with additions and
notes by Capt. F. Chamier, was published in 1837, and a further one in
1886. An edition epitomized by R. O'Byrne appeared in 1888, and an
_Index_ by C. G. Toogood was issued by the Navy Records Society in
1895.

JAMES, WILLIAM (1842-1910), American philosopher, son of the
Swedenborgian theologian Henry James, and brother of the novelist Henry
James, was born on the 11th of January 1842 at New York City. He
graduated M.D. at Harvard in 1870. Two years after he was appointed a
lecturer at Harvard in anatomy and physiology, and later in psychology
and philosophy. Subsequently he became assistant professor of philosophy
(1880-1885), professor (1885-1889), professor of psychology (1889-1897)
and professor of philosophy (1897-1907). In 1899-1901 he delivered the
Gifford lectures on natural religion at the university of Edinburgh, and
in 1908 the Hibbert lectures at Manchester College, Oxford. With the
appearance of his _Principles of Psychology_ (2 vols., 1890), James at
once stepped into the front rank of psychologists as a leader of the
physical school, a position which he maintained not only by the
brilliance of his analogies but also by the freshness and
unconventionality of his style. In metaphysics he upheld the idealist
position from the empirical standpoint. Beside the _Principles of
Psychology_, which appeared in a shorter form in 1892 (_Psychology_),
his chief works are: _The Will to Believe_ (1897); _Human Immortality_
(Boston, 1898); _Talks to Teachers_ (1899); _The Varieties of Religious
Experience_ (New York, 1902); _Pragmatism--a New Name for some Old Ways
of Thinking_ (1907); _A Pluralistic Universe_ (1909; Hibbert lectures),
in which, though he still attacked the hypothesis of absolutism, he
admitted it as a legitimate alternative. He received honorary degrees
from Padua (1893), Princeton (1896), Edinburgh (1902), Harvard (1905).
He died on the 27th of August 1910.

JAMES OF HEREFORD, HENRY JAMES, 1ST BARON (1828- ), English lawyer and
statesman, son of P. T. James, surgeon, was born at Hereford on the 30th
of October 1828, and educated at Cheltenham College. A prizeman of the
Inner Temple, he was called to the bar in 1852 and joined the Oxford
circuit, where he soon came into prominence. In 1867 he was made
"postman" of the court of exchequer, and in 1869 became a Q.C. At the
general election of 1868 he obtained a seat in parliament for Taunton as
a Liberal, by the unseating of Mr Serjeant Cox on a scrutiny in March
1869, and he kept the seat till 1885, when he was returned for Bury. He
attracted attention in parliament by his speeches in 1872 in the debates
on the Judicature Act. In 1873 (September) he was made solicitor-general,
and in November attorney-general, and knighted; and when Gladstone
returned to power in 1880 he resumed his office. He was responsible for
carrying the Corrupt Practices Act of 1883. On Gladstone's conversion to
Home Rule, Sir Henry James parted from him and became one of the most
influential of the Liberal Unionists: Gladstone had offered him the lord
chancellorship in 1886, but he declined it; and the knowledge of the
sacrifice he had made in refusing to follow his old chief in his new
departure lent great weight to his advocacy of the Unionist cause in the
country. He was one of the leading counsel for _The Times_ before the
Parnell Commission, and from 1892 to 1895 was attorney-general to the
prince of Wales. From 1895 to 1902 he was a member of the Unionist
ministry as chancellor for the duchy of Lancaster, and in 1895 he was
made a peer as Baron James of Hereford. In later years he was a prominent
opponent of the Tariff Reform movement, adhering to the section of Free
Trade Unionists.

JAMES, EPISTLE OF, a book of the New Testament. The superscription (Jas.
i. 1) ascribes it to that pre-eminent "pillar" (Gal. ii. 9) of the
original mother church who later came to be regarded in certain quarters
as the "bishop of bishops" (Epist. of James to Clement, _ap. Clem. Hom._
Superscription). As such he appears in a position to address an
encyclical to "the twelve tribes of the dispersion"; for the context (i.
18, v. 7 seq.) and literary relation (cf. 1 Pet. i. 1, 3, 23-25) prove
this to be a figure for the entire new people of God, without the
distinction of carnal birth, as Paul had described "the Israel of God"
(Gal. vi. 16), spiritually begotten, like Isaac, by the word received in
faith (Gal. iii. 28 seq., iv. 28; Rom. ix. 6-9, iv. 16-18). This idea of
the spiritually begotten Israel becomes current after 1 Pet., as appears
in John i. 11-13, iii. 3-8; Barn. iv. 6, xiii. 13; 2 Clem. ii. 2, &c.

The interpretation which takes the expression "the twelve tribes"
literally, and conceives the brother of the Lord as sending an epistle
written in the Greek language throughout the Christian world, but as
addressing Jewish Christians only (so e.g. Sieffert, s.v. "Jacobus im
N.T." in Hauck, _Realencykl._ ed. 1900, vol. viii.), assumes not only
such divisive interference as Paul might justly resent (cf. Gal. ii.
1-10), but involves a strange idea of conditions. Were worldliness,
tongue religion, moral indifference, the distinctive marks of the Jewish
element? Surely the rebukes of James apply to conditions of the whole
Church and not sporadic Jewish-Christian conventicles in the
Greek-speaking world, if any such existed.

It is at least an open question whether the superscription (connected
with that of Jude) be not a later conjecture prefixed by some compiler
of the catholic epistles, but of the late date implied in our
interpretation of ver. 1 there should be small dispute. Whatever the
currency in classical circles of the epistle as a literary form, it is
irrational to put first in the development of Christian literature a
general epistle, couched in fluent, even rhetorical, Greek, and
afterwards the Pauline letters, which both as to origin and subsequent
circulation were a product of urgent conditions. The order consonant
with history is (1) Paul's "letters" to "the churches of" a province
(Gal. i. 2; 2 Cor. i. 1); (2) the address to "the elect of the
dispersion" in a group of the Pauline provinces (1 Pet. i. 1); (3) the
address to "the twelve tribes of the dispersion" everywhere (Jas. i. 1;
cf. Rev. vii. 2-4). James, like 1 John, is a homily, even more lacking
than 1 John in every epistolary feature, not even supplied with the
customary epistolary farewell. The superscription, if original, compels
us to treat the whole writing as not only late but pseudonymous. If
prefixed by conjecture, to secure recognition and authority for the
book, even this was at first a failure. The earliest trace of any
recognition of it is in Origen (A.D. 230) who refers to it as "said to
be from James" ([Greek: pheromegê hê Iakôbou Epistolê]), seeming thus to
regard ver. 1 as superscription rather than part of the text. Eusebius
(A.D. 325) classifies it among the disputed books, declaring that it is
regarded as spurious, and that not many of the ancients have mentioned
it. Even Jerome (A.D. 390), though personally he accepted it, admits
that it was "said to have been published by another in the name of
James." The Syrian canon of the Peshitta was the first to admit it.

Modern criticism naturally made the superscription its starting-point,
endeavouring first to explain the contents of the writing on this
theory of authorship, but generally reaching the conclusion that the
two do not agree. Conservatives as a rule avoid the implication of a
direct polemic against Paul in ii. 14-26, which would lay open the
author to the bitter accusations launched against the interlopers of 2
Cor. x.-xiii., by dating before the Judaistic controversy. Other
critics regard the very language alone as fatal to such a theory of
date, authorship and circle addressed. The contents, ignoring the
conflict of Jew and Gentile, complaining of worldiness and
tongue-religion (cf. 1 John iii. 17 seq. with James ii. 14-16) suggest
a much later date than the death of James (A.D. 62-66). They also
require a different character in the author, if not also a different
circle of readers from those addressed in i. 1.

The prevalent conditions seem to be those of the Greek church of the
post-apostolic period, characterized by worldiness of life, profession
without practice, and a contentious garrulity of teaching (1 John iii.
3-10, 18; 1 Tim. i. 6 seq., vi. 3-10; 2 Tim. iii. 1-5, iv. 3 seq.).
The author meets these with the weapons commanded for the purpose in 1
Tim. vi. 3, but quite in the spirit of one of the "wise men" of the
Hebrew wisdom literature. His gospel is completely denationalized,
humanitarian; but, while equally universalistic, is quite
unsympathetic towards the doctrine and the mysticism of Paul. He has
nothing whatever to say of the incarnation, life, example, suffering
or resurrection of Jesus, and does not interest himself in the
doctrines of Christ's person, which were hotly debated up to this
time. The absence of all mention of Christ (with the single exception
of ii. 1, where there is reason to think the words [Greek: hêmôu Iêsou
Xristou] interpolated) has even led to the theory, ably but
unconvincingly maintained by Spitta, that the writing is a mere recast
of a Jewish moralistic writing like the _Two Ways_. The thoughts are
loosely strung together: yet the following seems to be the general
framework on which the New Testament preacher has collected his
material.

1. The problem of evil (i. 1-19a). Outward trials are for our
development through aid of divinely given "wisdom" (2-11). Inward
(moral) trials are not to be imputed to God, the author of all good,
whose purpose is the moral good of his creation (12-19a; cf. 1 John i.
5).

2. The righteousness God intends is defined in the eternal moral law.
It is a product of deeds, not words (i. 19b-27).

3. The "royal law" of love is violated by discrimination against the
poor (ii. 1-13); and by professions of faith barren of good works
(14-26).

4. The true spirit of wisdom appears not in aspiring to teach, but in
goodness and meekness of life (ch. iii.). Strife and self-exaltation
are fruits of a different spirit, to be resisted and overcome by
humble prayer for more grace (iv. 1-10).

5. God's judgment is at hand. The thought condemns censoriousness (iv.
11 et seq.), presumptuous treatment of life (13-17), and the tyranny
of the rich (v. 1-6). It encourages the believer to patient endurance
to the end without murmuring or imprecations (7-12). It impels the
church to diligence in its work of worship, care and prayer (13-18),
and in the reclamation of the erring (19-20).

The use made by James of earlier material is as important for
determining the _terminus a quo_ of its own date as the use of it by
later writers for the _terminus ad quem_. Acquaintance with the
evangelic tradition is apparent. It is conceived, however, more in the
Matthaean sense of "commandments to be observed" (Matt. xxviii. 20)
than the Pauline, Markan and Johannine of the drama of the incarnation
and redemption. There is no traceable literary contact with the
synoptic gospels. Acquaintance, however, with some of the Pauline
epistles "must be regarded as incontestably established" (O. Cone,
_Ency. Bibl._ ii. 2323). Besides scattered reminiscences of Romans, 1
Corinthians and Galatians, enumerated in the article referred to, the
section devoted to a refutation of the doctrine of "justification by
faith apart from works" undeniably presupposes the Pauline
terminology. Had the author been consciously opposing the great
apostle to the Gentiles he would probably have treated the subject
less superficially. What he really opposes is the same ultra-Pauline
moral laxity which Paul himself had found occasion to rebuke among
would-be adherents in Corinth (1 Cor. vi. 12; viii. 1-3, 11, 12; x. 23
seq., 32 seq.) and which appears still more marked in the pastoral
epistles and 1 John. In rebuking it James unconsciously retracts the
misapplied Pauline principle itself. To suppose that the technical
terminology of Paul, including even his classic example of the faith
of Abraham, could be employed here independently of Rom. ii. 21-23,
iii. 28, iv. 1; Gal. ii. 16, iii. 6, is to pass a judgment which in
every other field of literary criticism would be at once repudiated.
To imagine it current in pre-Pauline Judaism is to misconceive the
spirit of the synagogue.[1] To make James the coiner and Paul the
borrower not only throws back James to a date incompatible with the
other phenomena, but implies a literary polemic tactlessly waged by
Paul against the head of the Jerusalem church. Acquaintance with
Hebrews is only slightly less probable, for James ii. 25 adds an
explication of the case of Rahab also, cited in Heb. xi. 31 along with
Abraham as an example of justification by faith only, to his
correction of the Pauline scriptural argument. The question whether
James is dependent on 1 Peter or conversely is still actively
disputed. As regards the superscription the relation has been defined
above. Dependence on Revelation (A.D. 95) is probable (cf. i. 12 and
ii. 5 with Rev. ii. 9, 10 and v. 9 with Rev. iii. 20), but the
contacts with Clement of Rome (A.D. 95-120) indicate the reverse
relation. James iv. 6 and v. 20 = 1 Clem. xlix. 5 and xxx. 2; but as
both passages are also found in 1 Peter (iv. 8, v. 5), the latter may
be the common source. Clement's further development of the cases of
Abraham and Rahab, however, adding as it does to the demonstration of
James from Scripture of their justification "by works and not by faith
only," that the particular good work which "wrought with the faith" of
Abraham and Rahab to their justification was "hospitality" (1 Clem,
x.-xii.) seems plainly to presuppose James. Priority is more difficult
to establish in the case of Hermas (A.D. 120-140), where the contacts
are undisputed (cf. James iv. 7, 12 with Mand. xii, 5, 6; Sim. ix.
23).[2]

The date (A.D. 95-120) implied by the literary contacts of James of
course precludes authorship by the Lord's brother, though this does not
necessarily prove the superscription later still. The question whether
the writing as a whole is pseudonymous, or only the superscription a
mistaken conjecture by the scribe of Jude 1 is of secondary importance.
A date about 100-120 for the substance of the writing is accepted by the
majority of modern scholars and throws real light upon the author's
endeavour. Pfleiderer in pointing out the similarities of James and the
_Shepherd_ of Hermas declares it to be "certain that both writings
presuppose like historical circumstances, and, from a similar point of
view, direct their admonitions to their contemporaries, among whom a lax
worldly-mindedness and unfruitful theological wrangling threatened to
destroy the religious life."[3] Holtzmann has characterized this as "the
right visual angle" for the judgment of the book. Questions as to the
obligation of Mosaism and the relations of Jew and Gentile have utterly
disappeared below the horizon. Neither the attachment to the religious
forms of Judaism, which we are informed was characteristic of James, nor
that personal relation to the Lord which gave him his supreme
distinction are indicated by so much as a single word. Instead of being
written in Aramaic, as it would almost necessarily be if antecedent to
the Pauline epistles, or even in the Semitic style characteristic of the
older and more Palestinian elements of the New Testament we have a Greek
even more fluent than Paul's and metaphors and allusions (i. 17, iii.
1-12) of a type more like Greek rhetoric than anything else in the New
Testament. Were we to judge by the contacts with Hebrews, Clement of
Rome and Hermas and the similarity of situation evidenced in the
last-named, Rome would seem the most natural place of origin. The
history of the epistle's reception into the canon is not opposed to
this; for, once it was attributed to James, Syria would be more likely
to take it up, while the West, more sceptical, if not better informed as
to its origin, held back; just as happened in the case of Hebrews.

It is the author's conception of the nature of the gospel which mainly
gives us pause in following this pretty general disposition of modern
scholarship. With all the phenomena of vocabulary and style which seem
to justify such conceptions as von Soden's that c. iii. and iv. 11-v. 6
represent excerpts respectively from the essay of an Alexandrian scribe,
and a triple fragment of Jewish apocalypse, the analysis above given
will be found the exponent of a real logical sequence. We might almost
admit a resemblance in form to the general literary type which Spitta
adduces. The term "wisdom" in particular is used in the special and
technical sense of the "wise men" of Hebrew literature (Matt. xxiii.
34), the sense of "the wisdom of the just" of Luke i. 17. True, the
mystical sense given to the term in one of the sources of Luke, by Paul
and some of the Church fathers, is not present. While the gospel is
pre-eminently the divine gift of "wisdom," "wisdom" is not personified,
but conceived primarily as a system of humanitarian ethics, i. 21-25,
and only secondarily as a spiritual effluence, imparting the regenerate
disposition, the "mind that was in Christ Jesus," iii. 13-18. And yet
for James as well as for Paul Christ is "the wisdom of God." The
difference in conception of the term is similar to that between
Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon. Our author, like Paul, expects
the hearers of the word to be "a kind of first-fruits to God of his
creation." (i. 18 cf. 1 Pet. i. 23), and bids them depend upon the gift
of grace (i. 5, iv. 5 seq.), but for the evils of the world he has no
remedy but the patient endurance of the Christian philosopher (i. 2-18).
For the faithlessness ([Greek: dipsychia] i. 6-8; cf. _Didache_ and
Hermas), worldliness (ii. 1-13) and hollow profession (ii. 14-26) of the
church life of his time, with its "theological wrangling" (iii. 1-12),
his remedy is again the God-given, peaceable spirit of the Christian
philosopher (iii. 13-18), which is the antithesis of the spirit of
self-seeking and censoriousness (iv. 1-12), and which appreciates the
pettiness of earthly life with its sordid gains and its unjust
distribution of wealth (iv. 13-v. 6). This attitude of the Christian
stoic will maintain the individual in his patient waiting for the
expected "coming of the Lord" (v. 7-11); while the church sustains its
official functions of healing and prayer, and reclamation of the erring
(v. 13-20).[4] For this conception of the gospel and of the officially
organized church, our nearest analogy is in Matthew, or rather in the
blocks of precepts of the Lord which after subtraction of the Markan
narrative framework are found to underlie our first gospel. It may be
mere coincidence that the material in Matthew as well as in the
_Didache_ seems to be arranged in five divisions, beginning with a
commendation of the right way, and ending with warnings of the judgment,
while the logical analysis of James yields something similar; but of the
affinity of spirit there can be no doubt.

The type of ethical thought exemplified in James has been called
Ebionite (Hilgenfeld). It is clearly manifest in the humanitarianism of
Luke also. But with the possible exception of the prohibition of oaths
there is nothing which ought to suggest the epithet. The strong sense of
social wrongs, the impatience with tongue-religion, the utter ignoring
of ceremonialism, the reflection on the value and significance of
"life," are distinctive simply of the "wisdom" writers. Like these our
author holds himself so far aloof from current debate of ceremonial or
doctrine as to escape our principal standards of measurement regarding
place and time. Certain general considerations, however, are fairly
decisive. The prolonged effort, mainly of English scholarship, to
vindicate the superscription, even on the condition of assuming priority
to the Pauline epistles, grows only increasingly hopeless with
increasing knowledge of conditions, linguistic and other, in that early
period. The moralistic conception of the gospel as a "law of liberty,"
the very phrase recalling the expression of Barn. ii., "the new law of
Christ, which is without the yoke of constraint," the conception of the
church as primarily an ethical society, its functions already officially
distributed, suggest the period of the _Didache_, Barnabas and Clement
of Rome. Independently of the literary contacts we should judge the
period to be about A.D. 100-120. The connexions with the Pauline
epistles are conclusive for a date later than the death of James; those
with Clement and Hermas are perhaps sufficient to date it as prior to
the former, and suggest Rome as the place of origin. The connexions with
wisdom-literature favour somewhat the Hellenistic culture of Syria, as
represented for example at Antioch.

The most important commentaries on the epistle are those of Matt.
Schneckenburger (1832), K. G. W. Theile (1833), J. Kern (1838), G. H.
Ewald (1870), C. F. D. Erdmann (1881), H. v. Soden (1898), J. B. Mayor
(1892) and W. Patrick (1906). The pre-Pauline date is championed by B.
Weiss (_Introd._), W. Beyschlag (Meyer's _Commentary_), Th. Zahn
(_Introd._), J. B. Mayor and W. Patrick. J. V. Bartlet (_Ap. Age_, pp.
217-250) pleads for it, and the view is still common among English
interpreters. F. K. Zimmer (_Z. w. Th._, 1893) showed the priority of
Paul, with many others. A. Hilgenfeld (_Einl._) and A. C. McGiffert
(_Ap. Age_) place it in the period of Domitian; Baur (_Ch. History_),
Schwegler (_Nachap. Zeitalt._), Zeller, Volkmar (_Z. w. Th._),
Hausrath (_Ap. Age_), H. J. Holtzmann (_Einl._), Jülicher (_Einl._),
Usteri (St. _u. Kr._, 1889), W. Brückner (_Chron._), H. v. Soden
(_Handcomm._) and A. Harnack (_Chron._) under Hadrian. A convenient
synopsis of results will be found in J. Moffat, _Historical New
Test._^2 (pp. 576-581), and in the articles _s.v._ "James" in _Encycl.
Bibl._ and the Bible Dictionaries. (B. W. B.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nothing adduced by Lightfoot (_Comm. on Gal._ Exc. "The faith of
Abraham") justifies the unsupported and improbable assertion that the
quotation James ii. 21 seq. "was probably in common use among the
Jews to prove that orthodoxy of doctrine sufficed for salvation"
(Mayor, s.v. "James, Epistle of" in Hasting's _Dict. Bible_, p. 546).

[2] On the contacts in general see Moffat, _Hist. N.T._^2 p. 578, on
relation to Clem. R. see Bacon, "Doctrine of Faith in Hebrews, James
and Clement of Rome," in _Jour. of Bib. Lit._, 1900, pp. 12-21.

[3] _Das Urchristenthum_, 868, quoted by Cone, _loc. cit._

[4] The logical relation of v. 12 to the context is problematical.
Perhaps it may be accounted for by the order of the compend of
Christian ethics the writer was following. Cf. Matt. v. 34-37 in
relation to Matt. v. 12 (cf. ver. 10) and vi. 19 sqq. (cf. ver. 2,
and iv. 13 seq.). The non-charismatic conception of healing, no
longer the "gift" of some layman in the community (1 Cor. xii. 9
seq.) but a function of "the elders" (1 Tim. iv. 14), is another
indication of comparatively late date.

JAMESON, ANNA BROWNELL (1794-1860), British writer, was born in Dublin
on the 17th of May 1794. Her father, Denis Brownell Murphy (d. 1842), a
miniature and enamel painter, removed to England in 1798 with his
family, and eventually settled at Hanwell, near London. At sixteen years
of age Anna became governess in the family of the marquis of Winchester.
In 1821 she was engaged to Robert Jameson. The engagement was broken
off, and Anna Murphy accompanied a young pupil to Italy, writing in a
fictitious character a narrative of what she saw and did. This diary she
gave to a bookseller on condition of receiving a guitar if he secured
any profits. Colburn ultimately published it as _The Diary of an
Ennuyée_ (1826), which attracted much attention. The author was
governess to the children of Mr Littleton, afterwards Lord Hatherton,
from 1821 to 1825, when she married Robert Jameson. The marriage proved
unhappy; when, in 1829, Jameson was appointed puisne judge in the island
of Dominica the couple separated without regret, and Mrs Jameson visited
the Continent again with her father.

The first work which displayed her powers of original thought was her
_Characteristics of Women_ (1832). These analyses of Shakespeare's
heroines are remarkable for delicacy of critical insight and fineness of
literary touch. They are the result of a penetrating but essentially
feminine mind, applied to the study of individuals of its own sex,
detecting characteristics and defining differences not perceived by the
ordinary critic and entirely overlooked by the general reader. German
literature and art had aroused much interest in England, and Mrs Jameson
paid her first visit to Germany in 1833. The conglomerations of hard
lines, cold colours and pedantic subjects which decorated Munich under
the patronage of King Louis of Bavaria, were new to the world, and Mrs
Jameson's enthusiasm first gave them an English reputation.

In 1836 Mrs Jameson was summoned to Canada by her husband, who had been
appointed chancellor of the province of Toronto. He failed to meet her
at New York, and she was left to make her way alone at the worst season
of the year to Toronto. After six months' experiment she felt it useless
to prolong a life far from all ties of family happiness and
opportunities of usefulness. Before leaving, she undertook a journey to
the depths of the Indian settlements in Canada; she explored Lake Huron,
and saw much of emigrant and Indian life unknown to travellers, which
she afterwards embodied in her _Winter Studies and Summer Rambles_. She
returned to England in 1838. At this period Mrs Jameson began making
careful notes of the chief private art collections in and near London.
The result appeared in her _Companion to the Private Galleries_ (1842),
followed in the same year by the _Handbook to the Public Galleries_. She
edited the _Memoirs of the Early Italian Painters_ in 1845. In the same
year she visited her friend Ottilie von Goethe. Her friendship with Lady
Byron dates from about this time and lasted for some seven years; it was
brought to an end apparently through Lady Byron's unreasonable temper. A
volume of essays published in 1846 contains one of Mrs Jameson's best
pieces of work, _The House of Titian_. In 1847 she went to Italy with
her niece and subsequent biographer (_Memoirs_, 1878), Geraldine Bate
(Mrs Macpherson), to collect materials for the work on which her
reputation rests--her series of _Sacred and Legendary Art_. The time was
ripe for such contributions to the traveller's library. The _Acta
Sanctorum_ and the _Book of the Golden Legend_ had had their readers,
but no one had ever pointed out the connexion between these tales and
the works of Christian art. The way to these studies had been pointed
out in the preface to Kugler's _Handbook of Italian Painting_ by Sir
Charles Eastlake, who had intended pursuing the subject himself.
Eventually he made over to Mrs Jameson the materials and references he
had collected. She recognized the extent of the ground before her as a
mingled sphere of poetry, history, devotion and art. She infected her
readers with her own enthusiastic admiration; and, in spite of her
slight technical and historical equipment, Mrs. Jameson produced a book
which thoroughly deserved its great success.

She also took a keen interest in questions affecting the education,
occupations and maintenance of her own sex. Her early essay on _The
Relative Social Position of Mothers and Governesses_ was the work of one
who knew both sides; and in no respect does she more clearly prove the
falseness of the position she describes than in the certainty with which
she predicts its eventual reform. To her we owe the first popular
enunciation of the principle of male and female co-operation in works of
mercy and education. In her later years she took up a succession of
subjects all bearing on the same principles of active benevolence and
the best ways of carrying them into practice. Sisters of charity,
hospitals, penitentiaries, prisons and workhouses all claimed her
interest--all more or less included under those definitions of "the
communion of love and communion of labour" which are inseparably
connected with her memory. To the clear and temperate forms in which she
brought the results of her convictions before her friends in the shape
of private lectures--published as _Sisters of Charity_ (1855) and _The
Communion of Labour_ (1856)--may be traced the source whence later
reformers and philanthropists took counsel and courage.

Mrs Jameson died on the 17th of March 1860. She left the last of her
_Sacred and Legendary Art_ series in preparation. It was completed,
under the title of _The History of Our Lord in Art_, by Lady Eastlake.

JAMESON (or JAMESONE), GEORGE (c. 1587-1644), Scottish portrait-painter,
was born at Aberdeen, where his father was architect and a member of the
guild. After studying painting under Rubens at Antwerp, with Vandyck as
a fellow pupil, he returned in 1620 to Aberdeen, where he was married in
1624 and remained at least until 1630, after which he took up his
residence in Edinburgh. He was employed by the magistrates of Edinburgh
to copy several portraits of the Scottish kings for presentation to
Charles I. on his first visit to Scotland in 1633, and the king rewarded
him with a diamond ring from his own finger. This circumstance at once
established Jameson's fame, and he soon found constant employment in
painting the portraits of the Scottish nobility and gentry. He also
painted a portrait of Charles, which he declined to sell to the
magistrates of Aberdeen for the price they offered. He died at Edinburgh
in 1644.

JAMESON, LEANDER STARR (1853- ), British colonial statesman, son of R.
W. Jameson, a writer to the signet in Edinburgh, was born at Edinburgh
in 1853, and was educated for the medical profession at University
College Hospital, London (M.R.C.S. 1875; M.D. 1877). After acting as
house physician, house surgeon and demonstrator of anatomy, and showing
promise of a successful professional career in London, his health broke
down from overwork in 1878, and he went out to South Africa and settled
down in practice at Kimberley. There he rapidly acquired a great
reputation as a medical man, and, besides numbering President Kruger and
the Matabele chief Lobengula among his patients, came much into contact
with Cecil Rhodes. In 1888 his influence with Lobengula was successfully
exerted to induce that chieftain to grant the concessions to the agents
of Rhodes which led to the formation of the British South Africa
Company; and when the company proceeded to open up Mashonaland, Jameson
abandoned his medical practice and joined the pioneer expedition of
1890. From this time his fortunes were bound up with Rhodes's schemes in
the north. Immediately after the pioneer column had occupied
Mashonaland, Jameson, with F. C. Selous and A. R. Colquhoun, went east
to Manicaland and was instrumental in securing the greater part of that
country, to which Portugal was laying claim, for the Chartered Company.
In 1891 Jameson succeeded Colquhoun as administrator of Rhodesia. The
events connected with his vigorous administration and the wars with the
Matabele are narrated under RHODESIA. At the end of 1894 "Dr Jim" (as he
was familiarly called) came to England and was fêted on all sides; he
was made a C.B., and returned to Africa in the spring of 1895 with
enhanced prestige. On the last day of that year the world was startled
to learn that Jameson, with a force of 600 men, had made a raid into the
Transvaal from Mafeking in support of a projected rising in
Johannesburg, which had been connived at by Rhodes at the Cape (see
RHODES and TRANSVAAL). Jameson's force was compelled to surrender at
Doornkop, receiving a guarantee that the lives of all would be spared;
he and his officers were sent to Pretoria, and, after a short delay,
during which time sections of the Boer populace clamoured for the
execution of Jameson, President Kruger on the surrender of Johannesburg
(January 7) handed them over to the British government for punishment.
They were tried in London under the Foreign Enlistment Act in May 1896,
and Dr Jameson was sentenced to fifteen months' imprisonment at
Holloway. He served a year in prison, and was then released on account
of ill health. He still retained the affections of the white population
of Rhodesia, and subsequently returned there in an unofficial capacity.
He was the constant companion of Rhodes on his journeys up to the end of
his life, and when Rhodes died in May 1902 Jameson was left one of the
executors of his will. In 1903 Jameson came forward as the leader of the
Progressive (British) party in Cape Colony; and that party being
victorious at the general election in January-February 1904, Jameson
formed an administration in which he took the post of prime minister. He
had to face a serious economic crisis and strenuously promoted the
development of the agricultural and pastoral resources of the colony. He
also passed a much needed Redistribution Act, and in the session of 1906
passed an Amnesty Act restoring the rebel voters to the franchise.
Jameson, as prime minister of Cape Colony, attended the Colonial
conference held in London in 1907. In September of that year the Cape
parliament was dissolved, and as the elections for the legislative
council went in favour of the Bond, Jameson resigned office, 31st of
January 1908 (see CAPE COLONY: _History_). In 1908 he was chosen one of
the delegates from Cape Colony to the intercolonial convention for the
closer union of the South African states, and he took a prominent part
in settling the terms on which union was effected in 1909. It was at
Jameson's suggestion that the Orange River Colony was renamed Orange
Free State Province.

JAMESON, ROBERT (1774-1854), Scottish naturalist and mineralogist, was
born at Leith on the 11th of July 1774. He became assistant to a surgeon
in his native town; but, having studied natural history under Dr John
Walker in 1792 and 1793, he felt that his true province lay in that
science. He went in 1800 to Freiberg to study for nearly two years under
Werner, and spent two more in continental travel. In 1804 he succeeded
Dr Walker as regius professor of natural history in Edinburgh
university, and became perhaps the first eminent exponent in Great
Britain of the Wernerian geological system; but when he found that
theory untenable, he frankly announced his conversion to the views of
Hutton. As a teacher, Jameson was remarkable for his power of imparting
enthusiasm to his students, and from his class-room there radiated an
influence which gave a marked impetus to the study of geology in
Britain. His energy also, by means of government aid, private donation
and personal outlay, amassed a great part of the splendid collection
which now occupies the natural history department of the Royal Scottish
Museum in Edinburgh. In 1819 Jameson, with Sir David Brewster, started
the _Edinburgh Philosophical Journal_, which after the tenth volume
remained under his sole conduct till his death, which took place in
Edinburgh on the 19th of April 1854. His bust now stands in the hall of
the Edinburgh University library.

Jameson was the author of _Outline of the Mineralogy of the Shetland
Islands and of the Island of Arran_ (1798), incorporated with
_Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles_ (1800); _Mineralogical Description
of Scotland_, vol. i. pt. 1. (Dumfries, 1805); this was to have been
the first of a series embracing all Scotland; _System of Mineralogy_
(3 vols., 1804-1808; 3rd ed., 1820); _Elements of Geognosy_ (1809);
_Mineralogical Travels through the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland
Islands_ (2 vols., 1813); and _Manual of Mineralogy_ (1821); besides a
number of occasional papers, of which a list will be found in the
_Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal_ for July 1854, along with a
portrait and biographical sketch of the author.

JAMESTOWN, a city and the county-seat of Stutsman county, North Dakota,
U.S.A., on the James River, about 93 m. W. of Fargo. Pop. (1900), 2853,
of whom 587 were foreign-born; (1905) 5093; (1910) 4358. Jamestown is
served by the Northern Pacific railway, of which it is a division
headquarters. At Jamestown is St John's Academy, a school for girls,
conducted by the Sisters of St Joseph. The state hospital for the insane
is just beyond the city limits. The city is the commercial centre of a
prosperous farming and stock-raising region in the James River valley,
and has grain-elevators and flour-mills. Jamestown was first settled in
1873, near Fort Seward, a U.S. military post established in 1872 and
abandoned in 1877, and was chartered as a city in 1883.

JAMESTOWN, a city of Chautauqua county, New York, U.S.A., at the S.
outlet of Chautauqua Lake, 68 m. S. by W. of Buffalo. Pop. (1900),
22,892, of whom 7270 were foreign-born, mostly Swedish; (1910 census)
31,297. It is served by the Erie and the Jamestown, Chautauqua & Lake
Erie railways, by electric lines extending along Lake Chautauqua to Lake
Erie on the N. and to Warren, Pennsylvania, on the S., and by summer
steamboat lines on Lake Chautauqua. Jamestown is situated among the
hills of Chautauqua county, and is a popular summer resort. There is a
free public library. A supply of natural gas (from Pennsylvania) and a
fine water-power combine to render Jamestown a manufacturing centre of
considerable importance. In 1905 the value of its factory products was
$10,349,752, an increase of 33.9% since 1900. The city owns and operates
its electric-lighting plant and its water-supply system, the water, of
exceptional purity, being obtained from artesian wells 4 m. distant.
Jamestown was settled in 1810, was incorporated in 1827, and was
chartered as a city in 1886. The city was named in honour of James
Prendergast, an early settler.

JAMESTOWN, a former village in what is now James City county, Virginia,
U.S.A., on Jamestown Island, in the James River, about 40 m. above
Norfolk. It was here that the first permanent English settlement in
America was founded on the 13th of May 1607, that representative
government was inaugurated on the American Continent in 1619, and that
negro servitude was introduced into the original thirteen colonies, also
in 1619. In Jamestown was the first Anglican church built in America.
The settlement was in a low marshy district which proved to be
unhealthy; it was accidentally burned in January 1608, was almost
completely destroyed by Nathaniel Bacon in September 1676, the state
house and other buildings were again burned in 1698, and after the
removal of the seat of government of Virginia from Jamestown to the
Middle Plantations (now Williamsburg) in 1699 the village fell rapidly
into decay. Its population had never been large: it was about 490 in
1609, and 183 in 1623; the mortality was always very heavy. By the
middle of the 19th century the peninsula on which Jamestown had been
situated had become an island, and by 1900 the James River had worn away
the shore but had hardly touched the territory of the "New Towne"
(1619), immediately E. of the first settlement; almost the only visible
remains, however, were the tower of the brick church and a few
gravestones. In 1900 the association for the preservation of Virginia
antiquities, to which the site was deeded in 1893, induced the United
States government to build a wall to prevent the further encroachment of
the river; the foundations of several of the old buildings have since
been uncovered, many interesting relics have been found, and in 1907
there were erected a brick church (which is as far as possible a
reproduction of the fourth one built in 1639-1647), a marble shaft
marking the site of the first settlement, another shaft commemorating
the first house of burgesses, a bronze monument to the memory of Captain
John Smith, and another monument to the memory of Pocahontas. At the
head of Jamestown peninsula Cornwallis, in July 1781, attempted to
trick the Americans under Lafayette and General Anthony Wayne by
displaying a few men on the peninsula and concealing the principal part
of his army on the mainland; but when Wayne discovered the trap he made
first a vigorous charge, and then a retreat to Lafayette's line. Early
in the Civil War the Confederates regarded the site (then an island) as
of such strategic importance that (near the brick church tower and
probably near the site of the first fortifications by the original
settlers) they erected heavy earthworks upon it for defence. (For
additional details concerning the early history of Jamestown, see
VIRGINIA: _History_.)

The founding at Jamestown of the first permanent English-speaking
settlement in America was celebrated in 1907 by the Jamestown
tercentennial exposition, held on grounds at Sewell's Point on the shore
of Hampton Roads. About twenty foreign nations, the federal government,
and most of the states of the union took part in the exposition.

See L. G. Tyler, _The Cradle of the Republic: Jamestown and James
River_ (Richmond, 2nd ed., 1906); Mrs R. A. Pryor, _The Birth of the
Nation: Jamestown, 1607_ (New York, 1907); and particularly S. H.
Yonge, _The Site of Old "James Towne," 1607-1698_ (Richmond, 1904),
embodying the results of the topographical investigations of the
engineer in charge of the river-wall built in 1900-1901.

JAMI (NUR-ED-DIN 'ABD-UR-RAHMAN IBN AHMAD) (1414-1492), Persian poet and
mystic, was born at Jam in Khorasan, whence the name by which he is
usually known. In his poems he mystically utilizes the connexion of the
name with the same word meaning "wine-cup." He was the last great
classic poet of Persia, and a pronounced mystic of the Sufic philosophy.
His three _diwans_ (1479-1401) contain his lyrical poems and odes; among
his prose writings the chief is his _Baharistan_ ("Spring-garden")
(1487); and his collection of romantic poems, _Haft Aurang_ ("Seven
Thrones"), contains the _Salaman wa Absal_ and his _Yusuf wa Zalikha_
(Joseph and Potiphar's wife).

On Jami's life and works see V. von Rosenzweig, _Biographische Notizen
über Mewlana Abdurrahman Dschami_ (Vienna, 1840); Gore Ouseley,
_Biographical Notices of Persian Poets_ (1846); W. N. Lees, _A
Biographical Sketch of the Mystic Philosopher and Poet Jami_
(Calcutta, 1859); E. Beauvois _s.v._ Djami in _Nouvelle Biographie
générale_; and H. Ethé in Geiger and Kuhn's _Grundriss der iranischen
Philologie_, ii. There are English translations of the _Baharistan_ by
E. Rehatsek (Benares, 1887) and Sorabji Fardunji (Bombay, 1899); of
_Salaman wa Absal_ by Edward FitzGerald (1856, with a notice of Jami's
life); of _Yusuf wa Zalikha_ by R. T. H. Griffith (1882) and A. Rogers
(1892); also selections in English by F. Hadland Davis, _The Persian
Mystics: Jami_ (1908). (See also PERSIA: _Literature_.)

JAMIESON, JOHN (1759-1838), Scottish lexicographer, son of a minister,
was born in Glasgow, on the 3rd of March 1759. He was educated at
Glasgow University, and subsequently attended classes in Edinburgh.
After six years' theological study, Jamieson was licensed to preach in
1789 and became pastor of an Anti-burgher congregation in Forfar; and in
1797 he was called to the Anti-burgher church in Nicolson Street,
Edinburgh. The union of the Burgher and Anti-burgher sections of the
Secession Church in 1820 was largely due to his exertions. He retired
from the ministry in 1830 and died in Edinburgh on the 12th of July
1838.

Jamieson's name stands at the head of a tolerably long list of works
in the _Bibliotheca britannica_; but by far his most important book is
the laborious and erudite compilation, best described by its own
title-page: _An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language;
illustrating the words in their different significations by examples
from Ancient and Modern Writers; shewing their Affinity to those of
other Languages, and especially the Northern; explaining many terms
which though now obsolete in England were formerly common to both
countries; and elucidating National Rites, Customs and Institutions in
their Analogy to those of other nations; to which is prefixed a
Dissertation on the Origin of the Scottish Language_. This appeared in
2 vols., 4to, at Edinburgh in 1808, followed in 1825 by a
_Supplement_, in 2 vols., 4to, in which he was assisted by scholars in
all parts of the country. A revised edition by Longmuir and Donaldson
was issued in 1879-1887.

JAMIESON, ROBERT (c. 1780-1844), Scottish antiquary, was born in
Morayshire. In 1806 he published a collection of _Popular Ballads and
Songs from Tradition, Manuscript and Scarce Editions_. Two pleasing
lyrics of his own were included. Scott, through whose assistance he
received a government post at Edinburgh, held Jamieson in high esteem
and pointed out his skill in discovering the connexion between
Scandinavian and Scottish legends. Jamieson's work preserved much oral
tradition which might otherwise have been lost. He was associated with
Henry Weber and Scott in _Illustrations of Northern Antiquities_ (1814).
He died on the 24th of September 1844.

JAMKHANDI, a native state of India, in the Deccan division of Bombay,
ranking as one of the southern Mahratta Jagirs. Area, 524 sq. m. Pop.
(1901), 105,357; estimated revenue, £37,000; tribute, £1300. The chief
is a Brahman of the Patwardhan family. Cotton, wheat and millet are
produced, and cotton and silk cloth are manufactured, though not
exported. The town of JAMKHANDI, the capital, is situated 68 m. E. of
Kolhapur. Pop. (1901), 13,029.

JAMMU, or JUMMOO, the capital of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in
Northern India, on the river Tavi (Ta-wi), a tributary of the Chenab.
Pop. (1901), 36,130. The town and palace stand upon the right bank of
the river; the fort overhangs the left bank at an elevation of 150 ft.
above the stream. The lofty whitened walls of the palace and citadel
present a striking appearance from the surrounding country. Extensive
pleasure grounds and ruins of great size attest the former prosperity of
the city when it was the seat of a Rajput dynasty whose dominions
extended into the plains and included the modern district of Sialkot. It
was afterwards conquered by the Sikhs, and formed part of Ranjit Singh's
dominions. After his death it was acquired by Gulab Singh as the nucleus
of his dominions, to which the British added Kashmir in 1846. It is
connected with Sialkot in the Punjab by a railway 16 m. long. In 1898
the town was devastated by a fire, which destroyed most of the public
offices.

The state of Jammu proper, as opposed to Kashmir, consists of a
submontane tract, forming the upper basin of the Chenab. Pop. (1901),
1,521,307, showing an increase of 5% in the decade. A land settlement
has recently been introduced under British supervision.

JAMNIA ([Greek: Iamnia] or [Greek: Iamneia]), the Greek form of the
Hebrew name Jabneel--i.e. "God causeth to build" (Josh. xv. 11)--or
Jabneh (2 Chron. xxvi. 6), the modern Arabic YEBNA, a town of Palestine,
on the border between Dan and Judah, situated 13 m. S. of Jaffa, and 4
m. E. of the seashore. The modern village stands on an isolated sandy
hillock, surrounded by gardens with olives to the north and sand-dunes
to the west. It contains a small crusaders' church, now a mosque. Jamnia
belonged to the Philistines, and Uzziah of Judah is said to have taken
it (2 Chron. xxvi. 6). In Maccabean times Joseph and Azarias attacked it
unsuccessfully (1 Macc. v. 55-62; 2 Macc. xii. 8 seq. is untrustworthy).
Alexander Jannaeus subdued it, and under Pompey it became Roman. It
changed hands several times, is mentioned by Strabo (xvi. 2) as being
once very populous, and in the Jewish war was taken by Vespasian. The
population was mainly Jewish (Philo, _Leg. ad Gaium_, § 30), and the
town is principally famous as having been the seat of the Sanhedrin and
the religious centre of Judaism from A.D. 70 to 135. It sent a bishop to
Nicaea in 325. In 1144 a crusaders' fortress was built on the hill,
which is often mentioned under the name Ibelin. There was also a Jabneel
in Lower Galilee (Josh. xix. 33), called later Caphar Yama, the present
village Yemma, 8 m. S. of Tiberias; and another fortress in Upper
Galilee was named Jamnia (Josephus, _Vita_, 37). Attempts have been made
to unify these two Galilean sites, but without success.

JAMRUD, a fort and cantonment in India, just beyond the border of
Peshawar district, North-West Frontier Province, situated at the mouth
of the Khyber Pass, 10½ m. W. of Peshawar city, with which it is
connected by a branch railway. It was occupied by Hari Singh, Ranjit
Singh's commander in 1836; but in April 1837 Dost Mahommed sent a body
of Afghans to attack it. The Sikhs gained a doubtful victory, with the
loss of their general. During the military operations of 1878-79 Jamrud
became a place of considerable importance as the frontier outpost on
British territory towards Afghanistan, and it was also the base of
operations for a portion of the Tirah campaign in 1897-1898. It is the
headquarters of the Khyber Rifles, and the collecting station for the
Khyber tolls. Pop. (1901), 1848.

JAMS AND JELLIES. In the article FOOD PRESERVATION it is pointed out
that concentrated sugar solution inhibits the growth of organisms and
has, therefore, a preservative action. The preparation of jams and
jellies is based upon that fact. All fresh and succulent fruit contains
a large percentage of water, amounting to at least four-fifths of the
whole, and a comparatively small proportion of sugar, not exceeding as a
rule from 10 to 15%. Such fruit is naturally liable to decomposition
unless the greater proportion of the water is removed or the percentage
of sugar is greatly increased. The jams and jellies of commerce are
fruit preserves containing so much added sugar that the total amount of
sugar forms about two-thirds of the weight of the articles. All ordinary
edible fruit can be and is made into jam. The fruit is sometimes pulped
and stoned, sometimes used whole and unbroken; oranges are sliced or
shredded. For the preparation of jellies only certain fruit is suitable,
namely such as contains a peculiar material which on boiling becomes
dissolved and on cooling solidifies with the formation of a gelatinous
mass. This material, often called pectin, occurs mainly in comparatively
acid fruit like gooseberries, currants and apples, and is almost absent
from strawberries and raspberries. It is chemically a member of the
group of carbohydrates, is closely allied with vegetable gums abundantly
formed by certain sea-weeds and mosses (agar-agar and Iceland moss), and
is probably a mixture of various pentoses. Pentoses are devoid of
food-value, but, like animal gelatine, with which they are in no way
related, can form vehicles for food material. Some degree of
gelatinization is aimed at also in jams; hence to such fruits as have no
gelatinizing power an addition of apple or gooseberry juice, or even of
Iceland moss or agar-agar, is made. Animal gelatin is very rarely used.

The art of jam and jelly making was formerly domestic, but has become a
very large branch of manufacture. For the production of a thoroughly
satisfactory conserve the boiling-down must be carried out very rapidly,
so that the natural colour of the fruit shall be little affected.
Considerable experience is required to stop at the right point; too
short boiling leaves an excess of water, leading to fermentation, while
over-concentration promotes crystallization of the sugar. The
manufactured product is on that account, as a rule, more uniform and
bright than the domestic article. The finish of the boiling is mostly
judged by rule of thumb, but in some scientifically conducted factories
careful thermometric observation is employed. Formerly jams and jellies
consisted of nothing but fruit and sugar; now starch-glucose is
frequently used by manufacturers as an ingredient. This permits of the
production of a slightly more aqueous and gelatinous product, alleged
also to be devoid of crystallizing power, as compared with the homemade
article. The addition of starch-glucose is not held to be an
adulteration. Aniline colours are very frequently used by manufacturers
to enhance the colour, and the effect of an excess of water is sought to
be counteracted by the addition of some salicylic acid or other
preservative. There has long been, and still exists to some extent, a
popular prejudice in favour of sugar obtained from the sugar-cane as
compared with that of the sugar-beet. This prejudice is absolutely
baseless, and enormous quantities of beet-sugar are used in the boiling
of jam. Adulteration in the gross sense, such as a substantial addition
of coarse pulp, like that of turnips or mangolds, very rarely occurs;
but the pulp of apple and other cheap fruit is often admixed without
notice to the purchaser. The use of colouring matters and preservatives
is discussed at length in the article ADULTERATION. (O. H.*)

JANESVILLE, a city and the county-seat of Rock County, Wisconsin,
U.S.A., situated on both sides of the Rock river, 70 m. S.W. of
Milwaukee and 90 m. N.W. of Chicago. Pop. (1900), 13,185, of whom 2409
were foreign-born; (1910 census), 13,894. It is served by the Chicago &
North-Western and the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul railways, and by
electric lines connecting with Madison and Beloit, Wis., and Rockford,
Illinois. The Rock river is not commercially navigable at this point,
but furnishes valuable water-power for manufacturing purposes. The city
is picturesquely situated on bluffs above the river. Janesville is the
centre of the tobacco trade of the state, and has various manufactures.
The total value of the city's factory product in 1905 was $3,846,038, an
increase of 20.8% since 1900. Its public buildings include a city hall,
court house, post office, city hospital and a public library. It is the
seat of a school for the blind, opened as a private institution in 1849
and taken over by the state in 1850, the first charitable institution
controlled by the state, ranking as one of the most successful of its
kind in the United States. The first settlement was made here about
1834. Janesville was named in honour of Henry F. Janes, an early
settler, and was chartered as a city in 1853.

JANET, PAUL (1823-1899), French philosophical writer, was born in Paris
on the 30th of April 1823. He was professor of moral philosophy at
Bourges (1845-1848) and Strassburg (1848-1857), and of logic at the
lycée Louis-le-Grand, Paris (1857-1864). In 1864 he was appointed to the
chair of philosophy at the Sorbonne, and elected a member of the academy
of the moral and political sciences. He wrote a large number of books
and articles upon philosophy, politics and ethics, on idealistic lines:
_La Famille, Histoire de la philosophie dans l'antiquité et dans le
temps moderne, Histoire de la science politique, Philosophie de la
Révolution Française_, &c. They are not characterized by much
originality of thought. In philosophy he was a follower of Victor
Cousin, and through him of Hegel. His principal work in this line,
_Théorie de la morale_, is little more than a somewhat patronizing
reproduction of Kant. He died in October 1899.

JANGIPUR, or JAHANGIRPUR, a town of British India, in Murshidabad
district, Bengal, situated on the Bhagirathi. Pop. (1901), 10,921. The
town is said to have been founded by the Mogul emperor Jahangir. During
the early years of British rule it was an important centre of the silk
trade, and the site of one of the East India Company's commercial
residencies. Jangipur is now best known as the toll station for
registering all the traffic on the Bhagirathi. The number of boats
registered annually is about 10,000.

JANIN, JULES GABRIEL (1804-1874), French critic, was born at St Étienne
(Loire) on the 16th of February 1804, and died near Paris on the 19th of
June 1874. His father was a lawyer, and he was well educated, first at
St Étienne, and then at the lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris. He betook
himself to journalism very early, and worked on the _Figaro_, the
_Quotidienne_, &c., until in 1830 he became dramatic critic of the
_Journal des Débats_. Long before this, however, he had made a
considerable literary reputation, for which indeed his strange novel
_L'Âne mort et la femme guillotinée_ (1829) would have sufficed. _La
Confession_ (1830), which followed, was less remarkable in substance but
even more so in style; and in _Barnave_ (1831) he attacked the Orleans
family. From the day, however, when Janin became the theatrical critic
of the _Débats_, though he continued to write books indefatigably, he
was to most Frenchmen a dramatic critic and nothing more. He was
outrageously inconsistent, and judged things from no general point of
view whatsoever, though his judgment was usually good-natured. Few
journalists have ever been masters of a more attractive fashion of
saying the first thing that came into their heads. After many years of
_feuilleton_ writing he collected some of his articles in the work
called _Histoire de la littérature dramatique en France_ (1853-1858),
which by no means deserves its title. In 1865 he made his first attempt
upon the Academy, but was not successful till five years later.
Meanwhile he had not been content with his _feuilletons_, written
persistently about all manner of things. No one was more in request with
the Paris publishers for prefaces, letterpress to illustrated books and
such trifles. He travelled (picking up in one of his journeys a curious
windfall, a country house at Lucca, in a lottery), and wrote accounts of
his travels; he wrote numerous tales and novels, and composed many other
works, of which by far the best is the _Fin d'un monde et du neveu de
Rameau_ (1861), in which, under the guise of a sequel to Diderot's
masterpiece, he showed his great familiarity with the late 18th century.
He married in 1841; his wife had money, and he was always in easy
circumstances. In the early part of his career he had many quarrels,
notably one with Félix Pyat (1810-1889), whom he prosecuted successfully
for defamation of character. For the most part his work is mere
improvisation, and has few elements of vitality except a light and vivid
style. His _Oeuvres choisies_ (12 vols., 1875-1878) were edited by A. de
la Fitzelière.

A study on Janin with a bibliography was published by A. Piédagnel in
1874. See also Sainte-Beuve, _Causeries du lundi_, ii. and v., and
Gustave Planche, _Portraits littéraires_.

JANISSARIES (corrupted from Turkish _yeni chéri_, new troops), an
organized military force constituting until 1826 the standing army of
the Ottoman empire. At the outset of her history Turkey possessed no
standing army. All Moslems capable of bearing arms served as a kind of
volunteer yeomanry known as _akinjis_; they were summoned by public
criers, or, if the occasion required it, by secret messengers. It was
under Orkhan that a regular paid army was first organized: the soldiers
were known as _yaya_ or _piyadé_. The result was unsatisfactory, as the
Turcomans, from whom these troops were recruited, were unaccustomed to
fight on foot or to submit to military discipline. Accordingly in 1330,
on the advice of Chendéréli Kara Khalil, the system known as _devshurmé_
or forced levy, was adopted, whereby a certain number of Christian
youths (at first 1000) were every year taken from their parents and,
after undergoing a period of apprenticeship, were enrolled as _yeni
chéri_ or new troops. The venerable saint Haji Bektash, founder of the
Bektashi dervishes, blessed the corps and promised them victory; he
remained ever after the patron saint of the janissaries.

At first the corps was exclusively recruited by the forced levy of
Christian children, for which purpose the officer known as
_tournaji-bashi_, or head-keeper of the cranes, made periodical tours in
the provinces. The fixed organization of the corps dates only from
Mahommed II., and its regulations were subsequently modified by Suleiman
I. In early days all Christians were enrolled indiscriminately; later
those from Albania, Bosnia and Bulgaria were preferred. The recruits
while serving their apprenticeship were instructed in the principles of
the faith by _khojas_, but according to D'Ohsson (vii. 327) they were
not obliged to become Moslems.

The entire corps, commanded by the aga of the janissaries, was known as
the _ojak_ (hearth); it was divided into _ortas_ or units of varying
numbers; the _oda_ (room) was the name given to the barracks in which
the janissaries were lodged. There were, after the reorganization of
Suleiman I., 196 ortas of three classes, viz. the _jemaat_, comprising
101 ortas, the _beuluk_, 61 ortas, and the _sekban_, or _seimen_, 34
ortas; to these must be added 34 ortas of _ajami_ or apprentices. The
strength of the orta varied greatly, sometimes being as low as 100,
sometimes rising considerably beyond its nominal war strength of 500.
The distinction between the different classes seems to have been
principally in name; in theory the jemaat, or _yaya beiler_, were
specially charged with the duty of frontier-guards; the _beuluks_ had
the privilege of serving as the sultan's guards and of keeping the
sacred banner in their custody.

Until the accession of Murad III. (1574) the total effective of the
janissaries, including the ajami or apprentices, did not exceed 20,000.
In 1582 irregularities in the mode of admission to the ranks began. Soon
parents themselves begged to have their children enrolled, so great were
the privileges attaching to the corps; later the privilege of enlistment
was restricted to the children or relatives of former janissaries;
eventually the regulations were much relaxed, and any person was
admitted, only negroes being excluded. In 1591 the ojak numbered 48,688
men. Under Ibrahim (1640-1648) it was reduced by Kara Mustafa to 17,000;
but it soon rose again, and at the accession of Mahommed IV. (1648),
the accession-bakshish was distributed to 50,000 janissaries. During the
war of 1683-1698 the rules for admission were suspended, 30,000 recruits
being received at one time, and the effective of the corps rising to
70,000; about 1805 it numbered more than 112,000; it went on increasing
until the destruction of the janissaries, when it reached 135,000. It
would perhaps be more correct to say that these are the numbers figuring
on the pay-sheets, and that they doubtless largely exceed the total of
the men actually serving in the ranks.

Promotion to the rank of warrant officer was obtained by long or
distinguished service; it was by seniority up to the rank of _odabashi_,
but odabashis were promoted to the rank of _chorbaji_ (commander of an
orta) solely by selection. Janissaries advanced in their own orta, which
they left only to assume the command of another. Ortas remained
permanently stationed in the fortress towns in which they were in
garrison, being displaced in time of peace only when some violent
animosity broke out between two companies. There were usually 12 in
garrison at Belgrade, 14 at Khotin, 16 at Widdin, 20 at Bagdad, &c. The
commander was frequently changed. A new chorbaji was usually appointed
to the command of an orta stationed at a frontier post; he was then
transferred elsewhere, so that in course of time he passed through
different provinces.

In time of peace the janissary received no pay. At first his war pay was
limited to one aspre per diem, but it was eventually raised to a minimum
of three aspres, while veterans received as much as 29 aspres, and
retired officers from 30 to 120. The aga received 24,000 piastres per
annum; the ordinary pay of a commander was 120 aspres per diem. The aga
and several of his subordinates received a percentage of the pay and
allowance of the troops; they also inherited the property of deceased
janissaries. Moreover, the officers profited largely by retaining the
names of dead or fictitious janissaries on the pay-rolls. Rations of
mutton, bread and candles were furnished by the government, the supply
of rice, butter and vegetables being at the charge of the commandant.
The rations would have been entirely inadequate if the janissaries had
not been allowed, contrary to the regulations, to pursue different
callings, such as those of baker, butcher, glazier, boatman, &c. At
first the janissaries bore no other distinctive mark save the white felt
cap. Soon the red cap with gold embroidery was substituted. Later a
uniform was introduced, of which the distinctive mark was less the
colour than the cut of the coat and the shape of the head-dress and
turban. The only distinction in the costume of commanding officers was
in the colour of their boots, those of the beuluks being red while the
others were yellow; subordinate officers wore black boots.

The fundamental laws of the janissaries, which were very early
infringed, were as follows: implicit obedience to their officers;
perfect accord and union among themselves; abstinence from luxury,
extravagance and practices unseemly for a soldier and a brave man;
observance of the rules of Haji Bektash and of the religious law;
exclusion from the ranks of all save those properly levied; special
rules for the infliction of the death-penalty; promotion to be by
seniority; janissaries to be admonished or punished by their own
officers only; the infirm and unfit to be pensioned; janissaries were
not to let their beards grow, not to marry, nor to leave their barracks,
nor to engage in trade; but were to spend their time in drill and in
practising the arts of war.

In time of peace the state supplied no arms, and the janissaries on
service in the capital were armed only with clubs; they were forbidden
to carry any arm save a cutlass, the only exception being at the
frontier-posts. In time of war the janissaries provided their own arms,
and these might be any which took their fancy. However, they were
induced by rivalry to procure the best obtainable and to keep them in
perfect order. The banner of the janissaries was of white silk on which
verses from the Koran were embroidered in gold. This banner was planted
beside the aga's tent in camp, with four other flags in red cases, and
his three horse-tails. Each orta had its flag, half-red and
half-yellow, placed before the tent of its commander. Each orta had two
or three great caldrons used for boiling the soup and pilaw; these were
under the guard of subordinate officers. A particular superstition
attached to them: if they were lost in battle all the officers were
disgraced, and the orta was no longer allowed to parade with its
caldrons in public ceremonies. The janissaries were stationed in most of
the guard-houses of Constantinople and other large towns. No sentries
were on duty, but rounds were sent out two or three times a day. It was
customary for the sultan or the grand vizier to bestow largess on an
orta which they might visit.

The janissaries conducted themselves with extreme violence and brutality
towards civilians. They extorted money from them on every possible
pretext: thus, it was their duty to sweep the streets in the immediate
vicinity of their barracks, but they forced the civilians, especially if
rayas, to perform this task or to pay a bribe. They were themselves
subject to severe corporal punishments; if these were to take place
publicly the ojak was first asked for its consent.

At first a source of strength to Turkey as being the only well-organized
and disciplined force in the country, the janissaries soon became its
bane, thanks to their lawlessness and exactions. One frequent means of
exhibiting their discontent was to set fire to Constantinople; 140 such
fires are said to have been caused during the 28 years of Ahmed III.'s
reign. The janissaries were at all times distinguished for their want of
respect towards the sultans; their outbreaks were never due to a real
desire for reforms of abuses or of misgovernment, but were solely caused
to obtain the downfall of some obnoxious minister.

The first recorded revolt of the janissaries is in 1443, on the occasion
of the second accession of Mahommed II., when they broke into rebellion
at Adrianople. A similar revolt happened at his death, when Bayazid II.
was forced to yield to their demands and thus the custom of the
accession-bakshish was established; at the end of his reign it was the
janissaries who forced Bayazid to summon Prince Selim and to hand over
the reins of power to him. During the Persian campaign of Selim I. they
mutinied more than once. Under Osman II. their disorders reached their
greatest height and led to the dethronement and murder of the sultan. It
would be tedious to recall all their acts of insubordination. Throughout
Turkish history they were made use of as instruments by unscrupulous and
ambitious statesmen, and in the 17th century they had become a
praetorian guard in the worst sense of the word. Sultan Selim III. in
despair endeavoured to organize a properly drilled and disciplined
force, under the name of _nizam-i-jedid_, to take their place; for some
time the janissaries regarded this attempt in sullen silence; a curious
detail is that Napoleon's ambassador Sebastiani strongly dissuaded the
sultan from taking this step. Again serving as tools, the janissaries
dethroned Selim III. and obtained the abolition of the nizam-i-jedid.
But after the successful revolution of Bairakdar Pasha of Widdin the new
troops were re-established and drilled: the resentment of the
janissaries rose to such a height that they attacked the grand vizier's
house, and after destroying it marched against the sultan's palace. They
were repulsed by cannon, losing 600 men in the affair (1806). But such
was the excitement and alarm caused at Constantinople that the
nizam-i-jedid, or _sekbans_ as they were now called, had to be
suppressed. During the next 20 years the misdeeds and turbulence of the
janissaries knew no bounds. Sultan Mahmud II., powerfully impressed by
their violence and lawlessness at his accession, and with the example of
Mehemet Ali's method of suppressing the Mamlukes before his eyes,
determined to rid the state of this scourge; long biding his time, in
1825 he decided to form a corps of regular drilled troops known as
_eshkenjis_. A _fetva_ was obtained from the Sheikh-ul-Islam to the
effect that it was the duty of Moslems to acquire military science. The
imperial decree announcing the formation of the new troops was
promulgated at a grand council, and the high dignitaries present
(including certain of the principal officers of the janissaries who
concurred) undertook to comply with its provisions. But the janissaries
rose in revolt, and on the 10th of June 1826, began to collect on the
Et Meidan square at Constantinople; at midnight they attacked the house
of the aga of janissaries, and, finding he had made good his escape,
proceeded to overturn the caldrons of as many ortas as they could find,
thus forcing the troops of those ortas to join the insurrection. Then
they pillaged and robbed throughout the town. Meanwhile the government
was collecting its forces; the ulema, consulted by the sultan, gave the
following fetva: "If unjust and violent men attack their brethren, fight
against the aggressors and send them before their natural judge!" On
this the sacred standard of the prophet was unfurled, and war was
formally declared against these disturbers of order. Cannon were brought
against the Et Meidan, which was surrounded by troops. Ibrahim Aga,
known as Kara Jehennum, the commander of the artillery, made a last
appeal to the janissaries to surrender; they refused, and fire was
opened upon them. Such as escaped were shot down as they fled; the
barracks where many found refuge were burnt; those who were taken
prisoner were brought before the grand vizier and hanged. Before many
days were over the corps had ceased to exist, and the janissaries, the
glory of Turkey's early days and the scourge of the country for the last
two centuries, had passed for ever from the page of her history.

See M. d'Ohsson, _Tableaux de l'empire ottoman_ (Paris, 1787-1820);
Ahmed Vefyk, _Lehjé-i-osmanié_ (Constantinople, 1290-1874); A. Djévad
Bey, _État militaire ottoman_ (Constantinople, 1885).

JANIUAY, a town of the province of Iloilo, Panay, Philippine Islands, on
the Suague river, about 20 m. W.N.W. of Iloilo, the capital. Pop.
(1903), 27,399, including Lambúnao (6661) annexed to Janiuay in 1903.
The town commands delightful views of mountain and valley scenery. An
excellent road connects it with Pototan, about 10 m. E. The surrounding
country is hilly but fertile and well cultivated, producing rice, sugar,
tobacco, vegetables (for the Iloilo market), hemp and Indian corn. The
women weave and sell beautiful fabrics of pina, silk, cotton and abaca.
The language is Panay-Visayan. Janiuay was founded in 1578; it was first
established in the mountains and was subsequently removed to its present
site.

JANJIRA, a native state of India, in the Konkan division of Bombay,
situated along the coast among the spurs of the Western Ghats, 40 m. S.
of Bombay city. Area, 324 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 85,414, showing an
increase of 4% in the decade. The estimated revenue is about £37,000;
there is no tribute. The chief, whose title is Nawab Sahib, is by
descent a Sidi or Abyssinian Mahommedan; and his ancestors were for many
generations admirals of the Mahommedan rulers of the Deccan. The state,
popularly known as Habsan (= Abyssinian), did not come under direct
subordination to the British until 1870. It supplies sailors and
fishermen, and also fire-wood, to Bombay, with which it is in regular
communication by steamer.

The Nawab of Janjira is also chief of the state of JAFARABAD (q.v.).

JAN MAYEN, an arctic island between Greenland and the north of Norway,
about 71° N. 8° W. It is 34 m. long and 9 in greatest breadth, and is
divided into two parts by a narrow isthmus. The island is of volcanic
formation and mountainous, the highest summit being Beerenberg in the
north (8350 ft.). Volcanic eruptions have been observed. Glaciers are
fully developed. Henry Hudson discovered the island in 1607 and called
it Hudson's Tutches or Touches. Thereafter it was several times observed
by navigators who successively claimed its discovery and renamed it.
Thus, in 1611 or the following year whalers from Hull named it Trinity
Island; in 1612 Jean Vrolicq, a French whaler, called it Île de
Richelieu; and in 1614 Joris Carolus named one of its promontories Jan
Meys Hoek after the captain of one of his ships. The present name of the
island is derived from this, the claim of its discovery by a Dutch
navigator, Jan Mayen, in 1611, being unsupportable. The island is not
permanently inhabited, but has been frequently visited by explorers,
sealers and whalers; and an Austrian station for scientific observations
was maintained here for a year in 1882-1883. During this period a mean
temperature of 27.8° F. was recorded.

JANSEN, CORNELIUS (1585-1638), bishop of Ypres, and father of the
religious revival known as Jansenism, was born of humble Catholic
parentage at Accoy in the province of Utrecht on the 28th of October
1585. In 1602 he entered the university of Louvain, then in the throes
of a violent conflict between the Jesuit, or scholastic, party and the
followers of Michael Baius, who swore by St Augustine. Jansen ended by
attaching himself strongly to the latter party, and presently made a
momentous friendship with a like-minded fellow-student, Du Vergier de
Hauranne, afterwards abbot of Saint Cyran. After taking his degree he
went to Paris, partly to recruit his health by a change of scene, partly
to study Greek. Eventually he joined Du Vergier at his country home near
Bayonne, and spent some years teaching at the bishop's college. All his
spare time was spent in studying the early Fathers with Du Vergier, and
laying plans for a reformation of the Church. In 1616 he returned to
Louvain, to take charge of the college of St Pulcheria, a hostel for
Dutch students of theology. Pupils found him a somewhat choleric and
exacting master and academic society a great recluse. However, he took
an active part in the university's resistance to the Jesuits; for these
had established a theological school of their own in Louvain, which was
proving a formidable rival to the official faculty of divinity. In the
hope of repressing their encroachments, Jansen was sent twice to Madrid,
in 1624 and 1626; the second time he narrowly escaped the Inquisition.
He warmly supported the Catholic missionary bishop of Holland, Rovenius,
in his contests with the Jesuits, who were trying to evangelize that
country without regard to the bishop's wishes. He also crossed swords
more than once with the Dutch Presbyterian champion, Voetius, still
remembered for his attacks on Descartes. Antipathy to the Jesuits
brought Jansen no nearer Protestantism; on the contrary, he yearned to
beat these by their own weapons, chiefly by showing them that Catholics
could interpret the Bible in a manner quite as mystical and pietistic as
theirs. This became the great object of his lectures, when he was
appointed regius professor of scriptural interpretation at Louvain in
1630. Still more was it the object of his _Augustinus_, a bulky treatise
on the theology of St Augustine, barely finished at the time of his
death. Preparing it had been his chief occupation ever since he went
back to Louvain. But Jansen, as he said, did not mean to be a
school-pedant all his life; and there were moments when he dreamed
political dreams. He looked forward to a time when Belgium should throw
off the Spanish yoke and become an independent Catholic republic on the
model of Protestant Holland. These ideas became known to his Spanish
rulers, and to assuage them he wrote a philippic called the _Mars
gallicus_ (1635), a violent attack on French ambitions generally, and on
Richelieu's indifference to international Catholic interests in
particular. The _Mars gallicus_ did not do much to help Jansen's friends
in France, but it more than appeased the wrath of Madrid with Jansen
himself; in 1636 he was appointed bishop of Ypres. Within two years he
was cut off by a sudden illness on the 6th of May 1638; the
_Augustinus_, the book of his life, was published posthumously in 1640.

Full details as to Jansen's career will be found in Reuchlin's
_Geschichte von Port Royal_ (Hamburg, 1839), vol. i. See also
_Jansénius_ by the Abbés Callawaert and Nols (Louvain, 1893).
(St C.)

JANSENISM, the religious principles laid down by Cornelius Jansen in his
_Augustinus_. This was simply a digest of the teaching of St Augustine,
drawn up with a special eye to the needs of the 17th century. In
Jansen's opinion the church was suffering from three evils. The official
scholastic theology was anything but evangelical. Having set out to
embody the mysteries of faith in human language, it had fallen a victim
to the excellence of its own methods; language proved too strong for
mystery. Theology sank into a branch of dialectic; whatever would not
fit in with a logical formula was cast aside as useless. But average
human nature does not take kindly to a syllogism, and theology had
ceased to have any appreciable influence on popular religion. Simple
souls found their spiritual pasture in little mincing "devotions"; while
robuster minds built up for themselves a natural moralistic religion,
quite as close to Epictetus as to Christianity. All these three evils
were attacked by Jansen. As against the theologians, he urged that in a
spiritual religion experience, not reason, must be our guide. As against
the stoical self-sufficiency of the moralists, he dwelt on the
helplessness of man and his dependence on his maker. As against the
ceremonialists, he maintained that no amount of church-going will save a
man, unless the love of God is in him. But this capacity for love no one
can give himself. If he is born without the religious instinct, he can
only receive it by going through a process of "conversion." And whether
God converts this man or that depends on his good pleasure. Thus
Jansen's theories of conversion melt into predestination; although, in
doing so, they somewhat modify its grimness. Even for the worst
miscreant there is hope--for who can say but that God may yet think fit
to convert him? Jansen's thoughts went back every moment to his two
spiritual heroes, St Augustine and St Paul, each of whom had been "the
chief of sinners."

Such doctrines have a marked analogy to those of Calvin; but in many
ways Jansen differed widely from the Protestants. He vehemently rejected
their doctrine of justification by faith; conversion might be
instantaneous, but it was only the beginning of a long and gradual
process of justification. Secondly, although the one thing necessary in
religion was a personal relation of the human soul to its maker, Jansen
held that that relation was only possible in and through the Roman
Church. Herein he was following Augustine, who had managed to couple
together a high theory of church authority and sacramental grace with a
strongly personal religion. But the circumstances of the 17th century
were not those of the 5th; and Jansen landed his followers in an
inextricable confusion. What were they to do, when the outward church
said one thing, and the inward voice said another? Some time went by,
however, before the two authorities came into open conflict. Jansen's
ideas were popularized in France by his friend Du Vergier, abbot of St
Cyran; and he dwelt mainly on the practical side of the matter--on the
necessity of conversion and love of God, as the basis of the religious
life. This brought him into conflict with the Jesuits, whom he accused
of giving absolution much too easily, without any serious inquiry into
the dispositions of their penitent. His views are expounded at length by
his disciple, Antoine Arnauld, in a book on _Frequent Communion_ (1643).
This book was the first manifestation of Jansenism to the general public
in France, and raised a violent storm. But many divines supported
Arnauld; and no official action was taken against his party till 1649.
In that year the Paris University condemned five propositions from
Jansen's _Augustinus_, all relative to predestination. This censure,
backed by the signatures of eighty-five bishops, was sent up to Rome for
endorsement; and in 1653 Pope Innocent X. declared all five propositions
heretical.

This decree placed the Jansenists between two fires; for although the
five propositions only represented one side of Jansen's teaching, it was
recognized by both parties that the whole question was to be fought out
on this issue. Under the leadership of Arnauld, who came of a great
family of lawyers, the Jansenists accordingly took refuge in a series of
legal tactics. Firstly, they denied that Jansen had meant the
propositions in the sense condemned. Alexander VII. replied (1656) that
his predecessor had condemned them in the sense intended by their
author. Arnauld retorted that the church might be infallible in abstract
questions of theology; but as to what was passing through an author's
mind it knew no more than any one else. However, the French government
supported the pope. In 1656 Arnauld was deprived of his degree, in spite
of Pascal's _Provincial Letters_ (1656-1657), begun in an attempt to
save him (see PASCAL; CASUISTRY). In 1661 a formulary, or solemn
renunciation of Jansen, was imposed on all his suspected followers;
those who would not sign it went into hiding, or to the Bastille. Peace
was only restored under Clement IX. in 1669.

This peace was treated by Jansenist writers as a triumph; really it was
the beginning of their downfall. They had set out to reform the Church
of Rome; they ended by having to fight hard for a doubtful foothold
within it. Even that foothold soon gave way. Louis XIV. was a fanatic
for uniformity, civil and religious; the last thing he was likely to
tolerate was a handful of eccentric recluses, who believed themselves to
be in special touch with Heaven, and therefore might at any moment set
their conscience up against the law. During the lifetime of his cousin,
Madame de Longueville, the great protectress of the Jansenists, Louis
stayed his hand; on her death (1679) the reign of severity began. That
summer Arnauld, who had spent the greater part of his life in hiding,
was forced to leave France for good.

Six years later he was joined in exile by Pasquier Quesnel who succeeded
him as leader of the party. Long before his flight from France Quesnel
had published a devotional commentary--_Réflexions morales sur le
Nouveau Testament_--which had gone through many editions without
exciting official suspicion. But in 1695 Louis Antoine de Noailles,
bishop of Châlons, was made archbishop of Paris. He was known to be very
hostile to the Jesuits, and at Châlons had more than once expressed
official approval of Quesnel's _Réflexions_. So the Jesuit party
determined to wreck archbishop and book at the same time. The Jansenists
played into their hands by suddenly raising (1701) in the Paris divinity
school the question whether it was necessary to accept the condemnation
of Jansen with interior assent, or whether a "respectful silence" was
enough. Very soon ecclesiastical France was in a blaze. In 1703 Louis
XIV. wrote to Pope Clement XI., proposing that they should take joint
action to make an end of Jansenism for ever. Clement replied in 1705
with a bull condemning respectful silence. This measure only whetted
Louis's appetite. He was growing old and increasingly superstitious; the
affairs of his realm were going from bad to worse; he became frenziedly
anxious to propitiate the wrath of his maker by making war on the
enemies of the Church. In 1711 he asked the pope for a second, and still
stronger bull, that would tear up Jansenism by the roots. The pope's
choice of a book to condemn fell on Quesnel's _Réflexions_; in 1713
appeared the bull _Unigenitus_, anathematizing no less than
one-hundred-and-one of its propositions. Indeed, in his zeal against the
Jansenists the pope condemned various practices in no way peculiar to
their party; thus, for instance, many orthodox Catholics were
exasperated at the heavy blow he dealt at popular Bible reading. Hence
the bull met with much opposition from Archbishop de Noailles and others
who did not call themselves Jansenists. In the midst of the conflict
Louis XIV. died (September 1715); but the freethinking duke of Orleans,
who succeeded him as regent, continued after some wavering to support
the bull. Thereupon four bishops appealed against it to a general
council; and the country became divided into "appellants" and
"acceptants" (1717). The regent's disreputable minister, Cardinal
Dubois, patched up an abortive truce in 1720, but the appellants
promptly "re-appealed" against it. During the next ten years, however,
they were slowly crushed, and in 1730 the _Unigenitus_ was proclaimed
part and parcel of the law of France. This led to a great quarrel with
the judges, who were intensely Gallican in spirit (see GALLICANISM), and
had always regarded the _Unigenitus_ as a triumph of ultramontanism. The
quarrel dragged indefinitely on through the 18th century, though the
questions at issue were really constitutional and political rather than
religious.

Meanwhile the most ardent Jansenists had followed Quesnel to Holland.
Here they met with a warm welcome from the Dutch Catholic body, which
had always been in close sympathy with Jansenism, although without
regarding itself as formally pledged to the _Augustinus_. But it had
broken loose from Rome in 1702, and was now organizing itself into an
independent church (see UTRECHT). The Jansenists who remained in France
had meanwhile fallen on evil days. Persecution usually begets hysteria
in its victims; and the more extravagant members of the party were far
advanced on the road which leads to apocalyptic prophecy and "speaking
with tongues." About 1728 the "miracles of St Médard" became the talk of
Paris. This was the cemetery where was buried François de Pâris, a
young Jansenist deacon of singularly holy life, and a perfervid
opponent of the _Unigenitus_. All sorts of miraculous cures were
believed to have been worked at his tomb, until the government closed
the cemetery in 1732. This gave rise to the famous epigram:

_De par le roi, défense à Dieu
De faire miracle en ce lieu._

On the miracles soon followed the rise of the so-called Convulsionaries.
These worked themselves up, mainly by the use of frightful
self-tortures, into a state of frenzy, in which they prophesied and
cured diseases. They were eventually disowned by the more reputable
Jansenists, and were severely repressed by the police. But in 1772 they
were still important enough for Diderot to enter the field against them.
Meanwhile genuine Jansenism survived in many country parsonages and
convents, and led to frequent quarrels with the authorities. Only one of
its latter-day disciples, however, rose to real eminence; this was the
Abbé Henri Grégoire, who played a considerable part in the French
Revolution. A few small Jansenist congregations still survive in France;
and others have been started in connexion with the Old Catholic Church
in Holland.

LITERATURE.--For the 17th century see the _Port Royal_ of Sainte-Beuve
(5th ed., Paris, 1888) in six volumes. See also H. Reuchlin,
_Geschichte von Port Royal_ (2 vols., Hamburg, 1839-1844), and C.
Beard, _Port Royal_ (2 vols., London, 1861). No satisfactory Roman
Catholic history of the subject exists, though reference may be made
to Count Joseph de Maistre's _De l'église gallicane_ (last ed., Lyons,
1881). On the Jansenism of the 18th century no single work exists,
though much information will be found in the _Gallican Church_ of
Canon Jervis (2 vols., London, 1872). For a series of excellent
sketches see also Seche, _Les Derniers Jansénistes_ (3 vols., Paris,
1891). A more detailed list of books bearing on the subject will be
found in the 5th volume of the _Cambridge Modern History_; and J.
Paquier's _Le Jansénisme_ (Paris, 1909) may also be consulted.
(St C.)

JANSSEN, or JANSEN (sometimes JOHNSON), CORNELIUS (1593-1664), Flemish
painter, was apparently born in London, and baptized on the 14th of
October 1593. There seems no reason to suppose, as was formerly stated,
that he was born at Amsterdam. He worked in England from 1618 to 1643,
and afterwards retired to Holland, working at Middelburg, Amsterdam, The
Hague and Utrecht, and dying at one of the last two places about 1664.
In England he was patronized by James I. and the court, and under
Charles I. he continued to paint the numerous portraits which adorn many
English mansions and collections. Janssen's pictures, chiefly portraits,
are distinguished by clear colouring, delicate touch, good taste and
careful finish. He generally painted upon panel, and often worked on a
small scale, sometimes producing replicas of his larger works. A
characteristic of his style is the very dark background, which throws
the carnations of his portraits into rounded relief. In all probability
his earliest portrait (1618) was that of John Milton as a boy of ten.

JANSSEN, JOHANNES (1820-1891), German historian, was born at Xanten on
the 10th of April 1829, and was educated as a Roman Catholic at Münster,
Louvain, Bonn and Berlin, afterwards becoming a teacher of history at
Frankfort-on-the-Main. He was ordained priest in 1860; became a member
of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies in 1875; and in 1880 was made
domestic prelate to the pope and apostolic pronotary. He died at
Frankfort on the 24th of December 1891. Janssen was a stout champion of
the Ultramontane party in the Roman Catholic Church. His great work is
his _Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des Mittelalters_
(8 vols., Freiburg, 1878-1894). In this book he shows himself very
hostile to the Reformation, and attempts to prove that the Protestants
were responsible for the general unrest in Germany during the 16th and
17th centuries. The author's partisanship led to some controversy, and
Janssen wrote _An meine Kritiker_ (Freiburg, 1882) and _Ein zweites Wort
an meine Kritiker_ (Freiburg, 1883) in reply to the _Janssens Geschichte
des deutschen Volkes_ (Munich, 1883) of M. Lenz, and other criticisms.

The _Geschichte_, which has passed through numerous editions, has been
continued and improved by Ludwig Pastor, and the greater part of it
has been translated into English by M. A. Mitchell and A. M. Christie
(London, 1896, fol.). Of his other works perhaps the most important
are: the editing of _Frankfurts Reichskorrespondenz, 1376-1519_
(Freiburg, 1863-1872); and of the _Leben, Briefe und kleinere
Schriften_ of his friend J. F. Böhmer (Leipzig, 1868); a monograph,
_Schiller als Historiker_ (Freiburg, 1863); and _Zeit- und
Lebensbilder_ (Freiburg, 1875).

See L. Pastor, _Johannes Janssen_ (Freiburg, 1893); F. Meister,
_Erinnerung an Johannes Janssen_ (Frankfort, 1896); Schwann, _Johannes
Janssen und die Geschichte der deutschen Reformation_ (Munich, 1892).

JANSSEN, PIERRE JULES CÉSAR (1824-1907), French astronomer, was born in
Paris on the 22nd of February 1824, and studied mathematics and physics
at the faculty of sciences. He taught at the lycée Charlemagne in 1853,
and in the school of architecture 1865-1871, but his energies were
mainly devoted to various scientific missions entrusted to him. Thus in
1857 he went to Peru in order to determine the magnetic equator; in
1861-1862 and 1864, he studied telluric absorption in the solar spectrum
in Italy and Switzerland; in 1867 he carried out optical and magnetic
experiments at the Azores; he successfully observed both transits of
Venus, that of 1874 in Japan, that of 1882 at Oran in Algeria; and he
took part in a long series of solar eclipse-expeditions, e.g. to Trani
(1867), Guntoor (1868), Algiers (1870), Siam (1875), the Caroline
Islands (1883), and to Alcosebre in Spain (1905). To see the eclipse of
1870 he escaped from besieged Paris in a balloon. At the great Indian
eclipse of 1868 he demonstrated the gaseous nature of the red
prominences, and devised a method of observing them under ordinary
daylight conditions. One main purpose of his spectroscopic inquiries was
to answer the question whether the sun contains oxygen or not. An
indispensable preliminary was the virtual elimination of
oxygen-absorption in the earth's atmosphere, and his bold project of
establishing an observatory on the top of Mont Blanc was prompted by a
perception of the advantages to be gained by reducing the thickness of
air through which observations have to be made. This observatory, the
foundations of which were fixed in the snow that appears to cover the
summit to a depth of ten metres, was built in September 1893, and
Janssen, in spite of his sixty-nine years, made the ascent and spent
four days taking observations. In 1875 he was appointed director of the
new astrophysical observatory established by the French government at
Meudon, and set on foot there in 1876 the remarkable series of solar
photographs collected in his great _Atlas de photographies solaires_
(1904). The first volume of the _Annales de l'observatoire de Meudon_
was published by him in 1896. He died at Paris on the 23rd of December
1907.

See A. M. Clerke, _Hist. of Astr. during the 19th Century_ (1903); H.
Macpherson, _Astronomers of To-Day_ (1905).

JANSSENS (or JANSENS), VICTOR HONORIUS (1664-1739), Flemish painter, was
born at Brussels. After seven years in the studio of an obscure painter
named Volders, he spent four years in the household of the duke of
Holstein. The next eleven years Janssens passed in Rome, where he took
eager advantage of all the aids to artistic study, and formed an
intimacy with Tempesta, in whose landscapes he frequently inserted
figures. Rising into popularity, he painted a large number of cabinet
historical scenes; but, on his return to Brussels, the claims of his
increasing family restricted him almost entirely to the larger and more
lucrative size of picture, of which very many of the churches and
palaces of the Netherlands contain examples. In 1718 Janssens was
invited to Vienna, where he stayed three years, and was made painter to
the emperor. The statement that he visited England is based only upon
the fact that certain fashionable interiors of the time in that country
have been attributed to him. Janssen's colouring was good, his touch
delicate and his taste refined.

JANSSENS (or JANSENS) VAN NUYSSEN, ABRAHAM (1567-1632), Flemish painter,
was born at Antwerp in 1567. He studied under Jan Snellinck, was a
"master" in 1602, and in 1607 was dean of the master-painters. Till the
appearance of Rubens he was considered perhaps the best historical
painter of his time. The styles of the two artists are not unlike. In
correctness of drawing Janssens excelled his great contemporary; in
bold composition and in treatment of the nude he equalled him; but in
faculty of colour and in general freedom of disposition and touch he
fell far short. A master of chiaroscuro, he gratified his taste for
strong contrasts of light and shade in his torchlights and similar
effects. Good examples of this master are to be seen in the Antwerp
museum and the Vienna gallery. The stories of his jealousy of Rubens and
of his dissolute life are quite unfounded. He died at Antwerp in 1632.

JANUARIUS, ST, or SAN GENNARO, the patron saint of Naples. According to
the legend, he was bishop of Benevento, and flourished towards the close
of the 3rd century. On the outbreak of the persecution by Diocletian and
Maximian, he was taken to Nola and brought before Timotheus, governor of
Campania, on account of his profession of the Christian religion. After
various assaults upon his constancy, he was sentenced to be cast into
the fiery furnace, through which he passed wholly unharmed. On the
following day, along with a number of fellow martyrs, he was exposed to
the fury of wild beasts, which, however, laid themselves down in tame
submission at his feet. Timotheus, again pronouncing sentence of death,
was struck with blindness, but immediately healed by the powerful
intercession of the saint, a miracle which converted nearly five
thousand men on the spot. The ungrateful judge, only roused to further
fury by these occurrences, caused the execution of Januarius by the
sword to be forthwith carried out. The body was ultimately removed by
the inhabitants of Naples to that city, where the relic became very
famous for its miracles, especially in counteracting the more dangerous
eruptions of Vesuvius. Whatever the difficulties raised by his _Acta_,
the cult of St Januarius, bishop and martyr, is attested historically at
Naples as early as the 5th century (_Biblioth. hagiog. latina_, No.
6558). Two phials preserved in the cathedral are believed to contain the
blood of the martyr. The relic is shown twice a year--in May and
September. On these occasions the substance contained in the phial
liquefies, and the Neapolitans see in this phenomenon a supernatural
manifestation. The "miracle of St Januarius" did not occur before the
middle of the 15th century.

A great number of saints of the name of Januarius are mentioned in the
martyrologies. The best-known are the Roman martyr (festival, the 10th
of July), whose epitaph was written by Pope Damasus (De Rossi,
_Bullettino_, p. 17, 1863), and the martyr of Cordova, who forms along
with Faustus and Martialis the group designated by Prudentius
(_Peristephanon_, iv. 20) by the name of _tres coronae_. The festival of
these martyrs is celebrated on the 13th of October.

See _Acta sanctorum_, September, vi. 761-891; G. Scherillo, _Esame di
un codice greco pubblicato nel tomo secondo della bibliotheca
casinensis_ (Naples, 1876); G. Taglialatela, _Memorie storico-critiche
del culto del sangue di S. Gennaro_ (Naples, 1893), which contains
many facts, but little criticism; G. Albini, _Sulla mobilità dei
liquidi viscosi non omogenei_ (_Società reale di Napoli, Rendiconti_,
2nd series, vol. iv., 1890); _Acta sanctorum_, October, vi. 187-193.
(H. De.)

JANUARY, the first month in the modern calendar, consisting of
thirty-one days. The name (Lat. _Januarius_) is derived from the
two-faced Roman god Janus, to whom the month was dedicated. As
doorkeeper of heaven, as looking both into the past and the future, and
as being essentially the deity who busied himself with the beginnings of
all enterprises, he was appropriately made guardian of the fortunes of
the new year. The consecration of the month took place by an offering of
meal, salt, frankincense and wine, each of which was new. The
Anglo-Saxons called January _Wulfmonath_, in allusion to the fact that
hunger then made the wolves bold enough to come into the villages. The
principal festivals of the month are: New Year's Day; Feast of the
Circumcision; Epiphany; Twelfth-Day; and Conversion of St Paul (see
CALENDAR).

JANUS, in Roman mythology one of the principal Italian deities. The name
is generally explained as the masculine form of Diana (Jana), and Janus
as originally a god of light and day, who gradually became the god of
the beginning and origin of all things. According to some, however, he
is simply the god of doorways (_januae_) and in this connexion is the
patron of all entrances and beginnings. According to Mommsen, he was
"the spirit of opening," and the double-head was connected with the gate
that opened both ways. Others, attributing to him an Etruscan origin,
regard him as the god of the vault of heaven, which the Etruscan arch is
supposed to resemble. The rationalists explained him as an old king of
Latium, who built a citadel for himself on the Janiculum. It was
believed that his worship, which was said to have existed as a local
cult before the foundation of Rome, was introduced there by Romulus, and
that a temple was dedicated to him by Numa. This temple, in reality only
an arch or gateway (_Janus geminus_) facing east and west, stood at the
north-east end of the forum. It was open during war and closed during
peace (Livy i. 19); it was shut only four times before the Christian
era. A possible explanation is, that it was considered a bad omen to
shut the city gates while the citizens were outside fighting for the
state; it was necessary that they should have free access to the city,
whether they returned victorious or defeated. Similarly, the door of a
private house was kept open while the members of the family were away,
but when all were at home it was closed to keep out intruders. There was
also a temple of Janus near the theatre of Marcellus, in the forum
olitorium, erected by Gaius Duilius (Tacitus, _Ann._ ii. 49), if not
earlier.

The beginning of the day (hence his epithet Matutinus), of the month,
and of the year (January) was sacred to Janus; on the 9th of January the
festival called Agonia was celebrated in his honour. He was invoked
before any other god at the beginning of any important undertaking; his
priest was the Rex Sacrorum, the representative of the ancient king in
his capacity as religious head of the state. All gateways, housedoors
and entrances generally, were under his protection; he was the inventor
of agriculture (hence Consivius, "he who sows or plants"), of civil
laws, of the coining of money and of religious worship. He was
worshipped on the Janiculum as the protector of trade and shipping; his
head is found on the as, together with the prow of a ship. He is usually
represented on the earliest coins with two bearded faces, looking in
opposite directions; in the time of Hadrian the number of faces is
increased to four. In his capacity as porter or doorkeeper he holds a
staff in his right hand, and a key (or keys) in his left; as such he is
called Patulcius (opener) and Clusius (closer). His titles Curiatius,
Patricius, Quirinus originate in his worship in the gentes, the curiae
and the state, and have no reference to any special functions or
characteristics. In late times, he is both bearded and unbearded; in
place of the staff and keys, the fingers of his right hand show the
number 300 (CCC.), those of his left the number of the remaining days of
the year (LXV.). According to A. B. Cook (_Classical Review_, xviii.
367), Janus is only another form of Jupiter, the name under which he was
worshipped by the pre-Latin (aboriginal) inhabitants of Rome; after
their conquest by the Italians, Janus and Jana took their place as
independent divinities by the side of the Italian Jupiter and Juno. He
considers it probable that the three-headed Janus was a triple oak-god
worshipped in the form of two vertical beams and a cross-bar (such as
the _tigillum sororium_, for which see HORATII); hence also the door,
consisting of two lintels and side-posts, was sacred to Janus. The
three-headed type may have been the original, from which the two-headed
and four-headed types were developed. J. G. Frazer (_The Early History
of the Kingship_, pp. 214, 285), who also identifies Janus with Jupiter,
is of opinion that Janus was not originally a doorkeeper, but that the
door was called after him, not vice versa. _Janua_ may be an adjective,
_janua foris_ meaning a door with a symbol of Janus close by the chief
entrance, to serve as a protection for the house; then _janua_ alone
came to mean a door generally, with or without the symbol of Janus. The
double head may have been due to the desire to make the god look both
ways for greater protection. By J. Rhys (_Hibbert Lectures_, 1886, pp.
82, 94) Janus is identified with the three-faced (sometimes
three-headed) Celtic god Cernunnus, a chthonian divinity, compared by
Rhys with the Teutonic Heimdal, the warder of the gods of the
under-world; like Janus, Cernunnus and Heimdal were considered to be the
fons et origo of all things.

See S. Linde, _De Jano summo romanorum deo_ (Lund, 1891); J. S.
Speÿer, "Le Dieu romain Janus," in _Revue de l'histoire des religions_
(xxvi., 1892); G. Wissowa, _Religion und Kultus der Römer_ (1902); W.
Deecke, _Etruskische Forschungen_, vol. ii.; W. Warde Fowler, _The
Roman Festivals of the Period of the Republic_ (1899), pp. 282-290;
articles in W. H. Roscher's _Lexikon der Mythologie_ and Daremberg and
Saglio's _Dictionnaire des Antiquités_; J. Toutain, _Études de
Mythologie_ (1909). On other jani (arched passages) in Rome,
frequented by business men and money changers, see O. Richter,
_Topographie der Stadt Rom_ (1901). (J. H. F.)

JAORA, a native state of Central India, in the Malwa agency. It consists
of two isolated tracts, between Ratlam and Neemuch Area, with the
dependencies of Piplauda and Pant Piplauda, 568 sq. m. Pop. (1901),
84,202. The estimated revenue is £57,000; tribute, £9000. The chief,
whose title is nawab, is a Mahommedan of Afghan descent. The state was
confirmed by the British government in 1818 by the Treaty of Mandsaur.
Nawab Mahommed Ismail, who died in 1895, was an honorary major in the
British army. His son, Iftikhar Ali Khan, a minor at his accession, was
educated in the Daly College at Indore, with a British officer for his
tutor, and received powers of administration in 1906. The chief crops
are millets, cotton, maize and poppy. The last supplies a large part of
the Malwa opium of commerce. The town of JAORA is on the Rajputana-Malwa
railway, 20 m. N. of Ratlam. Pop. (1901), 23,854. It is well laid out,
with many good modern buildings, and has a high school and dispensary.
To celebrate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, the Victoria Institute
and a zenana dispensary were opened in 1898.

JAPAN, an empire of eastern Asia, and one of the great powers of the
world. The following article is divided for convenience into ten
sections:--I. GEOGRAPHY; II. THE PEOPLE; III. LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE;
IV. ART; V. ECONOMIC CONDITIONS; VI. GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION; VII.
RELIGION; VIII. FOREIGN INTERCOURSE; IX. DOMESTIC HISTORY; X. THE CLAIM
OF JAPAN.

I.--GEOGRAPHY

Position and Extent.

The continent of Asia stretches two arms into the Pacific Ocean,
Kamchatka in the north and Malacca in the south, between which lies a
long cluster of islands constituting the Japanese empire, which covers
37° 14´ of longitude and 29° 11´ of latitude. On the extreme north are
the Kuriles (called by the Japanese _Chishima_, or the "myriad isles"),
which extend to 156° 32´ E. and to 50° 56´ N.; on the extreme south is
Formosa (called by the Japanese _Taiwan_), which extends to 122° 6´ E.,
and to 21° 45´ N. There are six large islands, namely Sakhalin (called
by the Japanese _Karafuto_); Yezo or Ezo (which with the Kuriles is
designated _Hokkaido_, or the north-sea district); Nippon (the "origin
of the sun"), which is the main island; Shikoku (the "four provinces"),
which lies on the east of Nippon; Kiushiu or Kyushu (the "nine
provinces"), which lies on the south of Nippon, and Formosa, which forms
the most southerly link of the chain. Formosa and the Pescadores were
ceded to Japan by China after the war of 1894-1895, and the southern
half of Sakhalin--the part south of 50° N.--was added to Japan by
cession from Russia in 1905. Korea, annexed in August 1910, is
separately noticed.

_Coast-line._--The following table shows the numbers, the lengths of
coast-line, and the areas of the various groups of islands, only those
being indicated that have a coast-line of at least 1 _ri_ (2½ m.), or
that, though smaller, are inhabited; except in the case of Formosa and
the Pescadores, where the whole numbers are given:--

Length of Area
Number. coast in in square
miles. miles.

Nippon 1 4,765.03 99,373.57
Isles adjacent to Nippon 167 1,275.09 470.30
Shikoku 1 1,100.85 6,461.39
Isles adjacent to Shikoku 75 548.12 175.40
Kiushiu 1 2,101.28 13,778.68
Isles adjacent to Kiushiu 150 2,405.06 1,821.85
Yezo 1 1,423.32 30,148.41
Isles adjacent to Yezo 13 110.24 30.51
Sakhalin (Karafuto) 1 Unsurveyed 12,487.64
Sado 1 130.05 335.92
Okishima 1 182.27 130.40
Isles adjacent to Okishima 1 3.09 0.06
Awaji 1 94.43 217.83
Isles adjacent to Awaji 1 5.32 0.83
Iki 1 86.47 50.96
Isles adjacent to Iki 1 4.41 0.47
Tsushima 1 409.23 261.72
Isles adjacent to Tsushima 5 118.80 4.58
Riukiu (or Luchu) Islands 55 768.74 935.18
Kuriles (Chishima) 31 1,496.23 6,159.42
Bonin (Ogasawara Islands) 20 174.65 26.82
Taiwan (Formosa) 1 731.31 13,429.31
Isles adjacent to Formosa 7 128.32 Not surveyed
Pescadores (Hoko-to) 12 98.67 85.50
--- --------- ----------
Totals 549 18,160.98 173,786.75

If the various smaller islands be included, a total of over 3000 is
reached, but there has not been any absolutely accurate enumeration.

[Illustration: Map of Japan and Korea.]

It will be observed that the coast-line is very long in proportion to
the area, the ratio being 1 m. of coast to every 9.5 in. of area. The
Pacific Ocean, which washes the eastern shores, moulds their outline
into much greater diversity than does the Sea of Japan which washes
the western shores. Thus the Pacific sea-board measures 10,562 m.
against 2887 m. for that of the Japan Sea. In depth of water, too, the
advantage is on the Pacific side. There the bottom slopes very
abruptly, descending precipitously at a point not far from the
north-east coast of the main island, where soundings have shown 4655
fathoms. This, the deepest sea-bed in the world, is called the
Tuscarora Deep, after the name of the United States' man-of-war which
made the survey. The configuration seems to point to a colossal crater
under the ocean, and many of the earthquakes which visit Japan appear
to have their origin in this submarine region. On the other hand, the
average depth of the Japan Sea is only 1200 fathoms, and its maximum
depth is 3200. The east coast, from Cape Shiriya (Shiriyazaki) in the
north to Cape Inuboye (Inuboesaki) near Tokyo Bay, though abounding in
small indentations, has only two large bays, those of Sendai and
Matsushima; but southward from Tokyo Bay to Cape Satta (Satanomisaki)
in Kiushiu there are many capacious inlets which offer excellent
anchorage, as the Gulf of Sagami (Sagaminada), the Bays of Suruga
(Surugawan), Ise (Isenumi) and Osaka, the Kii Channel, the Gulf of
Tosa (Tosonada), &c. Opening into both the Pacific and the Sea of
Japan and separating Shikoku and Kiushiu from the main island as well
as from each other, is the celebrated Inland Sea, one of the most
picturesque sheets of water in the world. Its surface measures 1325
sq. m.; it has a length of 255 m. and a maximum width of 56 m.; its
coast-lines aggregate 700 m.; its depth is nowhere more than 65
fathoms, and it is studded with islands which present scenery of the
most diverse and beautiful character. There are four narrow avenues
connecting this remarkable body of water with the Pacific and the
Japan Sea; that on the west, called Shimonoseki Strait, has a width of
3000 yds., that on the south, known as Hayamoto Strait, is 8 m.
across; and the two on the north, Yura and Naruto Straits, measure
3000 and 1500 yds. respectively. It need scarcely be said that these
restricted approaches give little access to the storms which disturb
the seas outside. More broken into bays and inlets than any other part
of the coast is the western shore of Kiushiu. Here three
promontories--Nomo, Shimabara and Kizaki--enclose a large bay having
on its shores Nagasaki, the great naval port of Sasebo, and other
anchorages. On the south of Kiushiu the Bay of Kagoshima has
historical interest, and on the west are the bays of Ariakeno-ura and
Yatsushiro. To the north of Nagasaki are the bays of Hakata, Karatsu
and Imari. Between this coast and the southern extremity of the Korean
peninsula are situated the islands of Iki and Tsushima, the latter
being only 30 m. distant from the peninsula. Passing farther north,
the shoreline of the main island along the Japan Sea is found to be
comparatively straight and monotonous, there being only one noteworthy
indentation, that of Wakasa-wan, where are situated the naval port of
Maizuru and the harbour of Tsuruga, the Japanese point of
communication with the Vladivostok terminus of the Trans-Asian
railway. From this harbour to Osaka Japan's waist measures only 77 m.,
and as the great lake of Biwa and some minor sheets of water break the
interval, a canal may be dug to join the Pacific and the Sea of Japan.
Yezo is not rich in anchorages. Uchiura (Volcano Bay), Nemuro
(Walfisch) Bay and Ishikari Bay are the only remarkable inlets. As for
Formosa, the peculiarity of its outline is that the eastern coast
falls precipitously into deep water, while the western slopes slowly
to shelving bottoms and shoals. The Pescadores Islands afford the best
anchorage in this part of Japan.

_Mountains._--The Japanese islands are traversed from north to south
by a range of mountains which sends out various lateral branches.
Lofty summits are separated by comparatively low passes, which lie at
the level of crystalline rocks and schists constituting the original
uplands upon which the summits have been piled by volcanic action. The
scenery among the mountains is generally soft. Climatic agencies have
smoothed and modified everything rugged or abrupt, until an impression
of gentle undulation rather than of grandeur is suggested. Nowhere is
the region of eternal snow reached, and masses of foliage enhance the
gentle aspect of the scenery and glorify it in autumn with tints of
striking brilliancy. Mountain alternates with valley, so that not more
than one-eighth of the country's entire area is cultivable.

Fuji.

The king of Japanese mountains is Fuji-yama or Fuji-san (peerless
mount), of which the highest point (Ken-ga-mine) is 12,395 ft. above
sea-level. The remarkable grace of this mountain's curve--an inverted
catenary--makes it one of the most beautiful in the world, and has
obtained for it a prominent place in Japanese decorative art. Great
streams of lava flowed from the crater in ancient times. The course of
one is still visible to a distance of 15 m. from the summit, but the
rest are covered, for the most part, with deep deposits of ashes and
scoriae. On the south Fuji slopes unbroken to the sea, but on the
other three sides the plain from which it rises is surrounded by
mountains, among which, on the north and west, a series of most
picturesque lakes has been formed in consequence of the rivers having
been dammed by ashes ejected from Fuji's crater. To a height of some
1500 ft. the slopes of the mountain are cultivated; a grassy moorland
stretches up the next 2500 ft.; then follows a forest, the upper edge
of which climbs to an altitude of nearly 8000 ft., and finally there
is a wide area of ashes and scoriae. There is entire absence of the
Alpine plants found abundantly on the summits of other high mountains
in Japan, a fact due, doubtless, to the comparatively recent activity
of the volcano. The ascent of Fuji presents no difficulties. A
traveller can reach the usual point of departure, Gotemba, by rail
from Yokohama, and thence the ascent and descent may be made in one
day by a pedestrian.

The Japanese Alps.

The provinces of Hida and Etchiu are bounded on the east by a chain of
mountains including, or having in their immediate vicinity, the
highest peaks in Japan after Fuji. Six of these summits rise to a
height of 9000 ft. or upwards, and constitute the most imposing
assemblage of mountains in the country. The ridge runs due north and
south through 60 to 70 m., and has a width of 5 to 10 m. It is mostly
of granite, only two of the mountains--Norikura and Tateyama--showing
clear traces of volcanic origin. Its lower flanks are clothed with
forests of beech, conifers and oak. Farther south, in the same range,
stands Ontake (10,450 ft.), the second highest mountain in Japan
proper (as distinguished from Formosa); and other remarkable though
not so lofty peaks mark the same regions. This grand group of
mountains has been well called the "Alps of Japan," and a good account
of them may be found in The _Japanese Alps_ (1896) by the Rev. W.
Weston. On the summit of Ontake are eight large and several small
craters, and there also may be seen displays of trance and "divine
possession," such as are described by Mr Percival Lowell in _Occult
Japan_ (1895).

The Nikko Mountains.

Even more picturesque, though less lofty, than the Alps of Japan, are
the Nikko mountains, enclosing the mausolea of the two greatest of the
Tokugawa _shoguns_. The highest of these are Shirane-san (7422 ft.),
Nantai-san (8169 ft.), Nyohô-zan (8100 ft.), and Omanago (7546 ft.).
They are clothed with magnificent vegetation, and everywhere they echo
the voices of waterfalls and rivulets.

Mountains of the North.

In the north of the main island there are no peaks of remarkable
height. The best known are Chiokai-zan, called "Akita-Fuji" (the Fuji
of the Akita province), a volcano 7077 ft. high, which was active as
late as 1861; Ganju-san (6791 ft.), called also "Nambu-Fuji" or
Iwate-zan, remarkable for the beauty of its logarithmic curves;
Iwaki-san (5230 ft.), known as Tsugaru-Fuji, and said by some to be
even more imposing than Fuji itself; and the twin mountains Gassan
(6447 ft.) and Haguro-san (5600 ft.). A little farther south,
enclosing the fertile plain of Aizu (Aizu-taira, as it is called)
several important peaks are found, among them being Iide-san (6332
ft.); Azuma-yama (7733 ft.), which, after a long interval of
quiescence, has given many evidences of volcanic activity during
recent years; Nasu-dake (6296 ft.), an active volcano; and Bandai-san
(6037 ft.). A terrible interest attaches to the last-named mountain,
for, after having remained quiet so long as to lull the inhabitants of
the neighbouring district into complete security, it suddenly burst
into fierce activity on the 15th of July 1888, discharging a vast
avalanche of earth and rock, which dashed down its slopes like an
inundation, burying four hamlets, partially destroying seven villages,
killing 461 people and devastating an area of 27 sq. m.

Mountains of Kozuke, Kai and Shinano.

In the province of Kozuke, which belongs to the central part of the
main island, the noteworthy mountains are Asama-yama (8136 ft.), one
of the best known and most violently active volcanoes of Japan;
Akagi-san, a circular range of peaks surrounding the basin of an old
crater and rising to a height of 6210 ft.; the Haruna group,
celebrated for scenic beauties, and Myogi-san, a cluster of pinnacles
which, though not rising higher than 3880 ft., offer scenery which
dispels the delusion that nature as represented in the classical
pictures (_bunjingwa_) of China and Japan exists only in the artist's
imagination. Farther south, in the province of Kai (Koshiu), and
separating two great rivers, the Fuji-kawa and the Tenriu-gawa, there
lies a range of hills with peaks second only to those of the Japanese
Alps spoken of above. The principal elevations in this range are
Shirane-san--with three summits, Nodori (9970 ft.), Ai-no-take (10,200
ft.) and Kaigane (10,330 ft.)--and Hoozan (9550 ft.). It will be
observed that all the highest mountains of Japan form a species of
belt across the widest part of the main island, beginning on the west
with the Alps of Etchiu, Hida and Shinano, and ending on the east with
Fuji-yama. In all the regions of the main island southward of this
belt the only mountains of conspicuous altitude are Omine (6169 ft.)
and Odai-gaharazan (5540 ft.) in Yamato and Daisen or Oyama (5951 ft.)
in Hoki.

Mountains of Shikoku.

The island of Shikoku has no mountains of notable magnitude. The
highest is Ishizuchi-zan (7727 ft.), but there are several peaks
varying from 3000 to 6000 ft.

Mountains of Kiushiu.

Kiushiu, though abounding in mountain chains, independent or
connected, is not remarkable for lofty peaks. In the neighbourhood of
Nagasaki, over the celebrated solfataras of Unzen-take (called also
Onsen) stands an extinct volcano, whose summit, Fugen-dake, is 4865
ft. high. More notable is Aso-take, some 20 m. from Kumamoto; for,
though the highest of its five peaks has an altitude of only 5545 ft.,
it boasts the largest crater in the world, with walls nearly 2000 ft.
high and a basin from 10 to 14 m. in diameter. Aso-take is still an
active volcano, but its eruptions during recent years have been
confined to ashes and dust. Only two other mountains in Kiushiu need
be mentioned--a volcano (3743 ft.) on the island Sakura-jima, in the
extreme south; and Kirishima-yama (5538 ft.), on the boundary of
Hiuga, a mountain specially sacred in Japanese eyes, because on its
eastern peak (Takachiho-dake) the god Ninigi descended as the
forerunner of the first Japanese sovereign, Jimmu.

Volcanoes.

Among the mountains of Japan there are three volcanic ranges, namely,
that of the Kuriles, that of Fuji, and that of Kirishima. Fuji is the
most remarkable volcanic peak. The Japanese regard it as a sacred
mountain, and numbers of pilgrims make the ascent in midsummer. From
500 to 600 ft. is supposed to be the depth of the crater. There are
neither sulphuric exhalations nor escapes of steam at present, and it
would seem that this great volcano is permanently extinct. But
experience in other parts of Japan shows that a long quiescent crater
may at any moment burst into disastrous activity. Within the period of
Japan's written history several eruptions are recorded the last having
been in 1707, when the whole summit burst into flame, rocks were
shattered, ashes fell to a depth of several inches even in Yedo
(Tokyo), 60 m. distant, and the crater poured forth streams of lava.
Among still active volcanoes the following are the best known:--

Name of Volcano.
Height in feet. Remarks.

Tarumai (Yezo) 2969.
Forms southern wall of a large ancient crater now occupied by a lake
(Shikotsu). A little steam still issues from several smaller cones
on the summit of the ridge, as well as from one, called Eniwa, on
the northern side.

Noboribetsu (Yezo) 1148.
In a state of continuous activity, with frequent detonations and
rumblings. The crater is divided by a wooded rock-wall. The northern
part is occupied by a steaming lake, while the southern part
contains numerous solfataras and boiling springs.

Komagatake (Yezo) 3822.
The ancient crater-wall, with a lofty pinnacle on the western side,
contains a low new cone with numerous steaming rifts and vents. In a
serious eruption in 1856 the S.E. flank of the mountain and the
country side in that direction were denuded of trees.

Esan 2067.
A volcano-promontory at the Pacific end of the Tsugaru Strait: a
finely formed cone surrounded on three sides by the sea, the crater
breached on the land side. The central vent displays considerable
activity, while the rocky walls are stained with red, yellow and
white deposits from numerous minor vents.

Agatsuma (Iwaki) 5230.
Erupted in 1903 and killed two geologists.

Bandai-san (Iwashiro) 6037.
Erupted in 1888 after a long period of quiescence. The outbreak
was preceded by an earthquake of some severity, after which about 20
explosions took place. A huge avalanche of earth and rocks buried
the Nagase Valley with its villages and inhabitants, and devastated
an area of over 27 sq. m. The number of lives lost was 461; four
hamlets were completely entombed with their inhabitants and cattle;
seven villages were partially wrecked; forests were levelled or the
trees entirely denuded of bark; rivers were blocked up, and lakes
were formed. The lip of the fracture is now marked by a line of
steaming vents.

Azuma-yama (Fukushima) 7733.
Long considered extinct, but has erupted several times since 1893,
the last explosion having been in 1900, when 82 sulphur-diggers were
killed or injured; ashes were thrown to a distance of 5 m.,
accumulating in places to a depth of 5 ft.; and a crater 300 ft. in
diameter, and as many in depth, was formed on the E. side of the
mountain. This crater is still active. The summit-crater is occupied
by a beautiful lake. On the Fukushima (E.) side of the volcano rises
a large parasitic cone, extinct.

Nasu (Tochigi) 6296.
Has both a summit and a lateral crater, which are apparently
connected and perpetually emitting steam. At or about the main vents
are numerous solfataras. The whole of the upper part of the cone
consists of grey highly acidic lava. At the base is a thermal
spring, where baths have existed since the 7th century.

Shirane (Nikko) 7422.
The only remaining active vent of the once highly volcanic Nikko
district. Eruption in 1889.

Shirane (Kai) 10,330.
Eruption in 1905, when the main crater was enlarged to a length of
3000 ft. It is divided into three parts, separated by walls, and
each containing a lake, of which the middle one emits steam and the
two others are cold. The central lake, during the periods of
eruption (which are frequent), displays a geyser-like activity.
These lakes contain free sulphuric acid, mixed with iron and alum.

Unzen (Hizen) 4865.
A triple-peaked volcano in the solfatara stage, extinct at the
summit, but displaying considerable activity at its base in the form
of numerous fumaroles and boiling sulphur springs.

Aso-take (Higo) 5545.
Remarkable for the largest crater in the world. It measures 10 m. by
15, and rises almost symmetrically to a height of about 2000 ft.,
with only one break through which the river Shira flows. The centre
is occupied by a mass of peaks, on the W. flank of which lies the
modern active crater. Two of the five compartments into which it is
divided by walls of deeply striated volcanic ash are constantly
emitting steam, while a new vent displaying great activity has been
opened at the base of the cone on the south side. Eruptions have
been recorded since the earliest days of Japanese history. In 1884
the ejected dust and ashes devastated farmlands through large areas.
An outbreak in 1894 produced numerous rifts in the inner walls from
which steam and smoke have issued ever since.

Kaimon (Kagoshima Bay) 3041.
One of the most beautiful volcanoes of Japan, known as the
Satsuma-Fuji. The symmetry of the cone is marred by a convexity on
the seaward (S.) side. This volcano is all but extinct.

Sakura-jima (Kagomshima Bay) 3743.
An island-volcano, with several parasitic cones (extinct), on the N.
and E. sides. At the summit are two deep craters, the southern of
which emits steam. Grass grows, however, to the very edges of the
crater. The island is celebrated for thermal springs, oranges and
_daikon_ (radishes), which sometimes grow to a weight of 70 lb.

Kiri-shima (Kagoshima Bay) 5538.
A volcanic range of which Takachiho, the only active cone, forms the
terminal (S.E.) peak. The crater, situated on the S.W. side of the
volcano, lies some 500 ft. below the summit-peak. It is of
remarkably regular formation, and the floor is pierced by a number
of huge fumaroles whence issue immense volumes of steam.

Izuno Oshima (Vries Island) (Izu) 2461.
The volcano on this island is called Mihara. There is a double
crater, the outer being almost complete. The diameter of the outer
crater, within which rises the modern cone to a height of 500 ft.
above the surrounding floor, is about 2 m.; while the present
crater, which displays incessant activity, has itself a diameter of
¼ m.

Asama (Ise) 8136.
The largest active volcano in Japan. An eruption in 1783, with a
deluge of lava, destroyed an extensive forest and overwhelmed
several villages. The present cone is the third, portions of two
concentric crater rings remaining. The present crater is remarkable
for the absolute perpendicularity of its walls, and has an immense
depth--from 600 to 800 ft. It is circular, ¾ m. in circumference,
with sides honeycombed and burned to a red hue.

Some of the above information is based upon Mr. C. E. Bruce-Mitford's
valuable work (see _Geog. Jour._, Feb. 1908, &c.).

_Earthquakes._--Japan is subject to marked displays of seismic
violence. One steadily exercised influence is constantly at work, for
the shores bordering the Pacific Ocean are slowly though appreciably
rising, while on the side of the Japan Sea a corresponding subsidence
is taking place. Japan also experiences a vast number of petty
vibrations not perceptible without the aid of delicate instruments.
But of earthquakes proper, large or small, she has an exceptional
abundance. Thus in the thirteen years ending in 1897--that is to say,
the first period when really scientific apparatus for recording
purposes was available--she was visited by no fewer than 17,750
shocks, being an average of something over 3½ daily. The frequency of
these phenomena is in some degree a source of security, for the minor
vibrations are believed to exercise a binding effect by removing weak
cleavages. Nevertheless the annals show that during the three
centuries before 1897 there were 108 earthquakes sufficiently
disastrous to merit historical mention. If the calculation be carried
farther back--as has been done by the seismic disaster investigation
committee of Japan, a body of scientists constantly engaged in
studying these phenomena under government auspices,--it is found that,
since the country's history began to be written in the 8th century
A.D., there have been 2006 major disturbances; but inasmuch as 1489 of
these occurred before the beginning of the Tokugawa administration
(early in the 17th century, and therefore in an era when methods of
recording were comparatively defective), exact details are naturally
lacking. The story, so far as it is known, may be gathered from the
following table:--

Date A.D. Region. Houses Deaths.
destroyed.
684 Southern part of Tosa -- -- (1)
869 Mutsu -- -- (2)
1361 Kioto -- --
1498 Tokaido -- 2,000(3)
1569 Bungo -- 700
1596 Kioto -- 2,000
1605 (31/1) Pacific Coast -- 5,000
1611 (27/9) Aizu -- 3,700
1614 (2/12) Pacific Coast (N.E.) -- 1,700
1662 (16/6) Kioto 5,500 500
1666 (2/2) Pacific Coast (N.E.) -- 1,500
1694 (19/12) Ugo 2,760 390
1703 (30/12) Tokyo 20,162 5,233
1707 (28/10) Pacific Coast of Kiushiu
and Shikoku 29,000 4,900
1751 (20/5) Echigo 9,100 1,700
1766 (8/3) Hirosaki 7,500 1,335
1792 (10/2) Hizen and Higo 12,000 15,000
1828 (18/2) Echigo 11,750 1,443
1844 (8/5) Echigo 34,000 12,000
1854 (6/7) Yamato, Iga, Ise 5,000 2,400
1854 (23/12) Tokaido (Shikoku) 60,000 3,000
1855 (11/11) Yedo, (Tokyo) 50,000 6,700
1891 (28/10) Mino, Owari 222,501 7,273
1894 (22/10) Shonai 8,403 726
1896 (15/6) Sanriku 13,073 27,122
1896 (31/8) Ugo, Rikuchu 8,996 209
1906 (12/2) Formosa 5,556 1,228

(1) An area of over 1,200,000 acres swallowed up by the sea.
(2) Tidal wave killed thousands of people.
(3) Hamana lagoon formed.

In the capital (Tokyo) the average yearly number of shocks throughout
the 26 years ending in 1906 was 96, exclusive of minor vibrations, but
during the 50 years then ending there were only two severe shocks
(1884 and 1894), and they were not directly responsible for any damage
to life or limb. The Pacific coast of the Japanese islands is more
liable than the western shore to shocks disturbing a wide area.
Apparent proof has been obtained that the shocks occurring in the
Pacific districts originate at the bottom of the sea--the Tuscarora
Deep is supposed to be the centre of seismic activity--and they are
accompanied in most cases by tidal waves. It would seem that of late
years Tajima, Hida, Kozuke and some other regions in central Japan
have enjoyed the greatest immunity, while Musashi (in which province
Tokyo is situated) and Sagami have been most subject to disturbance.

_Plains._--Japan, though very mountainous, has many extensive plains.
The northern island--Yezo--contains seven, and there are as many more
in the main and southern islands, to say nothing of flat lands of
minor dimensions. The principal are given in the following table:--

Name. Situation. Area. Remarks.

Tokachi plain Yezo. 744,000 acres. --
Ishikari " " 480,000 " --
Kushiro " " 1,229,000 " --
Nemuro " " 320,000 " --
Kitami " " 230,000 " --
Hidaka " " 200,000 " --
Teshio " " 180,000 " --
Echigo " Main Island. Unascertained. --
Sendai " " " --
Kwanto " " " In this plain lie the
capital, Tokyo, and the
town of Yokohama. It
supports about 6 millions
of people.
Mino-Owari " " " Has 1½ million inhabitants.
Kinai " " " Has the cities of Osaka,
Kioto and Kobe, and 2½
million people.
Tsukushi " Kiushiu. " The chief coalfield of
Japan.

_Rivers._--Japan is abundantly watered. Probably no country in the
world possesses a closer network of streams, supplemented by canals
and lakes. But the quantity of water carried seawards varies within
wide limits; for whereas, during the rainy season in summer and while
the snows of winter are melting in spring, great volumes of water
sweep down from the mountains, these broad rivers dwindle at other
times to petty rivulets trickling among a waste of pebbles and
boulders. Nor are there any long rivers, and all are so broken by
shallows and rapids that navigation is generally impossible except by
means of flat-bottomed boats drawing only a few inches. The chief
rivers are given in the following table:--

Length
in miles. Source. Mouth.

Ishikari-gawa 275 Ishikari-dake Otaru.
Shinano-gawa 215 Kimpu-san Niigata.
Teshio-gawa 192 Teshio-take Sea of Japan.
Tone-gawa 177 Monju-zan, Kozuke Choshi (Shimosa).
Mogami-gawa 151 Dainichi-dake(Uzen) Sakata.
Yoshino-gawa 149 Yahazu-yama (Tosa) Tokushima (Awa).
Kitakami-gawa 146 Nakayama-dake Ishinomaki
(Rikuchiu) (Rikuzen).
Tenriu-gawa 136 Suwako (Shinano) Totomi Bay.
Go-gawa or
Iwa-megawa 122 Maruse-yama (Bingo) Iwami Bay.
Abukuma-gawa 122 Asahi-take (Iwashiro) Matsushima Bay.
Tokachi-gawa 120 Tokachi-dake Tokachi Bay.
Sendai-gawa 112 Kunimi-zan (Hiuga) Kumizaki (Satsuma).
Oi-gawa 112 Shirane-san (Kai) Suruga Bay.
Kiso-gawa 112 Kiso-zan (Shinano) Bay of Isenumi.
Arakawa 104 Chichibu-yama Tokyo Bay.
Naga-gawa 102 Nasu-yama (Shimotsuke) Naka-no-minato
(Huachi).

_Lakes and Waterfalls._--Japan has many lakes, remarkable for the
beauty of their scenery rather than for their extent. Some are
contained in alluvial depressions in the river valleys; others have
been formed by volcanic eruptions, the ejecta damming the rivers until
exits were found over cliffs or through gorges. Some of these lakes
have become favourite summer resorts for foreigners. To that category
belong especially the lakes of Hakone, of Chiuzenji, of Shoji, of
Inawashiro, and of Biwa. Among these the highest is Lake Chiuzenji,
which is 4375 ft. above sea-level, has a maximum depth of 93 fathoms,
and empties itself at one end over a fall (Kegon) 250 ft. high. The
Shoji lakes lie at a height of 3160 ft., and their neighbourhood
abounds in scenic charms. Lake Hakone is at a height of 2428 ft.;
Inawashiro, at a height of 1920 ft. and Biwa at a height of 328 ft.
The Japanese associate Lake Biwa (Omi) with eight views of special
loveliness (_Omi-no-hakkei_). Lake Suwa, in Shinano, which is emptied
by the Tenriu-gawa, has a height of 2624 ft. In the vicinity of many
of these mountain lakes thermal springs, with remarkable curative
properties, are to be found. (F. By.)

_Geology._--It is a popular belief that the islands of Japan consist
for the most part of volcanic rocks. But although this conception
might reasonably be suggested by the presence of many active and
extinct volcanoes, Professor J. Milne has pointed out that it is
literally true of the Kuriles alone, partially true for the northern
half of the Main Island and for Kiushiu, and quite incorrect as
applied to the southern half of the Main Island and to Shikoku. This
authority sums up the geology of Japan briefly and succinctly as
follows (in _Things Japanese_, by Professor Chamberlain): "The
backbone of the country consists of primitive gneiss and schists.
Amongst the latter, in Shikoku, there is an extremely interesting rock
consisting largely of piedmontite. Overlying these amongst the
Palaeozoic rocks, we meet in many parts of Japan with slates and other
rocks possibly of Cambrian or Silurian age. Trilobites have been
discovered in Rikuzen. Carboniferous rocks are represented by mountain
masses of _Fusulina_ and other limestones. There is also amongst the
Palaeozoic group an interesting series of red slates containing
Radiolaria. Mesozoic rocks are represented by slates containing
_Ammonites_ and _Monotis_, evidently of Triassic age, rocks containing
_Ammonites Bucklandi_ of Liassic age, a series of beds rich in plants
of Jurassic age, and beds of Cretaceous age containing _Trigonia_ and
many other fossils. The Cainozoic or Tertiary system forms a fringe
round the coasts of many portions of the empire. It chiefly consists
of stratified volcanic tuffs rich in coal, lignite, fossilized plants
and an invertebrate fauna. Diatomaceous earth exists at several places
in Yezo. In the alluvium which covers all, the remains have been
discovered of several species of elephant, which, according to Dr
Edmund Naumann, are of Indian origin. The most common eruptive rock is
andesite. Such rocks as basalt, diorite and trachyte are comparatively
rare. Quartz porphyry, quartzless porphyry, and granite are largely
developed." Drs von Richthofen and Rein discuss the subject in greater
detail. They have pointed out that in the mountain system of Japan
there are three main lines. One runs from S.W. to N.E.; another from
S.S.W. to N.N.E., and the third is meridional. These they call
respectively the "southern schist range," the "northern schist range,"
and the "snow range," the last consisting mainly of old crystalline
massive rocks. The rocks predominating in Japan fall also into three
groups. They are, first, plutonic rocks, especially granite; secondly,
volcanic rocks, chiefly trachyte and dolerite; and thirdly, palaeozoic
schists. On the other hand, limestone and sandstone, especially of the
Mesozoic strata, are strikingly deficient. The strike of the old
crystalline rocks follows, in general, the main direction of the
islands (S.W. to N.E.). They are often overlain by schists and
quartzites, or broken through by volcanic masses. "The basis of the
islands consist of granite, syenite, diorite, diabase and related
kinds of rock, porphyry appearing comparatively seldom. Now the
granite, continuing for long distances, forms the prevailing rock;
then, again, it forms the foundation for thick strata of schist and
sandstone, itself only appearing in valleys of erosion and river
boulders, in rocky projections on the coasts or in the ridges of the
mountains.... In the composition of many mountains in Hondo (the main
island) granite plays a prominent part.... It appears to form the
central mass which crops up in hundreds of places towards the coast
and in the interior. Old schists, free from fossils and rich in
quartz, overlie it in parallel chains through the whole length of the
peninsula, especially in the central and highest ridges, and bear the
ores of Chu-goku (the central provinces), principally copper pyrites
and magnetic pyrites. These schist ridges rich in quartz show, to a
depth of 20 metres, considerable disintegration. The resulting pebble
and quartz-sand is very unproductive, and supports chiefly a poor
underwood and crippled pines with widely spreading roots which seek
their nourishment afar. In the province of Settsu granite everywhere
predominates, which may be observed also in the railway cuttings
between Hiogo and Osaka, as well as in the temples and walls of these
towns. The waterfalls near Kobe descend over granite walls and the
_mikageishi_ (stone of Mikage), famous throughout Japan, is granite
from Settsu.... In the hill country on the borders of Ise, Owari,
Mikawa and Totomi, on the one side, and Omi, Mino and Shinano, on the
other, granite frequently forms dark grey and much disintegrated
rock-projections above schist and diluvial quartz pebbles. The
feldspar of a splendid pegmatite and its products of disintegration on
the borders of Owari, Mino and Mikawa form the raw material of the
very extensive ceramic industry of this district, with its chief
place, Seto. Of granite are chiefly formed the meridional mountains of
Shinano. Granite, diorite and other plutonic rocks hem in the winding
upper valleys of the Kiso-gawa, the Saigawa (Shinano river) and many
other rivers of this province, their clear water running over granite.
Also in the hills bordering on the plain of Kwanto these old
crystalline rocks are widely spread. Farther northwards they give way
again, as in the south, to schists and eruptive rocks. Yet even here
granite may be traced in many places. Of course it is not always a
pure granite; even hablit and granite-porphyry are found here and
there. Thus, for instance, near Nikko in the upper valley of the
Daiya-gawa, and in several other places in the neighbouring mountains,
a granite-porphyry appears with large, pale, flesh-coloured crystals
of orthoclase, dull triclinic felspar, quartz and hornblende." "From
the mine of Ichinokawa in Shikoku come the wonderful crystals of
antimonite, which form such conspicuous objects in the mineralogical
cabinets of Europe." (Rein's _Japan_ and Milne in _Things Japanese_.)
The above conditions suggest the presence of tertiary formations, yet
only the younger groups of that formation appear to be developed. Nor
is there any sign of moraines, glacier-scorings or other traces of the
ice-age.

The oldest beds which have yielded fossils in any abundance belong to
the Carboniferous System. The Trias proper is represented by truly
marine deposits, while the Rhaetic beds contain plant remains. The
Jurassic and Cretaceous beds are also in part marine and in part
terrestrial. During the whole of the Mesozoic era Japan appears to
have lain on or near the margin of the Asiatic continent, and the
marine deposits are confined for the most part to the eastern side of
the islands.

The igneous rocks occur at several geological horizons, but the great
volcanic eruptions did not begin until the Tertiary period. The
existing volcanoes belong to four separate arcs or chains. On the
south is the arc of the Luchu islands, which penetrates into Kiu Shiu.
In the centre there is the arc of the Izu-no-Shichito islands, which
is continued into Hondo along the Fossa Magna. In North Hondo the
great Bandai arc forms the axis of the island and stretches into Yezo
(Hokkaido). Finally in the east of Yezo rise the most westerly
volcanoes of the Kurile chain. The lavas and ashes ejected by these
volcanoes consist of liparite, dacite, andesite and basalt.

Structurally Japan is divided into two regions by a depression (the
"Fossa Magna" of Naumann) which stretches across the island of Hondo
from Shimoda to Nagano. The depression is marked by a line of
volcanoes, including Fuji, and is in part buried beneath the products
of their eruptions. It is supposed to be due to a great fault along
its western margin. South and west of the Fossa Magna the beds are
thrown into folds which run approximately parallel to the general
direction of the coast, and two zones may be recognized--an outer,
consisting of Palaeozoic and Mesozoic beds, and an inner, consisting
of Archaean and Palaeozoic rocks, with granitic intrusions. Nearly
along the boundary between the two zones lie the inland seas of south
Japan. Towards the Fossa Magna the folds bend northwards.

North and east of the Fossa Magna the structure is concealed, to a
very large extent, by the outpourings of the volcanoes which form so
marked a feature in the northern part of Hondo. But the foundation on
which the volcanoes rest is exposed along the east coast of Hondo (in
the Kwanto, Abukuma and Kitakami hills), and also in the island of
Yezo. This foundation consists of Archean, Palaeozoic and Mesozoic
beds folded together, the direction of the folds being N. by W. to S.
by E., that is to say, slightly oblique to the general direction of
this part of the island. Towards the Fossa Magna the folds bend
sharply round until they are nearly parallel to the Fossa itself.
(P. La.)

Secular Movement

It has been abundantly demonstrated by careful observations that the
east coasts of Japan are slowly rising. This phenomenon was first
noticed in the case of the plain on which stands the capital, Tokyo.
Maps of sufficiently trustworthy accuracy show that in the 11th
century Tokyo Bay penetrated much more deeply in a northern direction
than it does now; the point where the city's main river (Sumida or
Arakawa) enters the sea was considerably to the north of its present
position, and low-lying districts, to-day thickly populated, were
under water. Edmund Naumann was the discoverer of these facts, and his
attention was first drawn to them by learning that an edible sea-weed,
which flourishes only in salt water, is called Asakusa-nori, from the
place (Asakusa) of its original provenance, which now lies some 3 m.
inland. Similar phenomena were found in Sakhalin by Schmidt and on the
north-east coast of the main island by Rein, and there can be little
doubt that they exist at other places also. Naumann has concluded that
"formerly Tokyo Bay stretched further over the whole level country of
Shimosa and Hitachi and northwards as far as the plain of Kwanto
extends;" that "the mountain country of Kasusa-Awa emerged from it an
island, and that a current ran in a north-westerly direction between
this island and the northern mountain margin of the present plain
toward the north-east into the open ocean."

_Mineral Springs._--The presence of so many active volcanoes is
partially compensated by a wealth of mineral springs. Since many of
these thermal springs possess great medicinal value, Japan may become
one of the world's favourite health-resorts. There are more than a
hundred spas, some hot, some cold, which, being easily accessible and
highly efficacious, are largely visited by the Japanese. The most
noteworthy are as follows:--

Name of Spa. Prefecture. Quality. Temp., F°.

Arima Hiogo Salt 100
Asama Nagano Pure 111--127
Asamushi Aomori Salt 134--168
Atami Shizuoka " 131--226
Beppu Oita Carbonic Acid 109--132
Bessho Nagano Pure or Sulphurous 108--113
Dogo Ehime Pure 70--110
Hakone Kanagawa Pure, Salt or Sulphurous 98--168
Higashi-yama Fukushima Pure or Salt 117--144
Ikao Gumma Salt 111--127
Isobe " " Cold
Kusatsu " Sulphurous 127--148
Nasu Tochigi Sulphurous 162--172
Noboribetsu Ishikari " 125
Shibu Nagano Salt 98--115
Chiuzenji Shizuoka Carbonate of Soda and
Sulphur 114--185
Takarazuka Hiogo Carbonic Acid Cold
Ureshino Saga " 230
Unzen Nagasaki Sulphurous 158--204
Wagura Ishikawa Salt 180
Yamashiro " " 165
Yunoshima Hiogo " 104--134

_Climate._--The large extension of the Japanese islands in a northerly
and southerly direction causes great varieties of climate. General
characteristics are hot and humid though short summers, and long, cold
and clear winters. The equatorial currents produce conditions
differing from those existing at corresponding latitudes on the
neighbouring continent. In Kiushiu, Shikoku and the southern half of
the main island, the months of July and August alone are marked by
oppressive heat at the sea-level, while in elevated districts a cool
and even bracing temperature may always be found, though the direct
rays of the sun retain distressing power. Winter in these districts
does not last more than two months, from the end of December to the
beginning of March; for although the latter month is not free from
frost and even snow, the balminess of spring makes itself plainly
perceptible. In the northern half of the main island, in Yezo and in
the Kuriles, the cold is severe during the winter, which lasts for at
least four months, and snow falls sometimes to great depths. Whereas
in Tokyo the number of frosty nights during a year does not average
much over 60, the corresponding number in Sapporo on the north-west of
Yezo is 145. But the variation of the thermometer in winter and summer
being considerable--as much as 72° F. in Tokyo--the climate proves
somewhat trying to persons of weak constitution. On the other hand,
the mean daily variation is in general less than that in other
countries having the same latitude: it is greatest in January, when it
reaches 18° F., and least in July, when it barely exceeds 9° F. The
monthly variation is very great in March, when it usually reaches 43°
F.

Meteorology.

During the first 40 years of the _Meiji_ era numerous meteorological
stations were established. Reports are constantly forwarded by
telegraph to the central observatory in Tokyo, which issues daily
statements of the climatic conditions during the previous twenty-four
hours, as well as forecasts for the next twenty-four. The whole
country is divided into districts for meteorological purposes, and
storm-warnings are issued when necessary. At the most important
stations observations are taken every hour; at the less important, six
observations daily; and at the least important, three observations.
From the record of three decades the following yearly averages of
temperature are obtained:--

F°.

Taihoku (in Formosa) 71
Nagasaki (Kiushiu) 60
Kobe (Main Island) 59
Osaka (Main Island) 59
Okayama (Main Island) 58
Nagoya (Main Island) 58
Sakai (Main Island) 58
Tokyo (Capital) 57
Kioto (Main Island) 57
Niigata (Main Island) 55
Ishinomaki (Main Island) 52
Aomori (Main Island) 50
Sapporo (Yezo) 44

The following table affords data for comparing the climates of Peking,
Shanghai, Hakodate, Tokyo and San Francisco:--

Mean
Longitude. Latitude. Temp., F°.

Peking 116° 29´ E. 39° 57´ N. 53
Shanghai 121° 20´ E. 31° 12´ N. 59
Hakodate 140° 45´ E. 41° 46´ N. 47
Tokyo 138° 47´ E. 35° 41´ N. 57
San Francisco 122° 25´ E. 37° 48´ N. 56

Mean Temp. of
Hottest Month. Hottest Month.

Peking July 80
Shanghai " 84
Hakodate August 71
Tokyo " 79
San Francisco September 63

Mean Temp. of
Coldest Month. Coldest Month.

Peking January 22
Shanghai " 26
Hakodate " 28
Tokyo " 36
San Francisco " 49

Rainfall.

There are three wet seasons in Japan: the first, from the middle of
April to the beginning of May; the second, from the middle of June to
the beginning of July; and the third, from early in September to early
in October. The dog days (_doyo_) are from the middle of July till the
second half of August. September is the wettest month; January the
driest. During the four months from November to February inclusive
only about 18% of the whole rain for the year falls. In the district
on the east of the main island the snowfall is insignificant, seldom
attaining a depth of more than four or five inches and generally
melting in a few days, while bright, sunny skies are usual. But in the
mountainous provinces of the interior and in those along the western
coast, deep snow covers the ground throughout the whole winter, and
the sky is usually wrapped in a veil of clouds. These differences are
due to the action of the north-westerly wind that blows over Japan
from Siberia. The intervening sea being comparatively warm, this wind
arrives at Japan having its temperature increased and carrying
moisture which it deposits as snow on the western faces of the
Japanese mountains. Crossing the mountains and descending their
eastern slopes, the wind becomes less saturated and warmer, so that
the formation of clouds ceases. Japan is emphatically a wet country so
far as quantity of rainfall is concerned, the average for the whole
country being 1570 mm. per annum. Still there are about four sunny
days for every three on which rain or snow falls, the actual figures
being 150 days of snow or rain and 215 days of sunshine.

Wind.

During the cold season, which begins in October and ends in April,
northerly and westerly winds prevail throughout Japan. They come from
the adjacent continent of Asia, and they develop considerable strength
owing to the fact that there is an average difference of some 22 mm.
between the atmospheric pressure (750 mm.) in the Pacific and that
(772 mm.) in the Japanese islands. But during the warm season, from
May to September, these conditions of atmospheric pressure are
reversed, that in the Pacific rising to 767 mm. and that in Japan
falling to 750 mm. Hence throughout this season the prevailing winds
are light breezes from the west and south. A comparison of the force
habitually developed by the wind in various parts of the islands shows
that at Suttsu in Yezo the average strength is 9 metres per second,
while Izuhara in the island Tsushima, Kumamoto in Kiushiu and Gifu in
the east centre of the main island stand at the bottom of the list
with an average wind velocity of only 2 metres. A calamitous
atmospheric feature is the periodical arrival of storms called
"typhoons" (Japanese _tai-fu_ or "great wind"). These have their
origin, for the most part, in the China Sea, especially in the
vicinity of Luzon. Their season is from June to October, but they
occur in other months also, and they develop a velocity of 5 to 75 m.
an hour. The meteorological record for ten years ended 1905 shows a
total of 120 typhoons, being an average of 12 annually. September had
14 of these phenomena, March 11 and April 10, leaving 85 for the
remaining 9 months. But only 65 out of the whole number developed
disastrous force. It is particularly unfortunate that September should
be the season of greatest typhoon frequency, for the earlier varieties
of rice flower in that month and a heavy storm does much damage. Thus,
in 1902--by no means an abnormal year--statistics show the following
disasters owing to typhoons: casualties to human life, 3639; ships and
boats lost, 3244; buildings destroyed wholly or partially, 695,062;
land inundated, 1,071,575 acres; roads destroyed, 1236 m.; bridges
washed away, 13,685; embankments broken, 705 m.; crops damaged,
8,712,655 bushels. The total loss, including cost of repairs, was
estimated at nearly 3 millions sterling, which may be regarded as an
annual average.

_Flora._--The flora of Japan has been carefully studied by many
scientific men from Siebold downwards. Foreigners visiting Japan are
immediately struck by the affection of the people for flowers, trees
and natural beauties of every kind. In actual wealth of blossom or
dimensions of forest trees the Japanese islands cannot claim any
special distinction. The spectacles most admired by all classes are
the tints of the foliage in autumn and the glory of flowering trees in
the spring. In beauty and variety of pattern and colour the autumnal
tints are unsurpassed. The colours pass from deep brown through purple
to yellow and white, thrown into relief by the dark green of
non-deciduous shrubs and trees. Oaks and wild prunus, wild vines and
sumachs, various kinds of maple, the dodan (_Enkianthus Japonicus_
Hook.)--a wonderful bush which in autumn develops a hue of ruddy
red--birches and other trees, all add multitudinous colours to the
brilliancy of a spectacle which is further enriched by masses of
feathery bamboo. The one defect is lack of green sward. The grass used
for Japanese lawns loses its verdure in autumn and remains from
November to March a greyish-brown blot upon the scene. Spring is
supposed to begin in February when, according to the old calendar, the
new year sets in, but the only flowers then in bloom are the _camellia
japonica_ and some kinds of daphne. The former--called by the Japanese
_tsubaki_--may often be seen glowing fiery red amid snow, but the pink
(_otome tsubaki_), white (_shiro-tsubaki_) and variegated
(_shibori-no-tsubaki_) kinds do not bloom until March or April.
Neither the camellia nor the daphne is regarded as a refined flower:
their manner of shedding their blossoms is too unsightly. Queen of
spring flowers is the plum (_ume_). The tree lends itself with
peculiar readiness to the skilful manipulation of the gardener, and
is by him trained into shapes of remarkable grace. Its pure white or
rose-red blossoms, heralding the first approach of genial weather, are
regarded with special favour and are accounted the symbol of
unassuming hardihood. The cherry (_sakura_) is even more esteemed. It
will not suffer any training, nor does it, like the plum, improve by
pruning, but the sunshine that attends its brief period of bloom in
April, the magnificence of its flower-laden boughs and the picturesque
flutter of its falling petals, inspired an ancient poet to liken it to
the "soul of Yamato" (Japan), and it has ever since been thus
regarded. The wild peach (_momo_) blooms at the same time, but
attracts little attention. All these trees--the plum, the cherry and
the peach--bear no fruit worthy of the name, nor do they excel their
Occidental representatives in wealth of blossom, but the admiring
affection they inspire in Japan is unique. Scarcely has the cherry
season passed when that of the wistaria (_fuji_) comes, followed by
the azalea (_tsutsuji_) and the iris (_shobu_), the last being almost
contemporaneous with the peony (_botan_), which is regarded by many
Japanese as the king of flowers and is cultivated assiduously. A
species of weeping maple (_shidare-momiji_) dresses itself in
peachy-red foliage and is trained into many picturesque shapes, though
not without detriment to its longevity. Summer sees the lotus
(_renge_) convert wide expanses of lake and river into sheets of white
and red blossoms; a comparatively flowerless interval ensues until, in
October and November, the chrysanthemum arrives to furnish an excuse
for fashionable gatherings. With the exception of the dog-days and the
dead of winter, there is no season when flowers cease to be an object
of attention to the Japanese, nor does any class fail to participate
in the sentiment. There is similar enthusiasm in the matter of
gardens. From the 10th century onwards the art of landscape gardening
steadily grew into a science, with esoteric as well as exoteric
aspects, and with a special vocabulary. The underlying principle is to
reproduce nature's scenic beauties, all the features being drawn to
scale, so that however restricted the space, there shall be no
violation of proportion. Thus the artificial lakes and hills, the
stones forming rockeries or simulating solitary crags, the trees and
even the bushes are all selected or manipulated so as to fall
congruously into the general scheme. If, on the one hand, huge stones
are transported hundreds of miles from seashore or river-bed where, in
the lapse of long centuries, waves and cataracts have hammered them
into strange shapes, and if the harmonizing of their various colours
and the adjustment of their forms to environment are studied with
profound subtlety, so the training and tending of the trees and shrubs
that keep them company require much taste and much toil. Thus the red
pine (_aka-matsu_ or _pinus densiflora_), which is the favourite
garden tree, has to be subjected twice a year to a process of
spray-dressing which involves the careful removal of every weak or
aged needle. One tree occupies the whole time of a gardener for about
ten days. The details are endless, the results delightful. But it has
to be clearly understood that there is here no mention of a
flower-garden in the Occidental sense of the term. Flowers are
cultivated, but for their own sakes, not as a feature of the landscape
garden. If they are present, it is only as an incident. This of course
does not apply to shrubs which blossom at their seasons and fall
always into the general scheme of the landscape. Forests of
cherry-trees, plum-trees, magnolia trees, or _hiyaku-jikko_
(_Lagerstroemia indica_), banks of azalea, clumps of hydrangea, groups
of camellia--such have their permanent places and their foliage adds
notes of colour when their flowers have fallen. But chrysanthemums,
peonies, roses and so forth, are treated as special shows, and are
removed or hidden when out of bloom. There is another remarkable
feature of the Japanese gardener's art. He dwarfs trees so that they
remain measurable only by inches after their age has reached scores,
even hundreds, of years, and the proportions of leaf, branch and stem
are preserved with fidelity. The pots in which these wonders of
patient skill are grown have to be themselves fine specimens of the
ceramist's craft, and as much as £200 is sometimes paid for a notably
well trained tree.

There exists among many foreign observers an impression that Japan is
comparatively poor in wild-flowers; an impression probably due to the
fact that there are no flowery meadows or lanes. Besides, the flowers
are curiously wanting in fragrance. Almost the only notable exceptions
are the _mokusei_ (_Osmanthus fragrans_), the daphne and the magnolia.
Missing the perfume-laden air of the Occident, a visitor is prone to
infer paucity of blossoms. But if some familiar European flowers are
absent, they are replaced by others strange to Western eyes--a wealth
of _lespedeza_ and _Indigo-fera_; a vast variety of lilies; graceful
grasses like the eulalia and the _ominameshi_ (_Patrina
scabiosaefolia_); the richly-hued _Pyrus japonica_; azaleas,
diervillas and deutzias; the _kikyo_ (_Platycodon grandiflorum_), the
_giboshi_ (_Funkia ovata_), and many another. The same is true of
Japanese forests. It has been well said that "to enumerate the
constituents and inhabitants of the Japanese mountain-forests would be
to name at least half the entire flora."

According to Franchet and Savatier Japan possesses:--

Families. Genera. Species.

Dicotyledonous plants 121 795 1934
Monocotyledonous plants 28 202 613
Higher Cryptogamous plants 5 38 196
--- ---- ----
Vascular plants 154 1035 2743

The investigations of Japanese botanists are adding constantly to the
above number, and it is not likely that finality will be reached for
some time. According to a comparison made by A. Gray with regard to
the numbers of genera and species respectively represented in the
forest trees of four regions of the northern hemisphere, the following
is the case:--

Atlantic Forest-region of N. America 66 genera and 155 species.
Pacific Forest-region of N. America 31 genera and 78 species.
Japan and Manchuria Forest-region 66 genera and 168 species.
Forests of Europe 33 genera and 85 species.

While there can be no doubt that the luxuriance of Japan's flora is
due to rich soil, to high temperature and to rainfall not only
plentiful but well distributed over the whole year, the wealth and
variety of her trees and shrubs must be largely the result of
immigration. Japan has four insular chains which link her to the
neighbouring continent. On the south, the Riukiu Islands bring her
within reach of Formosa and the Malayan archipelago; on the west, Oki,
Iki, and Tsushima bridge the sea between her and Korea; on the
north-west Sakhalin connects her with the Amur region; and on the
north, the Kuriles form an almost continuous route to Kamchatka. By
these paths the germs of Asiatic plants were carried over to join the
endemic flora of the country, and all found suitable homes amid
greatly varying conditions of climate and physiography.

_Fauna._--Japan is an exception to the general rule that continents
are richer in fauna than are their neighbouring islands. It has been
said with truth that "an industrious collector of beetles,
butterflies, neuroptera, &c., finds a greater number of species in a
circuit of some miles near Tokyo than are exhibited by the whole
British Isles."

Of mammals 50 species have been identified and catalogued. Neither the
lion nor the tiger is found. The true Carnivora are three only, the
bear, the dog and the marten. Three species of bears are
scientifically recognized, but one of them, the ice-bear (_Ursus
maritimus_), is only an accidental visitor, carried down by the Arctic
current. In the main island the black bear (_kuma_, _Ursus japonicus_)
alone has its habitation, but the island of Yezo has the great brown
bear (called _shi-guma_, _oki-kuma_ or _aka-kuma_), the "grisly" of
North America. The bear does not attract much popular interest in
Japan. Tradition centres rather upon the fox (_kitsune_) and the
badger (_mujina_), which are credited with supernatural powers, the
former being worshipped as the messenger of the harvest god, while the
latter is regarded as a mischievous rollicker. Next to these comes the
monkey (_saru_), which dwells equally among the snows of the north and
in the mountainous regions of the south. _Saru_ enters into the
composition of many place-names, an evidence of the people's
familiarity with the animal. There are ten species of bat (_komori_)
and seven of insect-eaters, and prominent in this class are the mole
(_mugura_) and the hedgehog (_hari-nezumi_). Among the martens there
is a weasel (_itachi_), which, though useful as a rat-killer, has the
evil repute of being responsible for sudden and mysterious injuries to
human beings; there is a river-otter (_kawauso_), and there is a
sea-otter (_rakko_) which inhabits the northern seas and is highly
valued for its beautiful pelt. The rodents are represented by an
abundance of rats, with comparatively few mice, and by the ordinary
squirrel, to which the people give the name of tree-rat (_ki-nezumi_),
as well as the flying squirrel, known as the _momo-dori_ (peach-bird)
in the north, where it hides from the light in hollow tree-trunks, and
in the south as the _ban-tori_ (or bird of evening). There are no
rabbits, but hares (_usagi_) are to be found in very varying numbers,
and those of one species put on a white coat during winter. The wild
boar (_shishi_ or _ii-no-shishi_) does not differ appreciably from its
European congener. Its flesh is much relished, and for some
unexplained reason is called by its vendors "mountain-whale"
(_yama-kujira_). A very beautiful stag (_shika_), with eight-branched
antlers, inhabits the remote woodlands, and there are five species of
antelope (_kamo-shika_) which are found in the highest and least
accessible parts of the mountains. Domestic animals have for
representatives the horse (_uma_), a small beast with little beauty of
form though possessing much hardihood and endurance; the ox (_ushi_)
mainly a beast of burden or draught; the pig (_buta_), very
occasionally; the dog (_inu_), an unsightly and useless brute; the cat
(_neko_), with a stump in lieu of a tail; barndoor fowl (_niwa-tori_),
ducks (_ahiro_) and pigeons (_hato_). The turkey (_shichi-mencho_) and
the goose (_gacho_) have been introduced but are little appreciated as
yet.

Although so-called singing birds exist in tolerable numbers, those
worthy of the name of songster are few. Eminently first is a species
of nightingale (_uguisu_), which, though smaller than its congener of
the West, is gifted with exquisitely modulated flute-like notes of
considerable range. The _uguisu_ is a dainty bird in the matter of
temperature. After May it retires from the low-lying regions and
gradually ascends to higher altitudes as midsummer approaches. A
variety of the cuckoo called _holotogisu_ (_Cuculus poliocephalus_) in
imitation of the sound of its voice, is heard as an accompaniment of
the _uguisu_, and there are also three other species, the _kakkodori_
(_Cuculus canorus_), the _tsutsu-dori_ (_C. himalayanus_), and the
_masuhakari_, or _juichi_ (_C. hyperythrus_). To these the lark,
_hibari_ (_Alauda japonica_), joins its voice, and the cooing of the
pigeon (_hato_) is supplemented by the twittering of the ubiquitous
sparrow (_suzume_), while over all are heard the raucous caw of the
raven (_karasu_) and the harsh scream of the kite (_tombi_), between
which and the raven there is perpetual feud. The falcon (_taka_),
always an honoured bird in Japan, where from time immemorial hawking
has been an aristocratic pastime, is common enough, and so is the
sparrow-hawk (_hai-taka_), but the eagle (_washi_) affects solitude.
Two English ornithologists, Blakiston and Pryer, are the recognized
authorities on the birds of Japan, and in a contribution to the
_Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan_ (vol. x.) they have
enumerated 359 species. Starlings (_muku-dori_) are numerous, and so
are the wagtail (_sekirei_), the swallow (_tsubame_) the martin
(_ten_), the woodchat (_mozu_) and the jay (_kakesu_ or _kashi-dori_),
but the magpie (_togarasu_), though common in China, is rare in Japan.
Blackbirds and thrushes are not found, nor any species of parrot, but
on the other hand, we have the hoopoe (_yatsugashira_), the red-breast
(_komadori_), the bluebird (_ruri_), the wren (_miso-sazai_), the
golden-crested wren (_itadaki_), the golden-eagle (_inu-washi_), the
finch (_hiwa_), the longtailed rose-finch (_benimashiko_), the
ouzel--brown (_akahara_), dusky (_tsugumi_) and water
(_kawa-garasu_)--the kingfisher (_kawasemi_), the crake (_kuina_) and
the tomtit (_kara_). Among game-birds there are the quail (_uzura_),
the heathcock (_ezo-racho_), the ptarmigan (_ezo-raicho_ or
_ezo-yama-dori_), the woodcock (hodo-shigi), the snipe
(_ta-shigi_)--with two special species, the solitary snipe
(_yama-shigi_) and the painted snipe (_tama-shigi_)--and the pheasant
(_kiji_). Of the last there are two species, the _kiji_ proper, a bird
presenting no remarkable features, and the copper pheasant, a
magnificent bird with plumage of dazzling beauty. Conspicuous above
all others, not only for grace of form but also for the immemorial
attention paid to them by Japanese artists, are the crane (_tsuru_)
and the heron (_sagi_). Of the crane there are seven species, the
stateliest and most beautiful being the _Grus japonensis_ (_tancho_ or
_tancho-zuru_), which stands some 5 ft. high and has pure white
plumage with a red crown, black tail-feathers and black upper neck. It
is a sacred bird, and it shares with the tortoise the honour of being
an emblem of longevity. The other species are the demoiselle crane
(_anewa-zuru_), the black crane (_kuro-zuru_ or _nezumi-zuru_, i.e.
_Grus cinerea_), the _Grus leucauchen_ (_mana-zuru_), the _Grus
monachus_ (_nabe-zuru_), and the white crane (_shiro-zuru_). The
Japanese include in this category the stork (_kozuru_), but it may be
said to have disappeared from the island. The heron (_sagi_)
constitutes a charming feature in a Japanese landscape, especially the
silver heron (_shira-sagi_), which displays its brilliant white
plumage in the rice-fields from spring to early autumn. The
night-heron (_goi-sagi_) is very common. Besides these waders there
are plover (_chidori_); golden (_muna-guro_ or _ai-guro_); gray
(_daizen_); ringed (_shiro-chidori_); spur-winged (_keri_) and
Harting's sand-plover (_ikaru-chidori_); sand-pipers--green
(_ashiro-shigi_) and spoon-billed (_hera-shigi_)--and water-hens
(_ban_). Among swimming birds the most numerous are the gull
(_kamome_), of which many varieties are found; the cormorant
(_u_)--which is trained by the Japanese for fishing purposes--and
multitudinous flocks of wild-geese (_gan_) and wild-ducks (_kamo_),
from the beautiful mandarin-duck (_oshi-dori_), emblem of conjugal
fidelity, to teal (_kogamo_) and widgeon (_hidori-gamo_) of several
species. Great preserves of wild-duck and teal used to be a frequent
feature in the parks attached to the feudal castles of old Japan, when
a peculiar method of netting the birds or striking them with falcons
was a favourite aristocratic pastime. A few of such preserves still
exist, and it is noticeable that in the Palace-moats of Tokyo all
kinds of water-birds, attracted by the absolute immunity they enjoy
there, assemble in countless numbers at the approach of winter and
remain until the following spring, wholly indifferent to the close
proximity of the city.

Of reptiles Japan has only 30 species, and among them is included the
marine turtle (_umi-game_) which can scarcely be said to frequent her
waters, since it is seen only at rare intervals on the southern coast.
This is even truer of the larger species (the _shogakubo_, i.e.
_Chelonia cephalo_). Both are highly valued for the sake of the shell,
which has always been a favourite material for ladies' combs and
hairpins. By carefully selecting certain portions and welding them
together in a perfectly flawless mass, a pure amber-coloured object is
obtained at heavy cost. Of the fresh-water tortoise there are two
kinds, the _suppon_ (_Trionyx japonica_) and the _kame-no-ko_ (_Emys
vulgaris japonica_). The latter is one of the Japanese emblems of
longevity. It is often depicted with a flowing tail, which appendix
attests close observation of nature; for the _mino-game_, as it is
called, represents a tortoise to which, in the course of many scores
of years, confervae have attached themselves so as to form an
appendage of long green locks as the creature swims about. Sea-snakes
occasionally make their way to Japan, being carried thither by the
Black Current (Kuro Shiwo) and the monsoon, but they must be regarded
as merely fortuitous visitors. There are 10 species of land-snakes
(_hebi_), among which one only (the _mamushi_, or _Trigonocephalus
Blomhoffi_) is venomous. The others for the most part frequent the
rice-fields and live upon frogs. The largest is the _aodaisho_
(_Elaphis virgatus_), which sometimes attains a length of 5 ft., but
is quite harmless. Lizards (_tokage_), frogs (_kawazu_ or _kaeru_),
toads (_ebogayeru_) and newts (_imori_) are plentiful, and much
curiosity attaches to a giant salamander (_sansho-uwo_, called also
_hazekai_ and other names according to localities), which reaches to a
length of 5 ft., and (according to Rein) is closely related to the
_Andrias Scheuchzeri_ of the Oeningen strata.

The seas surrounding the Japanese islands may be called a resort of
fishes, for, in addition to numerous species which abide there
permanently, there are migatory kinds, coming and going with the
monsoons and with the great ocean streams that set to and from the
shores. In winter, for example, when the northern monsoon begins to
blow, numbers of denizens of the Sea of Okhotsk swim southward to the
more genial waters of north Japan; and in summer the Indian Ocean and
the Malayan archipelago send to her southern coasts a crowd of
emigrants which turn homeward again at the approach of winter. It thus
falls out that in spite of the enormous quantity of fish consumed as
food or used as fertilizers year after year by the Japanese, the seas
remain as richly stocked as ever. Nine orders of fishes have been
distinguished as the piscifauna of Japanese waters. They may be found
carefully catalogued with all their included species in Rein's
_Japan_, and highly interesting researches by Japanese physiographists
are recorded in the Journal of the College of Science of the Imperial
University of Tokyo. Briefly, the chief fish of Japan are the bream
(_tai_), the perch (_suzuki_), the mullet (_bora_), the rock-fish
(_hatatate_), the grunter (_oni-o-koze_), the mackerel (_saba_), the
sword-fish (_tachi-uwo_), the wrasse (_kusabi_), the haddock (_tara_),
the flounder (_karei_), and its congeners the sole (_hirame_) and the
turbot (_ishi-garei_), the shad (_namazu_), the salmon (_shake_), the
_masu_, the carp (_koi_), the _funa_, the gold fish (_kingyo_), the
gold carp (_higoi_), the loach (_dojo_), the herring (_nishin_), the
_iwashi_(_Clupea melanosticta_), the eel (_unagi_), the conger eel
(_anago_), the coffer-fish (_hako-uwo_), the _fugu_ (_Tetrodon_), the
_ai_ (_Plecoglossus altivelis_), the sayori (_Hemiramphus sayori_),
the shark (same), the dogfish (_manuka-zame_), the ray (_e_), the
sturgeon (_cho-zame_) and the _maguro_ (_Thynnus sibi_).

The insect life of Japan broadly corresponds with that of temperate
regions in Europe. But there are also a number of tropical species,
notably among butterflies and beetles. The latter--for which the
generic term in Japan is _mushi_ or _kaichu_--include some beautiful
species, from the "jewel beetle" (_tama-mushi_), the "gold beetle"
(_kogane-mushi_) and the _Chrysochroa fulgidissima_, which glow and
sparkle with the brilliancy of gold and precious stones, to the jet
black _Melanauster chinensis_, which seems to have been fashioned out
of lacquer spotted with white. There is also a giant nasicornous
beetle. Among butterflies (_chocho_) Rein gives prominence to the
broad-winged kind (_Papilio_), which recall tropical brilliancy. One
(_Papilio macilentus_) is peculiar to Japan. Many others seem to be
practically identical with European species. That is especially true
of the moths (_yacho_), 100 species of which have been identified with
English types. There are seven large silk-moths, of which two only
(_Bombyx mori_ and _Antheraea yama-mai_) are employed in producing
silk. Fishing lines are manufactured from the cocoons of the
_genjiki-mushi_ (_Caligula japonica_), which is one of the commonest
moths in the islands. Wasps, bees and hornets, generically known as
_hachi_, differ little from their European types, except that they are
somewhat larger and more sluggish. The gad-fly (_abu_), the housefly
(_hai_), the mosquito (_ka_), the flea (_nomi_) and occasionally the
bedbug (called by the Japanese _kara-mushi_ because it is believed to
be imported from China), are all fully represented, and the dragon-fly
(_tombo_) presents itself in immense numbers at certain seasons.
Grasshoppers (_batta_) are abundant, and one kind (_inago_), which
frequent the rice-fields when the cereal is ripening, are caught and
fried in oil as an article of food. On the moors in late summer the
mantis (_kama-kiri-mushi_) is commonly met with, and the cricket
(_kurogi_) and the cockroach abound. Particularly obtrusive is the
cicada (_semi_), of which there are many species. Its strident voice
is heard most loudly at times of great heat, when the song of the
birds is hushed. The dragon-fly and the cicada afford ceaseless
entertainment to the Japanese boy. He catches them by means of a rod
smeared with bird-lime, and then tying a fine string under their
wings, he flies them at its end. Spiders abound, from a giant species
to one of the minutest dimensions, and the tree-bug is always ready to
make a destructive lodgment in any sickly tree-stem. The scorpion
(_sasori_) exists but is not poisonous.

Japanese rivers and lakes are the habitation of several--seven or
eight--species of fresh-water crab (_kani_), which live in holes on
the shore and emerge in the daytime, often moving to considerable
distances from their homes. Shrimps (_kawa-ebi_) also are found in the
rivers and rice-fields. These shrimps as well as a large species of
crab--_mokuzo-gani_--serve the people as an article of food, but the
small crabs which live in holes have no recognized _raison d'être_. In
Japan, as elsewhere, the principal crustacea are found in the sea.
Flocks of _lupa_ and other species swim in the wake of the tropical
fishes which move towards Japan at certain seasons. Naturally these
migratory crabs are not limited to Japanese waters. Milne Edwards has
identified ten species which occur in Australian seas also, and Rein
mentions, as belonging to the same category, the "helmet-crab" or
"horse-shoe crab" (_kabuto-gani_; _Limulus longispina_ Hoeven). Very
remarkable is the giant _Taka-ashi_--long legs (_Macrocheirus
Kaempferi_), which has legs 1½ metres long and is found in the seas of
Japan and the Malay archipelago. There is no lobster on the coasts of
Japan, but there are various species of crayfish (_Palinurus_ and
_Scyllarus_) the principal of which, under the names of ise-ebi
(_Palinurus japonicus_) and _kuruma-ebi_ (_Penaeus canaliculatus_) are
greatly prized as an article of diet.

Already in 1882, Dunker in his _Index Molluscorum Maris Japonici_
enumerated nearly 1200 species of marine molluscs found in the
Japanese archipelago, and several others have since then been added
to the list. As for the land and fresh-water molluscs, some 200 of
which are known, they are mainly kindred with those of China and
Siberia, tropical and Indian forms being exceptional. There are 57
species of _Helix_ (_maimaitsuburi_, _dedemushi_, _katatsumuri_ or
_kwagyu_) and 25 of Clausilia (_kiseru-gai_ or pipe-snail), including
the two largest snails in Japan, namely the _Cl. Martensi_ and the
_Cl. Yoko-hamensis_, which attain to a length of 58 mm. and 44 mm.
respectively. The mussel (_i-no-kai_) is well represented by the
species _numa-gai_ (marsh-mussel), _karasu-gai_ (raven-mussel),
_kamisori-gai_ (razor-mussel), _shijimi-no-kai_ (_Corbicula_), of
which there are nine species, &c. Unlike the land-molluscs, the great
majority of Japanese sea-molluscs are akin to those of the Indian
Ocean and the Malay archipelago. Some of them extend westward as far
as the Red Sea. The best known and most frequent forms are the _asari_
(_Tapes philippinarum_), the _hamaguri_ (_Meretrix lusoria_), the
_baka_ (_Mactra sulcataria_), the _aka-gai_ (_Scapharca inflata_), the
_kaki_ (oyster), the _awabi_ (_Haliotis japonica_), the _sazae_
(_Turbo cornutus_), the _hora-gai_ (_Tritonium tritonius_), &c. Among
the cephalopods several are of great value as articles of food, e.g.
the _surume_ (_Onychotheuthis Banksii_), the _tako_ (octopus), the
_shidako_ (Eledone), the _ika_ (Sepia) and the _tako-fune_
(Argonauta).

Greeff enumerates, as denizens of Japanese seas, 26 kinds of
sea-urchins (_gaze_ or _uni_) and 12 of starfish (_hitode_ or
_tako-no-makura_). These, like the mollusca, indicate the influence of
the Kuro Shiwo and the south-west monsoon, for they have close
affinity with species found in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. For
edible purposes the most valuable of the Japanese echinoderms is the
sea-slug or _bêche de mer_ (_namako_), which is greatly appreciated
and forms an important staple of export to China. Rein writes: "Very
remarkable in connexion with the starfishes is the occurrence of
_Asterias rubens_ on the Japanese coast. This creature displays an
almost unexampled frequency and extent of distribution in the whole
North Sea, in the western parts of the Baltic, near the Faroe Islands,
Iceland, Greenland and the English coasts, so that it may be regarded
as a characteristic North Sea echinoderm form. Towards the south this
starfish disappears, it seems, completely; for it is not yet known
with certainty to exist either in the Mediterranean or in the southern
parts of the Atlantic Ocean. In others also _Asterias rubens_ is not
known--and then it suddenly reappears in Japan. _Archaster typicus_
has a pretty wide distribution over the Indian Ocean; other
_Asteridae_ of Japan, on the other hand, appear to be confined to its
shores."

Japan is not rich in corals and sponges. Her most interesting
contributions are crust-corals (_Gorgonidae_, _Corallium_, _Isis_,
&c.), and especially flint-sponges, called by the Japanese _hoshi-gai_
and known as "glass-coral" (_Hyalonema sieboldi_). These last have not
been found anywhere except at the entrance of the Bay of Tokyo at a
depth of some 200 fathoms.

II.--THE PEOPLE

_Population._--The population was as follows on the 31st of December
1907:--

Population
Population. Males. Females. Totals. per sq. m.

Japan proper 24,601,658 24,172,627 48,774,285 330
Formosa (Taiwan) 1,640,778 1,476,137 3,116,915 224
Sakhalin 7,175 3,631 10,806 0.1
---------- ---------- ----------
Totals 26,249,611 25,652,395 51,902,006

The following table shows the rate of increase in the four quadrennial
periods between 1891 and 1907 in Japan proper:--

Average Population
Year. Males. Females. Totals. increase per
per cent. sq. m.

1891 20,563,416 20,155,261 40,718,677 1.09 272
1895 21,345,750 20,904,870 42,270,620 1.09 286
1899 22,330,112 21,930,540 44,260,652 1.14 299
1903 23,601,640 23,131,236 46,732,876 1.54 316
1907 24,601,658 24,172,627 48,774,285 1.13 330

The population of Formosa (Taiwan) during the ten-year period 1898-1907
grew as follows:--

Average Population
Year. Males. Females. Totals. increase per
per cent. sq. m.

1898 1,307,428 1,157,539 2,464,967 -- 182
1902 1,513,280 1,312,067 2,825,347 2.70 209
1907 1,640,778 1,476,137 3,116,915 2.37 224

According to quasi-historical records, the population of the empire in
the year A.D. 610 was 4,988,842, and in 736 it had grown to 8,631,770.
It is impossible to say how much reliance may be placed on these
figures, but from the 18th century, when the name of every subject had
to be inscribed on the roll of a temple as a measure against his
adoption of Christianity, a tolerably trustworthy census could always
be taken. The returns thus obtained show that from the year 1723 until
1846 the population remained almost stationary, the figure in the
former year being 26,065,422, and that in the latter year 26,907,625.
There had, indeed, been five periods of declining population in that
interval of 124 years, namely, the periods 1738-1744, 1759-1762,
1773-1774, 1791-1792, and 1844-1846. But after 1872, when the census
showed a total of 33,110,825, the population grew steadily, its
increment between 1872 and 1898 inclusive, a period of 27 years, being
10,649,990. Such a rate of increase invests the question of
subsistence with great importance. In former times the area of land
under cultivation increased in a marked degree. Returns prepared at
the beginning of the 10th century showed 2½ million acres under crops,
whereas the figure in 1834 was over 8 million acres. But the
development of means of subsistence has been outstripped by the growth
of population in recent years. Thus, during the period between 1899
and 1907 the population received an increment of 11.6% whereas the
food-producing area increased by only 4.4%. This discrepancy caused
anxiety at one time, but large fields suitable for colonization have
been opened in Sakhalin, Korea, Manchuria and Formosa, so that the
problem of subsistence has ceased to be troublesome. The birth-rate,
taking the average of the decennial period ended 1907, is 3.05% of the
population, and the death-rate is 2.05. Males exceed females in the
ratio of 2% approximately. But this rule does not hold after the age
of 65, where for every 100 females only 83 males are found. The
Japanese are of low stature as compared with the inhabitants of
Western Europe: about 16% of the adult males are below 5 ft. But there
are evidences of steady improvement in this respect. Thus, during the
period of ten years between 1893 and 1902, it was found that the
percentage of recruits of 5 ft. 5 in. and upward grew from 10.09 to
12.67, the rate of increase having been remarkably steady; and the
percentage of those under 5 ft. declined from 20.21 to 16.20.

_Towns._--There are in Japan 23 towns having a population of over
50,000, and there are 76 having a population of over 20,000. The
larger towns, their populations and the growth of the latter during
the five-year period commencing with 1898 were as follow:--

URBAN POPULATIONS

1898. 1903.

Tokyo 1,440,121 1,795,128
Osaka 821,235 988,200
Kioto 353,139 379,404
Nagoya 244,145 284,829
Kobe 215,780 283,839
Yokohama 193,762 324,776
Hiroshima 122,306 113,545
Nagasaki 107,422 151,727
Kanazawa 83,595 97,548
Sendai 83,325 93,773
Hakodate 78,040 84,746
Fukuoka 66,190 70,107
Wakayama 63,667 67,908
Tokushima 61,501 62,998
Kumamoto 61,463 55,277
Toyama 59,558 86,276
Okayama 58,025 80,140
Otaru 56,961 79,746
Kagoshima 53,481 58,384
Niigata 53,366 58,821
Sakai 50,203 --
Sapporo -- 55,304
Kure -- 62,825
Sasebo -- 52,607

The growth of Kure and Sasebo is attributable to the fact that they
have become the sites of large ship-building yards, the property of
the state.

The number of houses in Japan at the end of 1903, when the census was
last taken, was 8,725,544, the average number of inmates in each house
being thus 5.5.

_Physical Characteristics._--The best authorities are agreed that the
Japanese people do not differ physically from their Korean and Chinese
neighbours as much as the inhabitants of northern Europe differ from
those of southern Europe. It is true that the Japanese are shorter in
stature than either the Chinese or the Koreans. Thus the average height
of the Japanese male is only 5 ft. 3½ in., and that of the female 4 ft.
10½ in., whereas in the case of the Koreans and the northern Chinese the
corresponding figures for males are 5 ft. 5¾ in. and 5 ft. 7 in.
respectively. Yet in other physical characteristics the Japanese, the
Koreans and the Chinese resemble each other so closely that, under
similar conditions as to costume and coiffure, no appreciable difference
is apparent. Thus since it has become the fashion for Chinese students
to flock to the schools and colleges of Japan, there adopting, as do
their Japanese fellow-students, Occidental garments and methods of
hairdressing, the distinction of nationality ceases to be perceptible.
The most exhaustive anthropological study of the Japanese has been made
by Dr E. Baelz (emeritus professor of medicine in the Imperial
University of Tokyo), who enumerates the following sub-divisions of the
race inhabiting the Japanese islands. The first and most important is
the Manchu-Korean type; that is to say, the type which prevails in north
China and in Korea. This is seen specially among the upper classes in
Japan. Its characteristics are exceptional tallness combined with
slenderness and elegance of figure; a face somewhat long, without any
special prominence of the cheekbones but having more or less oblique
eyes; an aquiline nose; a slightly receding chin; largish upper teeth; a
long neck; a narrow chest; a long trunk, and delicately shaped, small
hands with long, slender fingers. The most plausible hypothesis is that
men of this type are descendants of Korean colonists who, in prehistoric
times, settled in the province of Izumo, on the west coast of Japan,
having made their way thither from the Korean peninsula by the island of
Oki, being carried by the cold current which flows along the eastern
coast of Korea. The second type is the Mongol. It is not very frequently
found in Japan, perhaps because, under favourable social conditions, it
tends to pass into the Manchu-Korean type. Its representative has a
broad face, with prominent cheekbones, oblique eyes, a nose more or less
flat and a wide mouth. The figure is strongly and squarely built, but
this last characteristic can scarcely be called typical. There is no
satisfactory theory as to the route by which the Mongols reached Japan,
but it is scarcely possible to doubt that they found their way thither
at one time. More important than either of these types as an element of
the Japanese nation is the Malay. Small in stature, with a well-knit
frame, the cheekbones prominent, the face generally round, the nose and
neck short, a marked tendency to prognathism, the chest broad and well
developed, the trunk long, the hands small and delicate--this Malay type
is found in nearly all the islands along the east coast of the Asiatic
continent as well as in southern China and in the extreme south-west of
Korean peninsula. Carried northward by the warm current known as the
Kuro Shiwo, the Malays seem to have landed in Kiushiu--the most
southerly of the main Japanese islands--whence they ultimately pushed
northward and conquered their Manchu-Korean predecessors, the Izumo
colonists. None of the above three, however, can be regarded as the
earliest settlers in Japan. Before them all was a tribe of immigrants
who appear to have crossed from north-eastern Asia at an epoch when the
sea had not yet dug broad channels between the continent and the
adjacent islands. These people--the Ainu--are usually spoken of as the
aborigines of Japan. They once occupied the whole country, but were
gradually driven northward by the Manchu-Koreans and the Malays, until
only a mere handful of them survived in the northern island of Yezo.
Like the Malay and the Mongol types they are short and thickly built,
but unlike either they have prominent brows, bushy locks, round deep-set
eyes, long divergent lashes, straight noses and much hair on the face
and the body. In short, the Ainu suggest much closer affinity with
Europeans than does any other of the types that go to make up the
population of Japan. It is not to be supposed, however, that these
traces of different elements indicate any lack of homogeneity in the
Japanese race. Amalgamation has been completely effected in the course
of long centuries, and even the Ainu, though the small surviving remnant
of them now live apart, have left a trace upon their conquerors.

The typical Japanese of the present day has certain marked physical
peculiarities. In the first place, the ratio of the height of his head
to the length of his body is greater than it is in Europeans. The
Englishman's head is often one-eighth of the length of his body or even
less, and in continental Europeans, as a rule, the ratio does not
amount to one-seventh; but in the Japanese it exceeds the latter figure.
In all nations men of short stature have relatively large heads, but in
the case of the Japanese there appears to be some racial reason for the
phenomenon. Another striking feature is shortness of legs relatively to
length of trunk. In northern Europeans the leg is usually much more than
one-half of the body's length, but in Japanese the ratio is one-half or
even less; so that whereas the Japanese, when seated, looks almost as
tall as a European, there may be a great difference between their
statures when both are standing. This special feature has been
attributed to the Japanese habit of kneeling instead of sitting, but
investigation shows that it is equally marked in the working classes who
pass most of their time standing. In Europe the same physical
traits--relative length of head and shortness of legs--distinguish the
central race (Alpine) from the Teutonic, and seem to indicate an
affinity between the former and the Mongols. It is in the face, however,
that we find specially distinctive traits, namely, in the eyes, the
eye-lashes, the cheekbones and the beard. Not that the eyeball itself
differs from that of an Occidental. The difference consists in the fact
that "the socket of the eye is comparatively small and shallow, and the
osseous ridges at the brows being little marked, the eye is less deeply
set than in the European. In fact, seen in profile, forehead and upper
lip often form an unbroken line." Then, again, the shape of the eye, as
modelled by the lids, shows a striking peculiarity. For whereas the open
eye is almost invariably horizontal in the European, it is often oblique
in the Japanese on account of the higher level of the upper corner. "But
even apart from obliqueness, the shape of the corners is peculiar in the
Mongolian eye. The inner corner is partly or entirely covered by a fold
of the upper lid continuing more or less into the lower lid. This fold
often covers also the whole free rim of the upper lid, so that the
insertion of the eye-lashes is hidden" and the opening between the lids
is so narrowed as to disappear altogether at the moment of laughter. As
for the eye-lashes, not only are they comparatively short and sparse,
but also they converge instead of diverging, so that whereas in a
European the free ends of the lashes are further distant from each other
than their roots, in a Japanese they are nearer together. Prominence of
cheekbones is another special feature, but it is much commoner in the
lower than in the upper classes, where elongated faces may almost be
said to be the rule. Finally, there is marked paucity of hair on the
face of the average Japanese--apart from the Ainu--and what hair there
is is nearly always straight. It is not to be supposed, however, that
because the Japanese is short of stature and often finely moulded, he
lacks either strength or endurance. On the contrary, he possesses both
in a marked degree, and his deftness of finger is not less remarkable
than the suppleness and activity of his body.

_Moral Characteristics._--The most prominent trait of Japanese
disposition is gaiety of heart. Emphatically of a laughter-loving
nature, the Japanese passes through the world with a smile on his lips.
The petty ills of life do not disturb his equanimity. He takes them as
part of the day's work, and though he sometimes grumbles, rarely, if
ever, does he repine. Exceptional to this general rule, however, is a
mood of pessimism which sometimes overtakes youths on the threshold of
manhood. Finding the problem of life insolvable, they abandon the
attempt to solve it and take refuge in the grave. It seems as though
there were always a number of young men hovering on the brink of such
suicidal despair. An example alone is needed finally to destroy the
equilibrium. Some one throws himself over a cataract or leaps into the
crater of a volcano, and immediately a score or two follow. Apparently
the more picturesquely awful the manner of the demise, the greater its
attractive force. The thing is not a product of insanity, as the term is
usually interpreted; letters always left behind by the victims prove
them to have been in full possession of their reasoning faculties up to
the last moment. Some observers lay the blame at the door of Buddhism, a
creed which promotes pessimism by begetting the anchorite, the ascetic
and the shuddering believer in seven hells. But Buddhism did not
formerly produce such incidents, and, for the rest, the faith of Shaka
has little sway over the student mind in Japan. The phenomenon is
modern: it is not an outcome of Japanese nature nor yet of Buddhist
teaching, but is due to the stress of endeavouring to reach the
standards of Western acquirement with grievously inadequate equipment,
opportunities and resources. In order to support himself and pay his
academic fees many a Japanese has to fall into the ranks of the physical
labourer during a part of each day or night. Ill-nourished, over-worked
and, it may be, disappointed, he finds the struggle intolerable and so
passes out into the darkness. But he is not a normal type. The normal
type is light-hearted and buoyant. One naturally expects to find, and
one does find, that this moral sunshine is associated with good temper.
The Japanese is exceptionally serene. Irascibility is regarded as
permissible in sickly children only: grown people are supposed to be
superior to displays of impatience. But there is a limit of
imperturbability, and when that limit is reached, the subsequent passion
is desperately vehement. It has been said that these traits go to make
the Japanese soldier what he is. The hardships of a campaign cause him
little suffering since he never frets over them, but the hour of combat
finds him forgetful of everything save victory. In the case of the
military class--and prior to the Restoration of 1867 the term "military
class" was synonymous with "educated class"--this spirit of stoicism was
built up by precept on a solid basis of heredity. The _samurai_
(soldier) learned that his first characteristic must be to suppress all
outward displays of emotion. Pain, pleasure, passion and peril must all
find him unperturbed. The supreme test, satisfied so frequently as to be
commonplace, was a shocking form of suicide performed with a placid
mien. This capacity, coupled with readiness to sacrifice life at any
moment on the altar of country, fief or honour, made a remarkably heroic
character. On the other hand, some observers hold that the education of
this stoicism was effected at the cost of the feelings it sought to
conceal. In support of that theory it is pointed out that the average
Japanese, man or woman, will recount a death or some other calamity in
his own family with a perfectly calm, if not a smiling, face. Probably
there is a measure of truth in the criticism. Feelings cannot be
habitually hidden without being more or less blunted. But here another
Japanese trait presents itself--politeness. There is no more polite
nation in the world than the Japanese. Whether in real courtesy of heart
they excel Occidentals may be open to doubt, but in all the forms of
comity they are unrivalled. Now one of the cardinal rules of politeness
is to avoid burdening a stranger with the weight of one's own woes.
Therefore a mother, passing from the chamber which has just witnessed
her paroxysms of grief, will describe calmly to a stranger--especially a
foreigner--the death of her only child. The same suppression of
emotional display in public is observed in all the affairs of life.
Youths and maidens maintain towards each other a demeanour of reserve
and even indifference, from which it has been confidently affirmed that
love does not exist in Japan. The truth is that in no other country do
so many dual suicides occur--suicides of a man and woman who, unable to
be united in this world, go to a union beyond the grave. It is true,
nevertheless, that love as a prelude to marriage finds only a small
place in Japanese ethics. Marriages in the great majority of cases are
arranged with little reference to the feelings of the parties concerned.
It might be supposed that conjugal fidelity must suffer from such a
custom. It does suffer seriously in the case of the husband, but
emphatically not in the case of the wife. Even though she be
cognisant--as she often is--of her husband's extra-marital relations,
she abates nothing of the duty which she has been taught to regard as
the first canon of female ethics. From many points of view, indeed,
there is no more beautiful type of character than that of the Japanese
woman. She is entirely unselfish; exquisitely modest without being
anything of a prude; abounding in intelligence which is never obscured
by egoism; patient in the hour of suffering; strong in time of
affliction; a faithful wife; a loving mother; a good daughter; and
capable, as history shows, of heroism rivalling that of the stronger
sex. As to the question of sexual virtue and morality in Japan, grounds
for a conclusive verdict are hard to find. In the interests of hygiene
prostitution is licensed, and that fact is by many critics construed as
proof of tolerance. But licensing is associated with strict segregation,
and it results that the great cities are conspicuously free from
evidences of vice, and that the streets may be traversed by women at all
hours of the day and night with perfect impunity and without fear of
encountering offensive spectacles. The ratio of marriages is
approximately 8.46 per thousand units of the population, and the ratio
of divorces is 1.36 per thousand. There are thus about 16 divorces for
every hundred marriages. Divorces take place chiefly among the lower
orders, who frequently treat marriage merely as a test of a couple's
suitability to be helpmates in the struggles of life. If experience
develops incompatibility of temper or some other mutually repellent
characteristic, separation follows as a matter of course. On the other
hand, divorces among persons of the upper classes are comparatively
rare, and divorces on account of a wife's unfaithfulness are almost
unknown.

Concerning the virtues of truth and probity, extremely conflicting
opinions have been expressed. The Japanese _samurai_ always prided
himself on having "no second word." He never drew his sword without
using it; he never gave his word without keeping it. Yet it may be
doubted whether the value attached in Japan to the abstract quality,
truth, is as high as the value attached to it in England, or whether the
consciousness of having told a falsehood weighs as heavily on the heart.
Much depends upon the motive. Whatever may be said of the upper class,
it is probably true that the average Japanese will not sacrifice
expediency on the altar of truth. He will be veracious only so long as
the consequences are not seriously injurious. Perhaps no more can be
affirmed of any nation. The "white lie" of the Anglo-Saxon and the
_hoben no uso_ of the Japanese are twins. In the matter of probity,
however, it is possible to speak with more assurance. There is
undoubtedly in the lower ranks of Japanese tradesmen a comparatively
large fringe of persons whose standard of commercial morality is
defective. They are descendants of feudal days when the mercantile
element, being counted as the dregs of the population, lost its
self-respect. Against this blemish--which is in process of gradual
correction--the fact has to be set that the better class of merchants,
the whole of the artisans and the labouring classes in general, obey
canons of probity fully on a level with the best to be found elsewhere.
For the rest, frugality, industry and patience characterize all the
bread-winners; courage and burning patriotism are attributes of the
whole nation.

There are five qualities possessed by the Japanese in a marked degree.
The first is frugality. From time immemorial the great mass of the
people have lived in absolute ignorance of luxury in any form and in the
perpetual presence of a necessity to economize. Amid these circumstances
there has emerged capacity to make a little go a long way and to be
content with the most meagre fare. The second quality is endurance. It
is born of causes cognate with those which have begotten frugality. The
average Japanese may be said to live without artificial heat; his paper
doors admit the light but do not exclude the cold. His brazier barely
suffices to warm his hands and his face. Equally is he a stranger to
methods of artificial cooling. He takes the frost that winter inflicts
and the fever that summer brings as unavoidable visitors. The third
quality is obedience; the offspring of eight centuries passed under the
shadow of military autocracy. Whatever he is authoritatively bidden to
do, that the Japanese will do. The fourth quality is altruism. In the
upper classes the welfare of the family has been set above the interests
of each member. The fifth quality is a genius for detail. Probably this
is the outcome of an extraordinarily elaborate system of social
etiquette. Each generation has added something to the canons of its
predecessor, and for every ten points preserved not more than one has
been discarded. An instinctive respect for minutiae has thus been
inculcated, and has gradually extended to all the affairs of life. That
this accuracy may sometimes degenerate into triviality, and that such
absorption in trifles may occasionally hide the broad horizon, is
conceivable. But the only hitherto apparent evidence of such defects is
an excessive clinging to the letter of the law; a marked reluctance to
exercise discretion; and that, perhaps, is attributable rather to the
habit of obedience. Certainly the Japanese have proved themselves
capable of great things, and their achievements seem to have been helped
rather than retarded by their attention to detail.

III.--LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

_Language._--Since the year 1820, when Klaproth concluded that the
Japanese language had sprung from the Ural-Altaic stock, philologists
have busied themselves in tracing its affinities. If the theories
hitherto held with regard to the origin of the Japanese people be
correct, close relationship should exist between the Japanese and the
Korean tongues, and possibly between the Japanese and the Chinese. Aston
devoted much study to the former question, but although he proved that
in construction the two have a striking similarity, he could not find
any corresponding likeness in their vocabularies. As far back as the
beginning of the Christian era the Japanese and the Koreans could not
hold intercourse without the aid of interpreters. If then the languages
of Korea and Japan had a common stock, they must have branched off from
it at a date exceedingly remote. As for the languages of Japan and
China, they have remained essentially different throughout some twenty
centuries in spite of the fact that Japan adopted Chinese calligraphy
and assimilated Chinese literature. Mr K. Hirai has done much to
establish his theory that Japanese and Aryan had a common parent. But
nothing has yet been substantiated. Meanwhile an inquirer is confronted
by the strange fact that of three neighbouring countries between which
frequent communication existed, one (China) never deviated from an
ideographic script; another (Korea) invented an alphabet, and the third
(Japan) devised a syllabary. Antiquaries have sought to show that Japan
possessed some form of script before her first contact with either Korea
or China. But such traces of prehistoric letters as are supposed to have
been found seem to be corruptions of the Korean alphabet rather than
independent symbols. It is commonly believed that the two Japanese
syllabaries--which, though distinct in form, have identical sounds--were
invented by Kukai (790) and Kibi Daijin (760) respectively. But the
evidence of old documents seems to show that these syllabaries had a
gradual evolution and that neither was the outcome of a single scholar's
inventive genius.

The sequence of events appears to have been this:--Japan's earliest
contact with an over-sea people was with the Koreans, and she made
some tentative efforts to adapt their alphabet to the expression of
her own language. Traces of these efforts survived, and inspired the
idea that the art of writing was practised by the Japanese before the
opening of intercourse with their continental neighbours. Korea,
however, had neither a literary nor an ethical message to deliver, and
thus her script failed to attract much attention. Very different was
the case when China presented her noble code of Confucian philosophy
and the literature embodying it. The Japanese then recognized a lofty
civilization and placed themselves as pupils at its feet, learning its
script and deciphering its books. Their veneration extended to
ideographs. At first they adapted them frankly to their own tongue.
For example, the ideographs signifying _rice_ or _metal_ or _water_ in
Chinese were used to convey the same ideas in Japanese. Each ideograph
thus came to have two sounds, one Japanese, the other Chinese--e.g.
the ideograph for _rice_ had for Japanese sound _kome_ and for Chinese
sound _bei_. Nor was this the whole story. There were two epochs in
Japan's study of the Chinese language: first, the epoch when she
received Confucianism through Korea; and, secondly, the epoch when she
began to study Buddhism direct from China. Whether the sounds that
came by Korea were corrupt, or whether the interval separating these
epochs had sufficed to produce a sensible difference of pronunciation
in China itself, it would seem that the students of Buddhism who
flocked from Japan to the Middle Kingdom during the Sui era (A.D.
589-619) insisted on the accuracy of the pronunciation acquired there,
although it diverged perceptibly from the pronunciation already
recognized in Japan. Thus, in fine, each word came to have three
sounds--two Chinese, known as the _kan_ and the _go_, and one
Japanese, known as the _kun_. For example:--

"KAN" "GO" JAPANESE
SOUND. SOUND. SOUND. MEANING.

_Sei_ _Jo_ _Koe_ Voice
_Nen_ _Zen_ _Toshi_ Year
_Jinkan_ _Ningen_ _Hito no aida_ Human being.

As to which of the first two methods of pronunciation had
chronological precedence, the weight of opinion is that the kan came
later than the _go_. Evidently this triplication of sounds had many
disadvantages, but, on the other hand, the whole Chinese language may
be said to have been grafted on the Japanese. Chinese has the widest
capacity of any tongue ever invented. It consists of thousands of
monosyllabic roots, each having a definite meaning. These
monosyllables may be used singly or combined, two, three or four at a
time, so that the resulting combinations convey almost any conceivable
shades of meaning. Take, for example, the word "electricity." The very
idea conveyed was wholly novel in Japan. But scholars were immediately
able to construct the following:--

Lightning. _Den._
Exhalation. _Ki._
Electricity. _Denki._
Telegram. _Dempo._ _Ho_ = tidings.
Electric light. _Dento._ _To_ = lamp.
Negative electricity. _Indenki._ _In_ = the negative principle.
Positive electricity. _Yodenki._ _Yo_ = the positive principle.
Thermo-electricity. _Netsudenki._ _Netsu_ = heat.
Dynamic-electricity. _Ryudo-denki._ _Ryudo_ = fluid.
Telephone. _Denwa._ _Wa_= conversation.

Every branch of learning can thus be equipped with a vocabulary.
Potent, however, as such a vehicle is for expressing thought, its
ideographic script constitutes a great obstacle to general
acquisition, and the Japanese soon applied themselves to minimizing
the difficulty by substituting a phonetic system. Analysis showed that
all the required sounds could be conveyed with 47 syllables, and
having selected the ideographs that corresponded to those sounds, they
reduced them, first, to forms called _hiragana_, and, secondly, to
still more simplified forms called _katakana_.

Such, in brief, is the story of the Japanese language. When we come to
dissect it, we find several striking characteristics. First, the
construction is unlike that of any European tongue: all qualifiers
precede the words they qualify, except prepositions which become
postpositions. Thus instead of saying "the house of Mr Smith is in
that street," a Japanese says "Smith Mr of house that street in is."
Then there is no relative pronoun, and the resulting complication
seems great to an English-speaking person, as the following
illustration will show:--

JAPANESE. ENGLISH.

_Zenaku wo saiban suru tame no_ The unique standard which is used
Virtue vice-judging sake of for judging virtue or vice is
_mochiitaru yuitsu no hyojun wa_ benevolent conduct solely.
used unique standard
_jiai no koi tada_
benevolence of conduct only
_kore nomi._
this alone.

It will be observed that in the above sentence there are two
untranslated words, _wo_ and _wa_. These belong to a group of four
auxiliary particles called _te_ _ni_ _wo_ _ha_ (or _wa_), which serve
to mark the cases of nouns, _te_ (or _de_) being the sign of the
instrumental ablative; _ni_ that of the dative; _wo_ that of the
objective, and _wa_ that of the nominative. These exist in the Korean
language also, but not in any other tongue. There are also polite and
ordinary forms of expression, often so different as to constitute
distinct languages; and there are a number of honorifics which
frequently discharge the duty of pronouns. Another marked peculiarity
is that active agency is never attributed to neuter nouns. A Japanese
does not say "the poison killed him" but "he died on account of the
poison;" nor does he say "the war has caused commodities to
appreciate," but "commodities have appreciated in consequence of the
war." That the language loses much force owing to this limitation
cannot be denied: metaphor and allegory are almost completely
banished.

The difficulties that confront an Occidental who attempts to learn
Japanese are enormous. There are three languages to be acquired:
first, the ordinary colloquial; second, the polite colloquial; and,
third, the written. The ordinary colloquial differs materially from
its polite form, and both are as unlike the written form as modern
Italian is unlike ancient Latin. "Add to this," writes Professor B. H.
Chamberlain, "the necessity of committing to memory two syllabaries,
one of which has many variant forms, and at least two or three
thousand Chinese ideographs, in forms standard and
cursive--ideographs, too, most of which are susceptible of three or
four different readings according to circumstance,--add, further, that
all these kinds of written symbols are apt to be encountered pell mell
on the same page, and the task of mastering Japanese becomes almost
Herculean." In view of all this there is a strong movement in favour
of romanizing the Japanese script: that is to say, abolishing the
ideograph and adopting in its place the Roman alphabet. But while
every one appreciates the magnitude of the relief that would thus be
afforded, there has as yet been little substantial progress. A
language which has been adapted from its infancy to ideographic
transmission cannot easily be fitted to phonetic uses.

_Dictionaries._--F. Brinkley, _An Unabridged Japanese-English
Dictionary_ (Tokyo, 1896); Y. Shimada, _English-Japanese Dictionary_,
(Tokyo, 1897); _Webster's Dictionary, trans. into Japanese_, (Tokyo,
1899); J. H. Gubbins, _Dictionary of Chinese-Japanese Words_ (3
vols., London, 1889); J. C. Hepburn, _Japanese-English and
English-Japanese Dictionary_ (London, 1903); E. M. Satow and I.
Masakata, _English-Japanese Dictionary_ (London, 1904).

_Literature._--From the neighbouring continent the Japanese derived the
art of transmitting ideas to paper. But as to the date of that
acquisition there is doubt. An authenticated work compiled A.D. 720
speaks of historiographers having been appointed to collect local
records for the first time in 403, from which it is to be inferred that
such officials had already existed at the court. There is also a
tradition that some kind of general history was compiled in 620 but
destroyed by fire in 645. At all events, the earliest book now extant
dates from 712. Its origin is described in its preface. When the emperor
Temmu (673-686) ascended the throne, he found that there did not exist
any revised collection of the fragmentary annals of the chief families.
He therefore caused these annals to be collated. There happened to be
among the court ladies one Hiyeda no Are, who was gifted with an
extraordinary memory. Measures were taken to instruct her in the genuine
traditions and the old language of former ages, the intention being to
have the whole ultimately dictated to a competent scribe. But the
emperor died before the project could be consummated, and for
twenty-five years Are's memory remained the sole depository of the
collected annals. Then, under the auspices of the empress Gemmyo, the
original plan was carried out in 712, Yasumaro being the scribe. The
work that resulted is known as the _Kojiki_ (_Record of Ancient
Matters_). It has been accurately translated by Professor B. H.
Chamberlain (_Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan_, vol. x.),
who, in a preface justly regarded by students of Japan as an exegetical
classic, makes the pertinent comment: "Taking the word Altaïc in its
usual acceptation, viz. as the generic name of all the languages
belonging to the Manchu, Mongolian, Turkish and Finnish groups, not only
the archaic, but the classical, literature of Japan carries us back
several centuries beyond the earliest extant documents of any other
Altaïc tongue." By the term "archaic" is to be understood the pure
Japanese language of earliest times, and by the term "classical" the
quasi-Chinese language which came into use for literary purposes when
Japan appropriated the civilization of her great neighbours. The
_Kojiki_ is written in the archaic form: that is to say, the language is
the language of old Japan, the script, although ideographic, is used
phonetically only, and the case-indicators are represented by Chinese
characters having the same sounds. It is a species of saga, setting
forth not only the heavenly beginnings of the Japanese race, but also
the story of creation, the succession of the various sovereigns and the
salient events of their reigns, the whole interspersed with songs, many
of which may be attributed to the 6th century, while some doubtless date
from the fourth or even the third. This _Kojiki_ marks the parting of
the ways. Already by the time of its compilation the influence of
Chinese civilization and Chinese literature had prevailed so greatly in
Japan that the next authentic work, composed only eight years later, was
completely Chinese in style and embodied Chinese traditions and Chinese
philosophical doctrines, not distinguishing them from their Japanese
context. This volume was called the _Nihongi_ (_Chronicles of Japan_).
It may be said to have wholly supplanted its predecessor in popular
favour, for the classic style--that is to say, the Chinese--had now come
to be regarded as the only erudite script. The _Chronicles_ re-traversed
much of the ground already gone over by the _Record_, preserving many of
the songs in occasionally changed form, omitting some portions,
supplementing others, and imparting to the whole such an exotic
character as almost to disqualify the work for a place in Japanese
literature. Yet this was the style which thenceforth prevailed among the
litterati of Japan. "Standard Chinese soon became easier to understand
than archaic Japanese, as the former alone was taught in the schools,
and the native language changed rapidly during the century or two that
followed the diffusion of the foreign tongue and civilization"
(CHAMBERLAIN). The neglect into which the _Kojiki_ fell lasted until the
17th century. Almost simultaneously with its appearance in type (1644)
and its consequent accessibility, there arose a galaxy of scholars
under whose influence the archaic style and the ancient Japanese
traditions entered a period of renaissance. The story of this period and
of its products has been admirably told by Sir Ernest Satow ("Revival of
Pure Shinto," _Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Japan_, vol. iii.),
whose essay, together with Professor Chamberlain's _Kojiki_, the same
author's introduction to _The Classical Poetry of the Japanese_, and Mr
W. G. Aston's _Nihongi_, are essential to every student of Japanese
literature. To understand this 17th century renaissance, knowledge of
one fact is necessary, namely, that about the year A. D. 810, a
celebrated Buddhist priest, Kukai, who had spent several years studying
in China, compounded out of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto a system
of doctrine called _Ryobu Shinto_ (Dual Shinto), the prominent tenet of
which was that the Shinto deities were merely transmigrations of
Buddhist divinities. By this device Japanese conservatism was
effectually conciliated, and Buddhism became in fact the creed of the
nation, its positive and practical precepts entirely eclipsing the
agnostic intuitionalism of Shinto. Against this hybrid faith several
Japanese scholars arrayed themselves in the 17th and 18th centuries, the
greatest of them being Mabuchi and Motoori. The latter's _magnum opus_,
_Kojikiden_ (_Exposition of the Record of Ancient Matters_), declared by
Chamberlain to be "perhaps the most admirable work of which Japanese
erudition can boast," consists of 44 large volumes, devoted to
elucidating the _Kojiki_ and resuscitating the Shinto cult as it existed
in the earliest days. This great work of reconstruction was only one
feature of the literary activity which marked the 17th and 18th
centuries, when, under Tokugawa rule, the blessing of long-unknown peace
came to the nation. Iyeyasu himself devoted the last years of his life
to collecting ancient manuscripts. In his country retreat at Shizuoka he
formed one of the richest libraries ever brought together in Japan, and
by will he bequeathed the Japanese section of it to his eighth son, the
feudal chief of Owari, and the Chinese section to his ninth son, the
prince of Kishu, with the result that under the former feudatory's
auspices two works of considerable merit were produced treating of
ancient ceremonials and supplementing the _Nihongi_. Much more
memorable, however, was a library formed by Iyeyasu's grandson the
feudal chief of Mito (1662-1700), who not only collected a vast quantity
of books hitherto scattered among Shinto and Buddhist monasteries and
private houses, but also employed a number of scholars to compile a
history unprecedented in magnitude, the _Dai-Nihon-shi_. It consisted of
240 volumes, and it became at once the standard in its own branch of
literature. Still more comprehensive was a book emanating from the same
source and treating of court ceremonials. It ran to more than 500
volumes, and the emperor honoured the work by bestowing on it the title
_Reigi Ruiten_ (_Rules of Ceremonials_). These compilations together
with the _Nihon Gwaishi_ (_History of Japan Outside the Court_), written
by Rai Sanyo and published in 1827, constituted the chief sources of
historical knowledge before the Meiji era. Rai Sanyo devoted twenty
years to the preparation of his 22 volumes and took his materials from
259 Japanese and Chinese works. But neither he nor his predecessors
recognized in history anything more than a vehicle for recording the
mere sequence of events and their relations, together with some account
of the personages concerned. Their volumes make profoundly dry reading.
Vicarious interest, however, attaches to the productions of the Mito
School on account of the political influence they exercised in
rehabilitating the nation's respect for the throne by unveiling the
picture of an epoch prior to the usurpations of military feudalism. The
struggles of the great rival clans, replete with episodes of the most
tragic and stirring character, inspired quasi-historical narrations of a
more popular character, which often took the form of illuminated
scrolls. But it was not until the Meiji era that history, in the modern
sense of the term, began to be written. During recent times many
students have turned their attention to this branch of literature. Works
of wide scope and clear insight have been produced, and the
Historiographers' section in the Imperial University of Tokyo has been
for several years engaged in collecting and collating materials for a
history which will probably rank with anything of the kind in existence.

Poetry.

In their poetry above everything the Japanese have remained impervious
to alien influences. It owes this conservation to its prosody. Without
rhyme, without variety of metre, without elasticity of dimensions, it
is also without known counterpart. To alter it in any way would be to
deprive it of all distinguishing characteristics. At some remote date
a Japanese maker of songs seems to have discovered that a peculiar and
very fascinating rhythm is produced by lines containing 5 syllables
and 7 syllables alternately. That is Japanese poetry (_uta_ or
_tanka_). There are generally five lines: the first and third
consisting of 5 syllables, the second, fourth and fifth of 7, making a
total of 31 in all. The number of lines is not compulsory: sometimes
they may reach to thirty, forty or even more, but the alternation of 5
and 7 syllables is compulsory. The most attenuated form of all is the
_hokku_ (or _haikai_) which consists of only three lines, namely, 17
syllables. Necessarily the ideas embodied in such a narrow vehicle
must be fragmentary. Thus it results that Japanese poems are, for the
most part, impressionist; they suggest a great deal more than they
actually express. Here is an example:--

Momiji-ha wo \
Kaze ni makasete | More fleeting than the glint of
Miru yori mo > withered leaf wind-blown, the
Hakanaki mono wa | thing called life.
Inochi nari keri /

There is no English metre with this peculiar cadence.

It is not to be inferred that the writers of Japan, enamoured as they
were of Chinese ideographs and Chinese style, deliberately excluded
everything Chinese from the realm of poetry. On the contrary, many of
them took pleasure in composing versicles to which Chinese words were
admitted and which showed something of the "parallelism" peculiar to
Chinese poetry, since the first ideograph of the last line was
required to be identical with the final ideograph. But rhyme was not
attempted, and the syllabic metre of Japan was preserved, the
alternation of 5 and 7 being, however, dispensed with. Such couplets
were called _shi_ to distinguish them from the pure Japanese _uta_ or
_tanka_. The two greatest masters of Japanese poetry were Hitomaro and
Akahito, both of the early 8th century, and next to them stands
Tsurayuki, who flourished at the beginning of the 10th century, and is
not supposed to have transmitted his mantle to any successor. The
choicest productions of the former two with those of many other poets
were brought together in 756 and embodied in a book called the
_Manyoshu (Collection of a Myriad Leaves)_. The volume remained unique
until the beginning of the 10th century, when (A.D. 905) Tsurayuki and
three coadjutors compiled the _Kokinshu (Collection of Odes Ancient
and Modern)_, the first of twenty-one similar anthologies between the
11th and the 15th centuries, which constitute the _Niju-ichi Dai-shu
(Anthologies of the One-and-Twenty Reigns)_. If to these we add the
_Hyaku-ninshu (Hundred Odes by a Hundred Poets)_ brought together by
Teika Kyo in the 13th century, we have all the classics of Japanese
poetry. For the composition of the _uta_ gradually deteriorated from
the end of the 9th century, when a game called _uta-awase_ became a
fashionable pastime, and aristocratic men and women tried to string
together versicles of 31 syllables, careful of the form and careless
of the thought. The _uta-awase_, in its later developments, may not
unjustly be compared to the Occidental game of _bouts-rimés_. The
poetry of the nation remained immovable in the ancient groove until
very modern times, when, either by direct access to the originals or
through the medium of very defective translations, the nation became
acquainted with the masters of Occidental song. A small coterie of
authors, headed by Professor Toyama, then attempted to revolutionize
Japanese poetry by recasting it on European lines. But the project
failed signally, and indeed it may well be doubted whether the
Japanese language can be adapted to such uses.

Influence of Women in Japanese Literature.

It was under the auspices of an empress (Suiko) that the first
historical manuscript is said to have been compiled in 620. It was
under the auspices of an empress (Gemmyo) that the _Record of Ancient
Matters_ was transcribed (712) from the lips of a court lady. And it
was under the auspices of an empress that the _Chronicles of Japan_
were composed (720). To women, indeed, from the 8th century onwards
may be said to have been entrusted the guardianship of the pure
Japanese language, the classical, or Chinese, form being adopted by
men. The distinction continued throughout the ages. To this day the
spoken language of Japanese women is appreciably simpler and softer
than that of the men, and to this day while the educated woman uses
the hiragana syllabary in writing, eschews Chinese words and rarely
pens an ideograph, the educated man employs the ideograph entirely,
and translates his thoughts as far as possible into the mispronounced
Chinese words without recourse to which it would be impossible for him
to discuss any scientific subject, or even to refer to the details of
his daily business. Japan was thus enriched with two works of very
high merit, the _Genji Monogatari_ (c. 1004) and the _Makura no Zoshi_
(about the same date). The former, by Murasaki no Shikibu--probably a
pseudonym--was the first novel composed in Japan. Before her time
there had been many _monogatari_ (narratives), but all consisted
merely of short stories, mythical or quasi-historical, whereas
Murasaki no Shikibu did for Japan what Fielding and Richardson did for
England. Her work was "a prose epic of real life," the life of her
hero, _Genji_. Her language is graceful and natural, her sentiments
are refined and sober; and, as Mr Aston well says, her "story flows on
easily from one scene of real life to another, giving us a varied and
minutely detailed picture of life and society in Kioto, such as we
possess for no other country at the same period." The _Makura no Zoshi
(Pillow Sketches)_, like the _Genji Monogatari_, was by a noble
lady--Sei Shonagon--but it is simply a record of daily events and
fugitive thoughts, though not in the form of a diary. The book is one
of the most natural and unaffected compositions ever written.
Undesignedly it conveys a wonderfully realistic picture of
aristocratic life and social ethics in Kioto at the beginning of the
11th century. "If we compare it with anything that Europe has to show
at this period, it must be admitted that it is indeed a remarkable
work. What a revelation it would be if we had the court life of
Alfred's or Canute's reign depicted to us in a similar way?"

The Dark Age.

The period from the early part of the 14th century to the opening of
the 17th is generally regarded as the dark age of Japanese literature.
The constant wars of the time left their impress upon everything. To
them is due the fact that the two principal works compiled during this
epoch were, one political, the other quasi-historical. In the former,
_Jinkoshoto-ki (History of the True Succession of the Divine
Monarchs)_, Kitabatake Chikafusa (1340) undertook to prove that of the
two sovereigns then disputing for supremacy in Japan, Go-Daigo was the
rightful monarch; in the latter, _Taihei-ki (History of Great Peace)_,
Kojima (1370) devoted his pages to describing the events of
contemporaneous history. Neither work can be said to possess signal
literary merit, but both had memorable consequences. For the
_Jinkoshoto-ki_, by its strong advocacy of the mikado's administrative
rights as against the usurpations of military feudalism, may be said
to have sowed the seeds of Japan's modern polity; and the _Taihei-ki_,
by its erudite diction, skilful rhetoric, simplification of old
grammatical constructions and copious interpolation of Chinese words,
furnished a model for many imitators and laid the foundations of
Japan's 19th-century style. The _Taihei-ki_ produced another notable
effect; it inspired public readers who soon developed into historical
_raconteurs_; a class of professionals who are almost as much in vogue
to-day as they were 500 years ago. Belonging to about the same period
as the _Jinkoshoto-ki_, another classic occupies a leading place in
Japanese esteem. It is the _Tsure-zure-gusa (Materials for Dispelling
Ennui)_, by Kenko-boshi, described by Mr Aston as "one of the most
delightful oases in Japanese literature; a collection of short
sketches, anecdotes and essays on all imaginable subjects, something
in the manner of Selden's _Table Talk_."

The Drama.

The so-called dark age of Japanese literature was not entirely
unproductive: it gave the drama (_No_) to Japan. Tradition ascribes
the origin of the drama to a religious dance of a pantomimic
character, called _Kagura_ and associated with Shinto ceremonials. The
No, however, owed its development mainly to Buddhist influence. During
the medieval era of internecine strife the Buddhist priests were the
sole depositaries of literary talent, and seeing that, from the close
of the 14th century, the Shinto mime (Kagura) was largely employed by
the military class to invoke or acknowledge the assistance of the
gods, the monks of Buddha set themselves to compose librettos for this
mime, and the performance, thus modified, received the name of No.
Briefly speaking, the No was a dance of the most stately character,
adapted to the incidents of dramas "which embrace within their scope a
world of legendary lore, of quaint fancies and of religious
sentiment." Their motives were chiefly confined to such themes as the
law of retribution to which all human beings are subjected, the
transitoriness of life and the advisability of shaking off from one's
feet the dust of this sinful world. But some were of a purely martial
nature. This difference is probably explained by the fact that the
idea of thus modifying the Kagura had its origin in musical
recitations from the semi-romantic semi-historical narratives of the
14th century. Such recitations were given by itinerant Bonzes, and it
is easy to understand the connexion between them and the No. Very soon
the No came to occupy in the estimation of the military class a
position similar to that held by the _tanka_ as a literary pursuit,
and the _gagaku_ as a musical, in the Imperial court. All the great
aristocrats not only patronized the No but were themselves ready to
take part in it. Costumes of the utmost magnificence were worn, and
the chiselling of masks for the use of the performers occupied scores
of artists and ranked as a high glyptic accomplishment. There are 335
classical dramas of this kind in a compendium called the _Yokyoka
Tsuge_, and many of them are inseparably connected with the names of
Kwanami Kiyotsugu (1406) and his son Motokiyo (1455), who are counted
the fathers of the art. For a moment, when the tide of Western
civilization swept over Japan, the No seemed likely to be permanently
submerged. But the renaissance of nationalism (_kokusui hoson_) saved
the venerable drama, and owing to the exertions of Prince Iwakura, the
artist Hosho Kuro and Umewaka Minoru, it stands as high as ever in
popular favour. Concerning the five schools into which the No is
divided, their characteristics and their differences--these are
matters of interest to the initiated alone.

The Farce.

The Japanese are essentially a laughter-loving people. They are highly
susceptible of tragic emotions, but they turn gladly to the brighter
phases of life. Hence a need was soon felt of something to dispel the
pessimism of the No, and that something took the form of comedies
played in the interludes of the No and called _Kyogen_ (mad words).
The Kyogen needs no elaborate description: it is a pure farce, never
immodest or vulgar.

The Theatre.

The classic drama No and its companion the Kyogen had two children,
the _Joruri_ and the _Kabuki_. They were born at the close of the 16th
century and they owed their origin to the growing influence of the
commercial class, who asserted a right to be amused but were excluded
from enjoyment of the aristocratic No and the Kyogen. The Joruri is a
dramatic ballad, sung or recited to the accompaniment of the _samisen_
and in unison with the movements of puppets. It came into existence in
Kioto and was thence transferred to Yedo (Tokyo), where the greatest
of Japanese playwrights, Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724), and a
musician of exceptional talent, Takemoto Gidayu, collaborated to
render this puppet drama a highly popular entertainment. It flourished
for nearly 200 years in Yedo, and is still occasionally performed in
Osaka. Like the No the Joruri dealt always with sombre themes, and was
supplemented by the Kabuki (farce). This last owed its inception to a
priestess who, having abandoned her holy vocation at the call of love,
espoused dancing as a means of livelihood and trained a number of
girls for the purpose. The law presently interdicted these female
comedians (_onna-kabuki_) in the interests of public morality, and
they were succeeded by "boy comedians" (_wakashu-kabuki_) who
simulated women's ways and were vetoed in their turn, giving place to
_yaro-kabuki_ (comedians with queues). Gradually the Kabuki developed
the features of a genuine theatre; the actor and the playwright were
discriminated, and, the performances taking the form of domestic drama
(_Wagoto_ and _Sewamono_) or historical drama (_Aragoto_ or
_Jidaimono_), actors of perpetual fame sprang up, as Sakata Tojuro and
Ichikawa Danjinro (1660-1704). Mimetic posture-dances (_Shosagoto_)
were always introduced as interludes; past and present
indiscriminately contributed to the playwright's subjects; realism was
carried to extremes; a revolving stage and all mechanical accessories
were supplied; female parts were invariably taken by males, who
attained almost incredible skill in these simulations; a chorus--relic
of the No--chanted expositions of profound sentiments or thrilling
incidents; and histrionic talent of the very highest order was often
displayed. But the _Kabuki-za_ and its _yakusha_ (actors) remained
always a plebeian institution. No _samurai_ frequented the former or
associated with the latter. With the introduction of Western
civilization in modern times, however, the theatre ceased to be
tabooed by the aristocracy. Men and women of all ranks began to visit
it; the emperor himself consented (1887) to witness a performance by
the great stars of the stage at the private residence of Marquis
Inouye; a dramatic reform association was organized by a number of
prominent noblemen and scholars; drastic efforts were made to purge
the old historical dramas of anachronisms and inconsistencies, and at
length a theatre (the _Yuraku-za_) was built on purely European lines,
where instead of sitting from morning to night witnessing one
long-drawn-out drama with interludes of whole farces, a visitor may
devote only a few evening-hours to the pastime. The Shosagoto has not
been abolished, nor is there any reason why it should be. It has
graces and beauties of its own. There remains to be noted the
incursion of amateurs into the histrionic realm. In former times the
actor's profession was absolutely exclusive in Japan. Children were
trained to wear their fathers' mantles, and the idea that a
non-professional could tread the hallowed ground of the stage did not
enter any imagination. But with the advent of the new regimen in Meiji
days there arose a desire for social plays depicting the life of the
modern generation, and as these "croppy dramas" (_zampatsu-mono_)--so
called in allusion to the European method of cutting the hair
close--were not included in the repertoire of the orthodox theatre,
amateur troupes (known as _soshi-yakusha_) were organized to fill the
void. Even Shakespeare has been played by these amateurs, and the
abundant wit of the Japanese is on the way to enrich the stage with
modern farces of unquestionable merit.

Literature of the Tokugawa Era.

The Tokugawa era (1603-1867), which popularized the drama, had other
memorable effects upon Japanese literature. Yedo, the shogun's
capital, displaced Kioto as the centre of literary activity. Its
population of more than a million, including all sorts and conditions
of men--notably wealthy merchants and mechanics--constituted a new
audience to which authors had to address themselves; and an
unparalleled development of mental activity necessitated wholesale
drafts upon the Chinese vocabulary. To this may be attributed the
appearance of a group of men known as _kangakusha_ (Chinese scholars).
The most celebrated among them were: Fujiwara Seikwa (1560-1619), who
introduced his countrymen to the philosophy of Chu-Hi; Hayashi Rasan
(1583-1657), who wrote 170 treatises on scholastic and moral subjects;
Kaibara Ekken (1630-1714), teacher of a fine system of ethics; Arai
Hakuseki (1657-1725), historian, philosopher, statesman and financier:
and Muro Kiuso, the second great exponent of Chu-Hi's philosophy.
"Japan owes a profound debt of gratitude to the _kangakusha_ of that
time. For their day and country they were emphatically the salt of
earth." But naturally not all were believers in the same philosophy.
The fervour of the followers of Chu-Hi (the orthodox school) could not
fail to provoke opposition. Thus some arose who declared allegiance to
the idealistic intuitionalism of Wang Yang-ming, and others advocated
direct study of the works of Confucius and Mencius. Connected with
this rejection of Chu-Hi were such eminent names as those of Ito
Junsai (1627-1718), Ito Togai (1617-1736), Ogyu Sorai (1666-1728) and
Dazai Shuntai (1679-1747). These Chinese scholars made no secret of
their contempt for Buddhism, and in their turn they were held in
aversion by the Buddhists and the Japanese scholars (_wagakusha_), so
that the second half of the 18th century was a time of perpetual
wrangling and controversy. The worshippers at the shrine of Chinese
philosophy evoked a reactionary spirit of nationalism, just as the
excessive worship of Occidental civilization was destined to do in the
19th century.

Apart from philosophical researches and the development of the drama,
as above related, the Tokugawa era is remarkable for folk-lore, moral
discourses, fiction and a peculiar form of poetry. This last does not
demand much attention. Its principal variety is the _haikai_, which is
nothing more than a _tanka_ shorn of its concluding fourteen
syllables, and therefore virtually identical with the _hokku_, already
described. The name of Basho is immemorially associated with this kind
of lilliputian versicle, which reached the extreme of impressionism. A
more important addition to Japanese literature was made in the 17th
century in the form of children's tales (_Otogibanashi_). They are
charmingly simple and graceful, and they have been rendered into
English again and again since the beginning of the Meiji era. But
whether they are to be regarded as genuine folk-lore or merely as a
branch of the fiction of the age when they first appeared in book
form, remains uncertain. Of fiction proper there was an abundance. The
pioneer of this kind of literature is considered to have been Saikaku
(1641-1693), who wrote sketches of everyday life as he saw it, short
tales of some merit and novels which deal with the most disreputable
phases of human existence. His notable successors in the same line
were two men of Kioto, named Jisho (1675-1745) and Kiseki (1666-1716).
They had their own publishing house, and its name _Hachimonji-ya_
(figure-of-eight store) came to be indelibly associated with this kind
of literature. But these men did little more than pave the way for the
true romantic novel, which first took shape under the hand of Santo
Kyoden (1761-1816), and culminated in the works of Bakin, Tanehiko,
Samba, Ikku, Shunsui and their successors. Of nearly all the books in
this class it may be said that they deal largely in sensationalism and
pornography, though it does not follow that their language is either
coarse or licentious. The life of the virtuous Japanese woman being
essentially uneventful, these romancists not unnaturally sought their
female types among dancing-girls and courtesans. The books were
profusely illustrated with woodcuts and chromoxylographs from pictures
of the _ukiyoe_ masters, who, like the playwright, the actor and the
romancer, ministered to the pleasure of the "man in the street." Brief
mention must also be made of two other kinds of books belonging to
this epoch; namely, the _Shingaku-sho_ (ethical essays) and the
_Jitsuroku-mono_ (true records). The latter were often little more
than historical novels founded on facts; and the former, though
nominally intended to engraft the doctrines of Buddhism and Shinto
upon the philosophy of China, were really of rationalistic tendency.

The Meiji Era.

Although the incursions made into Chinese philosophy and the revival
of Japanese traditions during the Tokugawa Epoch contributed
materially to the overthrow of feudalism and the restoration of the
Throne's administrative power, the immediate tendency of the last two
events was to divert the nation's attention wholly from the study of
either Confucianism or the _Record of Ancient Matters_. A universal
thirst set in for Occidental science and literature, so that students
occupied themselves everywhere with readers and grammars modelled on
European lines rather than with the Analects or the _Kojiki_. English
at once became the language of learning. Thus the three colleges which
formed the nucleus of the Imperial University of Tokyo were presided
over by a graduate of Michigan College (Professor Toyama), a member of
the English bar (Professor Hozumi) and a graduate of Cambridge (Baron
Kikuchi). If Japan was eminently fortunate in the men who directed her
political career at that time, she was equally favoured in those that
presided over her literary culture. Fukuzawa Yukichi, founder of the
Keio Gijuku, now one of Japan's four universities, did more than any
of his contemporaries by writing and speaking to spread a knowledge of
the West, its ways and its thoughts, and Nakamura Keiu laboured in the
same cause by translating Smiles's _Self-help_ and Mill's
_Representative Government_. A universal geography (by Uchida Masao);
a history of nations (by Mitsukuri Rinsho); a translation of
_Chambers's Encyclopaedia_ by the department of education; Japanese
renderings of Herbert Spencer and of Guizot and Buckle--all these made
their appearance during the first fourteen years of the epoch. The
influence of politics may be strongly traced in the literature of that
time, for the first romances produced by the new school were all of a
political character: _Keikoku Bidan_ (_Model for Statesmen_, with
Epaminondas for hero) by Yano Fumio; _Setchubai (Plum-blossoms in
snow)_ and _Kwakwan-o (Nightingale Among Flowers)_ by Suyehiro. This
idea of subserving literature to political ends is said to have been
suggested by Nakae Tokusuke's translation of Rousseau's _Contrat
social_. The year 1882 saw _Julius Caesar_ in a Japanese dress. The
translator was Tsubouchi Shoyo, one of the greatest writers of the
Meiji era. His _Shosetsu Shinsui (Essentials of a Novel)_ was an
eloquent plea for realism as contrasted with the artificiality of the
characters depicted by Bakin, and his own works illustrative of this
theory took the public by storm. He also brought out the first
literary periodical published in Japan, namely, the _Waseda Bungaku_,
so called because Tsubouchi was professor of literature in the Waseda
University, an institution founded by Count Okuma, whose name cannot
be omitted from any history of Meiji literature, not as an author but
as a patron. As illustrating the rapid development of familiarity with
foreign authors, a Japanese retrospect of the Meiji era notes that
whereas Macaulay's _Essays_ were in the curriculum of the Imperial
University in 1881-1882, they were studied, five or six years later,
in secondary schools, and pupils of the latter were able to read with
understanding the works of Goldsmith, Tennyson and Thackeray. Up to
Tsubouchi's time the Meiji literature was all in the literary
language, but there was then formed a society calling itself
_Kenyusha_, some of whose associates--as Bimyosai--used the colloquial
language in their works, while others--as Koyo, Rohan, &c.--went back
to the classical diction of the Genroku era (1655-1703). Rohan is one
of the most renowned of Japan's modern authors, and some of his
historical romances have had wide vogue. Meanwhile the business of
translating went on apace. Great numbers of European and American
authors were rendered into Japanese--Calderon, Lytton, Disraeli,
Byron, Shakespeare, Milton, Turgueniev, Carlyle, Daudet, Emerson,
Hugo, Heine, De Quincey, Dickens, Körner, Goethe--their name is legion
and their influence upon Japanese literature is conspicuous. In 1888 a
special course of German literature was inaugurated at the Imperial
University, and with it is associated the name of Mori Ogai, Japan's
most faithful interpreter of German thought and speech. Virtually
every literary magnate of the Occident has found one or more
interpreters in modern Japan. Accurate reviewers of the era have
divided it into periods of two or three years each, according to the
various groups of foreign authors that were in vogue, and every year
sees a large addition to the number of Japanese who study the
masterpieces of Western literature in the original.

Newspapers and Periodicals.

Newspapers, as the term is understood in the West, did not exist in
old Japan, though block-printed leaflets were occasionally issued to
describe some specially stirring event. Yet the Japanese were not
entirely unacquainted with journalism. During the last decades of the
factory at Deshima the Dutch traders made it a yearly custom to submit
to the governor of Nagasaki selected extracts from newspapers arriving
from Batavia, and these extracts, having been translated into
Japanese, were forwarded to the court in Yedo together with their
originals. To such compilations the name of _Oranda fusetsu-sho (Dutch
Reports)_ was given. Immediately after the conclusion of the first
treaty in 1857, the Yedo authorities instructed the office for
studying foreign books _(Bunsho torishirabe-dokoro)_ to translate
excerpts from European and American journals. Occasionally these
translations were copied for circulation among officials, but the bulk
of the people knew nothing of them. Thus the first real newspaper did
not see the light until 1861, when a Yedo publisher brought out the
_Batavia News_, a compilation of items from foreign newspapers,
printed on Japanese paper from wooden blocks. Entirely devoid of local
interest, this journal did not survive for more than a few months. It
was followed, in 1864, by the _Shimbun-shi (News)_, which was
published in Yokohama, with Kishida Ginko for editor and John Hiko for
sub-editor. The latter had been cast away, many years previously, on
the coast of the United States and had become a naturalized American
citizen. He retained a knowledge of spoken Japanese, but the
ideographic script was a sealed book to him, and his editorial part
was limited to oral translations from American journals which the
editor committed to writing. The _Shimbun-shi_ essayed to collect
domestic news as well as foreign. It was published twice a month and
might possibly have created a demand for its wares had not the editor
and sub-editor left for America after the issue of the 10th number.
The example, however, had now been set. During the three years that
separated the death of the _Shimbun-shi_ from the birth of the Meiji
era (October 1867) no less than ten quasi-journals made their
appearance. They were in fact nothing better than inferior magazines,
printed from wood-blocks, issued weekly or monthly, and giving little
evidence of enterprise or intellect, though connected with them were
the names of men destined to become famous in the world of literature,
as Fukuchi Genichiro, Tsuji Shinji (afterwards Baron Tsuji) and Suzuki
Yuichi. These publications attracted little interest and exercised no
influence. Journalism was regarded as a mere pastime. The first
evidence of its potentialities was furnished by the _Koko Shimbun (The
World)_ under the editorship of Fukuchi Genichiro and Sasano Dempei.
To many Japanese observers it seemed that the restoration of 1867 had
merely transferred the administrative authority from the Tokugawa
Shogun to the clans of Satsuma and Choshu. The _Koko Shimbun_ severely
attacked the two clans as specious usurpers. It was not in the mood of
Japanese officialdom at that time to brook such assaults. The _Koko
Shimbun_ was suppressed; Fukuchi was thrust into prison, and all
journals or periodicals except those having official sanction were
vetoed. At the beginning of 1868 only two newspapers remained in the
field. Very soon, however, the enlightened makers of modern Japan
appreciated the importance of journalism, and in 1871 the _Shimbun
Zasshi (News Periodical)_ was started under the auspices of the
illustrious Kido. Shortly afterwards there appeared in
Yokohama--whence it was subsequently transferred to Tokyo--the
_Mainichi Shimbun (Daily News)_, the first veritable daily and also
the first journal printed with movable types and foreign presses. Its
editors were Numa Morikage, Shimada Saburo and Koizuka Ryu, all
destined to become celebrated not only in the field of journalism but
also in that of politics. It has often been said of the Japanese that
they are slow in forming a decision but very quick to act upon it.
This was illustrated in the case of journalism. In 1870 the country
possessed only two quasi-journals, both under official auspices. In
1875 it possessed over 100 periodicals and daily newspapers. The most
conspicuous were the _Nichi Nichi Shimbun (Daily News)_, the _Yubin
Hochi (Postal Intelligence)_, the _Choya Shimbun (Government and
People News)_, the _Akebono Shimbun (The Dawn)_, and the _Mainichi
Shimbun (Daily News)_. These were called "the five great journals."
The _Nichi Nichi Shimbun_ had an editor of conspicuous literary
ability in Fukuchi Genichiro, and the _Hochi Shimbun_, its chief
rival, received assistance from such men as Yano Fumio, Fujita
Makichi, Inukai Ki and Minoura Katsundo. Japan had not yet any
political parties, but the ferment that preceded their birth was
abroad. The newspaper press being almost entirely in the hands of men
whose interests suggested wider opening of the door to official
preferment, nearly all editorial pens were directed against the
government. So strenuous did this campaign become that, in 1875, a
press law was enacted empowering the minister of home affairs and the
police to suspend or suppress a journal and to fine or imprison its
editor without public trial. Many suffered under this law, but the
ultimate effect was to invest the press with new popularity, and very
soon the newspapers conceived a device which effectually protected
their literary staff, for they employed "dummy editors" whose sole
function was to go to prison in lieu of the true editor.

Japanese journalistic writing in these early years of Meiji was marred
by extreme and pedantic classicism. There had not yet been any real
escape from the tradition which assigned the crown of scholarship to
whatever author drew most largely upon the resources of the Chinese
language and learning. The example set by the Imperial court, and
still set by it, did not tend to correct this style. The sovereign,
whether speaking by rescript or by ordinance, never addressed the bulk
of his subjects. His words were taken from sources so classical as to
be intelligible to only the highly educated minority. The newspapers
sacrificed their audience to their erudition and preferred classicism
to circulation. Their columns were thus a sealed book to the whole of
the lower middle classes and to the entire female population. The
_Yomiuri Shimbun (Buy and Read News)_ was the first to break away from
this pernicious fashion. Established in 1875, it adopted a style
midway between the classical and the colloquial, and it appended the
syllabic characters to each ideograph, so that its columns became
intelligible to every reader of ordinary education. It was followed by
the _Yeiri Shimbun (Pictorial Newspaper)_, the first to insert
illustrations and to publish _feuilleton_ romances. Both of these
journals devoted space to social news, a radical departure from the
austere restrictions observed by their aristocratic contemporaries.

Era of Political Parties.

The year 1881 saw the nation divided into political parties and within
measured distance of constitutional government. Thenceforth the great
majority of the newspapers and periodicals ranged themselves under the
flag of this or that party. An era of embittered polemics ensued. The
journals, while fighting continuously against each other's principles,
agreed in attacking the ministry, and the latter found it necessary to
establish organs of its own which preached the German system of state
autocracy. Editors seemed to be incapable of rising above the dead
level of political strife, and their utterances were not relieved even
by a semblance of fairness. Readers turned away in disgust, and
journal after journal passed out of existence. The situation was saved
by a newspaper which from the outset of its career obeyed the best
canons of journalism. Born in 1882, the _Jiji Shimpo (Times)_ enjoyed
the immense advantage of having its policy controlled by one of the
greatest thinkers of modern Japan, Fukuzawa Yukichi. Its basic
principle was liberty of the individual, liberty of the family and
liberty of the nation; it was always found on the side of broad-minded
justice, and it derived its materials from economic, social and
scientific sources. Other newspapers of greatly improved character
followed the _Jiji Shimpo_, especially notable among them being the
_Kokumin Shimbun_.

Commercial Journalism.

In the meanwhile Osaka, always pioneer in matters of commercial
enterprise, had set the example of applying the force of capital to
journalistic development. Tokyo journals were all on a literary or
political basis, but the _Osaka Asahi Shimbun (Osaka Rising Sun News)_
was purely a business undertaking. Its proprietor, Maruyama Ryuhei,
spared no expense to obtain news from all quarters of the world, and
for the first time the Japanese public learned what stores of
information may be found in the columns of a really enterprising
journal. Very soon the Asahi had a keen competitor in the _Osaka
Mainichi Shimbun_ (_Osaka Daily News_) and these papers ultimately
crushed all rivals in Osaka. In 1888 Maruyama established another
_Asahi_ in Tokyo, and thither he was quickly followed by his Osaka
rival, which in Tokyo took the name of _Mainichi Dempo_ (_Daily
Telegraph_). These two newspapers now stand alone as purveyors of
copious telegraphic news, and in the next rank, not greatly lower,
comes the _Jiji Shimpo_.

With the opening of the diet in 1890, politics again obtruded
themselves into newspaper columns, but as practical living issues now
occupied attention, readers were no longer wearied by the abstract
homilies of former days. Moreover, freedom of the press was at length
secured. Already (1887) the government had voluntarily made a great
step in advance by divesting itself of the right to imprison or fine
editors by executive order. But it reserved the power of suppressing
or suspending a newspaper, and against that reservation a majority of
the lower house voted, session after session, only to see the bill
rejected by the peers, who shared the government's opinion that to
grant a larger measure of liberty would certainly encourage licence.
Not until 1897 was this opposition fully overcome. A new law, passed
by both houses and confirmed by the emperor, took from the executive
all power over journals, except in cases of lèse majesté, and nothing
now remains of the former arbitrary system except that any periodical
having a political complexion is required to deposit security varying
from 175 to 1000 yen. The result has falsified all sinister
forebodings. A much more moderate tone pervades the writings of the
press since restrictions were entirely removed, and although there are
now 1775 journals and periodicals published throughout the empire,
with a total annual circulation of some 700 million copies,
intemperance of language, such as in former times would have provoked
official interference, is practically unknown to-day. Moreover, the
best Japanese editors have caught with remarkable aptitude the spirit
of modern journalism. But a few years ago they used to compile
laborious essays, in which the inspiration was drawn from Occidental
textbooks, and the alien character of the source was hidden under a
veneer of Chinese aphorisms. To-day they write terse, succinct,
closely-reasoned articles, seldom diffuse, often witty; and generally
free from extravagance of thought or diction. Incidentally they are
hastening the assimilation of the written and the spoken languages
(_genbun itchi_) which may possibly prelude a still greater reform,
abolition of the ideographic script. Yet, with few exceptions, the
profession of journalism is not remunerative. Very low rates of
subscription, and almost prohibitory charges for advertising, are
chiefly to blame.[1] The vicissitudes of the enterprise may be
gathered from the fact that, whereas 2767 journals and periodicals
were started between 1889 and 1894 (inclusive), no less than 2465
ceased publishing. The largest circulation recorded in 1908 was about
150,000 copies daily, and the honour of attaining that exceptional
figure belonged to the _Osaka Asahi Shimbun_. (F. By.)

IV.--JAPANESE ART

Pictorial Art.

_Painting and Engraving._--In Japanese art the impressionist element is
predominant. Pictures, as the term is understood in Europe, can scarcely
be said to have existed at any time in Japan. The artist did not depict
emotion: he depicted the subjects that produce emotion. Therefore he
took his motives from nature rather than from history; or, if he
borrowed from the latter, what he selected was a scene, not the pains or
the passions of its actors. Moreover, he never exhausted his subject,
but was always careful to leave a wide margin for the imagination of the
spectator. This latter consideration sometimes impelled him to represent
things which, to European eyes, seem trivial or insignificant, but which
really convey hints of deep significance. In short, Japanese pictures
are like Japanese poetry: they do not supply thought but only awaken it.
Often their methods show conventionalism, but it is conventionalism so
perfect and free in its allurements that nature seems to suggest both
the motive and the treatment. Thus though neither botanically nor
ornithologically correct, their flowers and their birds show a truth to
nature, and a habit of minute observation in the artist, which cannot be
too much admired. Every blade of grass, each leaf and feather, has been
the object of loving and patient study.

It has been rashly assumed by some writers that the Japanese do not
study from nature. All their work is an emphatic protest against this
supposition. It can in fact be shown conclusively that the Japanese have
derived all their fundamental ideas of symmetry, so different from
ours, from a close study of nature and her processes in the attainment
of endless variety. A special feature of their art is that, while often
closely and minutely imitating natural objects, such as birds, flowers
and fishes, the especial objects of their predilection and study, they
frequently combine the facts of external nature with a conventional mode
of treatment better suited to their purpose. During the long
apprenticeship that educated Japanese serve to acquire the power of
writing with the brush the complicated characters borrowed from Chinese,
they unconsciously cultivate the habit of minute observation and the
power of accurate imitation, and with these the delicacy of touch and
freedom of hand which only long practice can give. A hair's-breadth
deviation in a line is fatal to good calligraphy, both among the Chinese
and the Japanese. When they come to use the pencil in drawing, they
already possess accuracy of eye and free command of the brush. Whether a
Japanese art-worker sets himself to copy what he sees before him or to
give play to his fancy in combining what he has seen with some ideal in
his mind, the result shows perfect facility of execution and easy grace
in all the lines.

The beauties of the human form never appealed to the Japanese artist.
Associating the nude solely with the performance of menial tasks, he
deemed it worse than a solecism to transfer such subjects to his canvas,
and thus a wide field of motive was closed to him. On the other hand,
the draped figure received admirable treatment from his brush, and the
naturalistic school of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries reached a high
level of skill in depicting men, women and children in motion. Nor has
there ever been a Japanese Landseer. Sosen's monkeys and badgers
constitute the one possible exception, but the horses, oxen, deer,
tigers, dogs, bears, foxes and even cats of the best Japanese artists
were ill drawn and badly modelled. In the field of landscape the
Japanese painter fully reached the eminence on which his great Chinese
masters stood. He did not obey the laws of linear perspective as they
are formulated in the Occident, nor did he show cast shadows, but his
aerial perspective and his foreshortening left nothing to be desired. It
has been suggested that he deliberately eschewed chiaroscuro because his
pictures, destined invariably to hang in an alcove, were required to be
equally effective from every aspect and had also to form part of a
decorative scheme. But the more credible explanation is that he merely
followed Chinese example in this matter, as he did also in linear
perspective, accepting without question the curious canon that lines
converge as they approach the spectator.

Decorative Art.

It is in the realm of decorative art that the world has chiefly
benefited by contact with Japan. Her influence is second only to that of
Greece. Most Japanese decorative designs consist of natural objects,
treated sometimes in a more or less conventional manner, but always
distinguished by delicacy of touch, graceful freedom of conception and
delightfully harmonized tints. Perhaps the admiration which the Japanese
artist has won in this field is due not more to his wealth of fancy and
skilful adaptation of natural forms, than to his individuality of
character in treating his subjects. There is complete absence of
uniformity and monotony. Repetition without any variation is abhorrent
to every Japanese. He will not tolerate the stagnation and tedium of a
dull uniformity by mechanical reproduction. His temperament will not let
him endure the labour of always producing the same pattern. Hence the
repetition of two articles exactly like each other, and, generally, the
division of any space into equal parts are instinctively avoided, as
nature avoids the production of any two plants, or even any two leaves
of the same tree, which in all points shall be exactly alike.

[Illustration: PLATE I. PAINTING

(_These illustrations are reproduced by permission of the Kokka
Company, Tokyo, Japan._)

FIG. 1.--MANJUSRI, DEITY OF WISDOM. Kosé School (13th century).

FIG. 2.--WATERFALL OF NACHI. Attributed to Kanaoka (9th century).

FIG. 3.--PORTRAIT OF THE PRIEST DAITO-KOKUSHI. Tosa School (14th
century).]

[Illustration: PLATE II. PAINTING

FIG. 4.--PRIESTS CARICATURED BY ANIMALS. By Toba Sojo (1053-1140).

FIG. 5.--ESCAPE OF THE EMPEROR DISGUISED AS A WOMAN. Scene from the
Civil War. By Keion (13th century).]

The application of this principle in the same free spirit is the secret
of much of the originality and the excellence of the decorative art of
Japan. Her artists and artisans alike aim at symmetry, not by an equal
division of parts, as we do, but rather by a certain balance of
corresponding parts, each different from the other, and not numerically
even, with an effect of variety and freedom from formality. They seek
it, in fact, as nature attains the same end. If we take for instance the
skins of animals that are striped or spotted, we have the best
possible illustration of nature's methods in this direction. Examining
the tiger or the leopard, in all the beauty of their symmetrical
adornment, we do not see in any one example an exact repetition of the
same stripes or spots on each side of the mesial line. They seem to be
alike, and yet are all different. The line of division along the spine,
it will be observed, is not perfectly continuous or defined, but in part
suggested; and each radiating stripe on either side is full of variety
in size, direction, and to some extent in colour and depth of shade.
Thus nature works, and so, following in her footsteps, works the
Japanese artist. The same law prevailing in all nature's creation, in
the plumage of birds, the painting of butterflies' wings, the marking of
shells, and in all the infinite variety and beauty of the floral
kingdom, the lesson is constantly renewed to the observant eye. Among
flowers the orchids, with all their fantastic extravagance and mimic
imitations of birds and insects, are especially prolific in examples of
symmetrical effects without any repetition of similar parts or divisions
into even numbers.

The orchids may be taken as offering fair types of the Japanese artist's
ideal in all art work. And thus, close student of nature's processes,
methods, and effects as the Japanese art workman is, he ever seeks to
produce humble replicas from his only art master. Thus he proceeds in
all his decorative work, avoiding studiously the exact repetition of any
lines and spaces, and all diametrical divisions, or, if these be forced
upon him by the shape of the object, exercising the utmost ingenuity to
disguise the fact, and train away the eye from observing the weak point,
as nature does in like circumstances. Thus if a lacquer box in the form
of a parallelogram is the object, Japanese artists will not divide it in
two equal parts by a perpendicular line, but by a diagonal, as offering
a more pleasing line and division. If the box be round, they will seek
to lead the eye away from the naked regularity of the circle by a
pattern distracting attention, as, for example, by a zigzag breaking the
circular outline, and supported by other ornaments. A similar feeling is
shown by them as colourists, and, though sometimes eccentric and daring
in their contrasts, they never produce discords in their chromatic
scale. They have undoubtedly a fine sense of colour, and a similarly
delicate and subtle feeling for harmonious blending of brilliant and
sober hues. As a rule they prefer a quiet and refined style, using full
but low-toned colours. They know the value of bright colours, however,
and how best to utilize them, both supporting and contrasting them with
their secondaries and complementaries.

Division into Periods.

The development of Japanese painting may be divided into the following
six periods, each signalized by a wave of progress. (1) From the middle
of the 6th to the middle of the 9th century: the naturalization of
Chinese and Chino-Buddhist art. (2) From the middle of the 9th to the
middle of the 15th century: the establishment of great native schools
under Kosé no Kanaoka and his descendants and followers, the pure
Chinese school gradually falling into neglect. (3) From the middle of
the 15th to the latter part of the 17th century: the revival of the
Chinese style. (4) From the latter part of the 17th to the latter part
of the 18th century: the establishment of a popular school. (5) From the
latter part of the 18th to the latter part of the 19th century: the
foundation of a naturalistic school, and the first introduction of
European influence into Japanese painting; the acme and decline of the
popular school. (6) From about 1875 to the present time: a period of
transition.

First Period.

Tradition refers to the advent of a Chinese artist named Nanriu, invited
to Japan in the 5th century as a painter of the Imperial banners, but of
the labours and influence of this man and of his descendants we have no
record. The real beginnings of the study of painting and sculpture in
their higher branches must be dated from the introduction of Buddhism
from China in the middle of the 6th century, and for three centuries
after this event there is evidence that the practice of the arts was
carried on mainly by or under the instruction of Korean and Chinese
immigrants.

The paintings of which we have any mention were almost limited to
representations of Buddhist masters of the Tang dynasty (618-905),
notably Wu Tao-zu (8th century), of whose genius romantic stories are
related. The oldest existing work of this period is a mural decoration
in the hall of the temple of Horyu-ji, Nara, attributed to a Korean
priest named Donchô, who lived in Japan in the 6th century; and this
painting, in spite of the destructive effects of time and exposure,
shows traces of the same power of line, colour and composition that
stamps the best of the later examples of Buddhist art.

Second Period.

The native artist who crested the first great wave of Japanese painting
was a court noble named Kosé no Kanaoka, living under the patronage of
the emperor Seiwa (850-859) and his successors down to about the end of
the 9th century, in the midst of a period of peace and culture. Of his
own work few, if any, examples have reached us; and those attributed
with more or less probability to his hand are all representations of
Buddhist divinities, showing a somewhat formal and conventional design,
with a masterly calligraphic touch and perfect harmony of colouring.
Tradition credits him with an especial genius for the delineation of
animals and landscape, and commemorates his skill by a curious anecdote
of a painted horse which left its frame to ravage the fields, and was
reduced to pictorial stability only by the sacrifice of its eyes. He
left a line of descendants extending far into the 15th century, all
famous for Buddhist pictures, and some engaged in establishing a native
style, the _Wa-gwa-ryu_.

At the end of the 9th century there were two exotic styles of painting,
Chinese and Buddhist, and the beginning of a native style founded upon
these. All three were practised by the same artists, and it was not
until a later period that each became the badge of a school.

Chinese Style.

The Chinese style (_Kara-ryu_), the fundamental essence of all
Japanese art, has a fairly distinct history, dating back to the
introduction of Buddhism into China (A.D. 62), and it is said to have
been chiefly from the works of Wu Tao-zu, the master of the 8th
century, that Kanaoka drew his inspiration. This early Chinese manner,
which lasted in the parent country down to the end of the 13th
century, was characterized by a virile grace of line, a grave dignity
of composition, striking simplicity of technique, and a strong but
incomplete naturalistic ideal. The colouring, harmonious but subdued
in tone, held a place altogether secondary to that of the outline, and
was frequently omitted altogether, even in the most famous works.
Shadows and reflections were ignored, and perspective, approximately
correct for landscape distances, was isometrical for near objects,
while the introduction of a symbolic sun or moon lent the sole
distinction between a day and a night scene. The art was one of
imperfect evolution, but for thirteen centuries it was the only living
pictorial art in the world, and the Chinese deserve the honour of
having created landscape painting. The materials used were
water-colours, brushes, usually of deer-hair, and a surface of unsized
paper, translucid silk or wooden panel. The chief motives were
landscapes of a peculiarly wild and romantic type, animal life, trees
and flowers, and figure compositions drawn from Chinese and Buddhist
history and Taoist legend; and these, together with the grand aims and
strange shortcomings of its principles and the limited range of its
methods, were adopted almost without change by Japan. It was a noble
art, but unfortunately the rivalry of the Buddhist and later native
styles permitted it to fall into comparative neglect, and it was left
for a few of the faithful, the most famous of whom was a priest of the
14th century named Kawo, to preserve it from inanition till the great
Chinese renaissance that lent its stamp to the next period. The
reputed founder of Japanese caricature may also be added to the list.
He was a priest named Kakuyu, but better known as the abbot of Toba,
who lived in the 12th century. An accomplished artist in the Chinese
manner, he amused himself and his friends by burlesque sketches,
marked by a grace and humour that his imitators never equalled. Later,
the motive of the Toba pictures, as such caricatures were called,
tended to degenerate, and the elegant figures of Kakuyu were replaced
by scrawls that often substituted indecency and ugliness for art and
wit. Some of the old masters of the Yamato school were, however,
admirable in their rendering of the burlesque, and in modern times
Kyosai, the last of the Hokusai school, outdid all his predecessors in
the riotous originality of his weird and comic fancies. A new phase of
the art now lives in the pages of the newspaper press.

Buddhist Style.

The Buddhist style was probably even more ancient than the Chinese,
for the scheme of colouring distinctive of the Buddhist picture was
almost certainly of Indian origin; brilliant and decorative, and
heightened by a lavish use of gold, it was essential to the effect of
a picture destined for the dim light of the Buddhist temple. The style
was applied only to the representations of sacred personages and
scenes, and as the traditional forms and attributes of the Brahmanic
and Buddhist divinities were mutable only within narrow limits, the
subjects seldom afforded scope for originality of design or
observation of nature. The principal Buddhist painters down to the
14th century were members of the Kosé, Takuma and Kasuga lines, the
first descended from Kanaoka, the second from Takuma Taméuji (ending
10th century), and the third from Fujiwara no Motomitsu (11th
century). The last and greatest master of the school was a priest
named Meicho, better known as Cho Densu, the Japanese Fra Angelico. It
is to him that Japan owes the possession of some of the most stately
and most original works in her art, sublime in conception, line and
colour, and deeply instinct with the religious spirit. He died in
1427, at the age of seventy-six, in the seclusion of the temple where
he had passed the whole of his days.

Native Style.

The native style, _Yamato_ or _Wa-gwa-ryu_, was an adaptation of
Chinese art canons to motives drawn from the court life, poetry and
stories of old Japan. It was undoubtedly practised by the Kose line,
and perhaps by their predecessors, but it did not take shape as a
school until the beginning of the 11th century under Fujiwara no
Motomitsu, who was a pupil of Kose no Kinmochi; it then became known
as _Yamato-ryu_, a title which two centuries later was changed to that
of _Tosa_, on the occasion of one of its masters, Fujiwara no
Tsunetaka, assuming that appellation as a family name. The Yamato-Tosa
artists painted in all styles, but that which was the speciality of
the school, to be found in nearly all the historical rolls bequeathed
to us by their leaders, was a lightly-touched outline filled in with
flat and bright body-colours, in which verdigris-green played a great
part. The originality of the motive did not prevent the adoption of
all the Chinese conventions, and of some new ones of the artist's own.
The curious expedient of spiriting away the roof of any building of
which the artist wished to show the interior was one of the most
remarkable of these. Amongst the foremost names of the school are
those of Montomitsu (11th century), Nobuzane (13th century), Tsunetaka
(13th century), Mitsunobu (15th and 16th centuries), his son
Mitsushige, and Mitsuoki (17th century). The struggle between the
Taira and Minamoto clans for the power that had long been practically
abandoned by the Imperial line lasted through the 11th and the greater
part of the 12th centuries, ending only with the rise of Yoritomo to
the shogunate in 1185. These internecine disturbances had been
unfavourable to any new departure in art, except in matters
appertaining to arms and armour, and the strife between two puppet
emperors for a shadow of authority in the 14th century brought another
distracting element. It was not until the triumph of the northern
dynasty was achieved through the prowess of an interested champion of
the Ashikaga clan that the culture of ancient Japan revived. The
palace of the Ashikaga shoguns then replaced the Imperial court as the
centre of patronage of art and literature and established a new era in
art history.

Third Period.

Towards the close of the Ashikaga shogunate painting entered on a new
phase. Talented representatives of the Kose, Takuma and Tosa lines
maintained the reputation of the native and Buddhist schools, and the
long-neglected Chinese school was destined to undergo a vigorous
revival. The initiation of the new movement is attributed to a priest
named Jôsetsu, who lived in the early part of the 15th century, and of
whom little else is known. It is not even certain whether he was of
Chinese or Japanese birth; he is, however, believed by some authorities
to have been the teacher of three great artists--Shubun, Sesshu and Kano
Masanobu--who became the leaders of three schools: Shubun, that of the
pure Chinese art of the Sung and Yuan dynasties (10th and 13th
centuries); Sesshu, that of a modified school bearing his name; and
Masanobu, of the great Kano school, which has reached to the present
day. The qualities of the new Chinese schools were essentially those of
the older dynasties: breadth, simplicity, a daringly calligraphic play
of brush that strongly recalled the accomplishments of the famous
scribes, and a colouring that varied between sparing washes of flat
local tints and a strength and brilliancy of decorative effort that
rivalled even that of the Buddhist pictures. The motives remained almost
identical with those of the Chinese masters, and so imbued with the
foreign spirit were many of the Japanese disciples that it is said they
found it difficult to avoid introducing Chinese accessories even into
pictures of native scenery.

Sesshu (1421-1507) was a priest who visited China and studied painting
there for several years, at length returning in 1469, disappointed
with the living Chinese artists, and resolved to strike out a style of
his own, based upon that of the old masters. He was the boldest and
most original of Japanese landscape artists, leaving powerful and
poetic records of the scenery of his own land as well as that of
China, and trusting more to the sure and sweeping stroke of the brush
than to colour. Shubun was an artist of little less power, but he
followed more closely his exemplars, the Chinese masters of the 12th
and 13th centuries; while Kano Masanobu (1424-1520), trained in the
love of Chinese art, departed little from the canons he had learned
from Josetsu or Oguri Sotan. It was left to his more famous son,
Motonobu, to establish the school which bears the family name. Kano
Motonobu (1477-1559) was one of the greatest Japanese painters, an
eclectic of genius, who excelled in every style and every branch of
his art. His variety was inexhaustible, and he remains to this day a
model whom the most distinguished artists are proud to imitate. The
names of the celebrated members of this long line are too many to
quote here, but the most accomplished of his descendants was Tanyu,
who died in 1674, at the age of seventy-three. The close of this long
period brought a new style of art, that of the Korin school. Ogata
Korin (1653-1716) is claimed by both the Tosa and Kano schools, but
his work bears more resemblance to that of an erratic offshoot of the
Kano line named Sotatsu than to the typical work of the academies. He
was an artist of eccentric originality, who achieved wonders in bold
decorative effects in spite of a studied contempt for detail. As a
lacquer painter he left a strong mark upon the work of his
contemporaries and successors. His brother and pupil, Kenzan, adopted
his style, and left a reputation as a decorator of pottery hardly less
brilliant than Korin's in that of lacquer; and a later follower,
Hoitsu (1762-1828), greatly excelled the master in delicacy and
refinement, although inferior to him in vigour and invention. Down to
the end of this era painting was entirely in the hands of a patrician
caste--courtiers, priests, feudal nobles and their military retainers,
all men of high education and gentle birth, living in a polished
circle. It was practised more as a phase of aesthetic culture than
with any utilitarian views. It was a labour of loving service,
untouched by the spirit of material gain, conferring upon the work of
the older masters a dignity and poetic feeling which we vainly seek in
much of the later work. Unhappily, but almost inevitably, over-culture
led to a gradual falling-off from the old virility. The strength of
Meicho, Sesshu, Motonobu and Tanyu gave place to a more or less
slavish imitation of the old Japanese painters and their Chinese
exemplars, till the heirs to the splendid traditions of the great
masters preserved little more than their conventions and shortcomings.
It was time for a new departure, but there seemed to be no sufficient
strength left within the charmed circle of the orthodox schools, and
the new movement was fated to come from the masses, whose voice had
hitherto been silent in the art world.

Fourth Period: Popular School.

A new era in art began in the latter half of the 17th century with the
establishment of a popular school under an embroiderer's draughtsman
named Hishigawa Moronobu (c. 1646-1713). Perhaps no great change is ever
entirely a novelty. The old painters of the Yamato-Tosa line had
frequently shown something of the daily life around them, and one of the
later scions of the school, named Iwasa Matahei, had even made a
specialty of this class of motive; but so little is known of Matahei and
his work that even his period is a matter of dispute, and the few
pictures attributed to his pencil are open to question on grounds of
authenticity. He probably worked some two generations before the time of
Moronobu, but there is no reason to believe that his labours had any
material share in determining the creation and trend of the new school.

Moronobu was a consummate artist, with all the delicacy and
calligraphic force of the best of the Tosa masters, whom he
undoubtedly strove to emulate in style; and his pictures are not only
the most beautiful but also the most trustworthy records of the life
of his time. It was not to his paintings, however, that he owed his
greatest influence, but to the powerful impulse he gave to the
illustration of books and broadsides by wood-engravings. It is true
that illustrated books were known as early as 1608, if not before, but
they were few and unattractive, and did little to inaugurate the great
stream of _ehon_, or picture books, that were to take so large a share
in the education of his own class. It is to Moronobu that Japan owes
the popularization of artistic wood-engravings, for nothing before his
series of xylographic albums approached his best work in strength and
beauty, and nothing since has surpassed it. Later there came abundant
aid to the cause of popular art, partly from pupils of the Kano and
Tosa schools, but mainly from the artisan class. Most of these artists
were designers for books and broadsides by calling, painters only on
occasion, but a few of them did nothing for the engravers. Throughout
the whole of this period, embracing about a hundred years, there still
continued to work, altogether apart from the men who were making the
success of popular art, a large number of able painters of the Kano,
Tosa and Chinese schools, who multiplied pictures that had every merit
except that of originality. These men, living in the past, paid little
attention to the great popular movement, which seemed to be quite
outside their social and artistic sphere and scarcely worthy of
cultured criticism. It was in the middle of the 18th century that the
decorative, but relatively feeble, Chinese art of the later Ming
period found favour in Japan and a clever exponent in a painter named
Ryurikyo. It must be regarded as a sad decadence from the old Chinese
ideals, which was further hastened, from about 1765, by the popularity
of the southern Chinese style. This was a weak affectation that found
its chief votaries amongst literary men ambitious of an easily earned
artistic reputation. The principal Japanese supporter of this school
was Taigado (1722-1775), but the volume of copies of his sketches,
_Taigado sansui juseki_, published about 1870, is one of the least
attractive albums ever printed in Japan.

Fifth Period: Naturalistic School.

The fifth period was introduced by a movement as momentous as that which
stamped its predecessor--the foundation of a naturalistic school under a
group of men outside the orthodox academical circles. The naturalistic
principle was by no means a new one; some of the old Chinese masters
were naturalistic in a broad and noble manner, and their Japanese
followers could be admirably and minutely accurate when they pleased;
but too many of the latter were content to construct their pictures out
of fragmentary reminiscences of ancient Chinese masterpieces, not
presuming to see a rock, a tree, an ox, or a human figure, except
through Chinese spectacles. It was a farmer's son named Okyo, trained in
his youth to paint in the Chinese manner, who was first bold enough to
adopt as a canon what his predecessors had only admitted under rare
exceptions, the principle of an exact imitation of nature.
Unfortunately, even he had not all the courage of his creed, and while
he would paint a bird or a fish with perfect realism, he no more dared
to trust his eyes in larger motives than did the most devout follower of
Shubun or Motonobu. He was essentially a painter of the classical
schools, with the speciality of elaborate reproduction of detail in
certain sections of animal life, but fortunately this partial concession
to truth, emphasized as it was by a rare sense of beauty, did large
service.

Okyo rose into notice about 1775, and a number of pupils flocked to
his studio in Shijo Street, Kioto (whence Shijo school). Amongst these
the most famous were Goshun (1742-1811), who is sometimes regarded as
one of the founders of the school; Sosen (1757-1821), an animal
painter of remarkable power, but especially celebrated for pictures of
monkey life; Shuho, the younger brother of the last, also an animal
painter; Rosetsu (1755-1799), the best landscape painter of his
school; Keibun, a younger brother of Goshun, and some later followers
of scarcely less fame, notably Hoyen, a pupil of Keibun; Tessan, an
adopted son of Sosen; Ippo and Yosai (1788-1878), well known for a
remarkable set of volumes, the _Zenken kojitsu_, containing a long
series of portraits of ancient Japanese celebrities. Ozui and Ojyu,
the sons of Okyo, painted in the style of their father, but failed to
attain great eminence. Lastly, amongst the associates of the Shijo
master was the celebrated Ganku (1798-1837), who developed a special
style of his own, and is sometimes regarded as the founder of a
distinct school. He was, however, greatly influenced by Okyo's
example, and his sons, Gantai, Ganryo, and Gantoku or Renzan, drifted
into a manner almost indistinguishable from that of the Shijo school.

European School.

It remains only to allude to the European school, if school it can be
called, founded by Kokan and Denkichi, two contemporaries of Okyo. These
artists, at first educated in one of the native schools, obtained from a
Hollander in Nagasaki some training in the methods and principles of
European painting, and left a few oil paintings in which the laws of
light and shade and perspective were correctly observed. They were not,
however, of sufficient capacity to render the adopted manner more than a
subject of curiosity, except to a few followers who have reached down to
the present generation. It is possible that the essays in perspective
found in the pictures of Hokusai, Hiroshige, and some of the popular
artists of the 19th century, were suggested by Kokan's drawings and
writings.

Sixth Period.

The sixth period began about 1875, when an Italian artist was engaged by
the government as a professor of painting in the Engineering College at
Tokyo. Since that time some distinguished European artists have visited
Japan, and several Japanese students have made a pilgrimage to Europe to
see for themselves what lessons may be gained from Western art. These
students, confronted by a strong reaction in favour of pure Japanese
art, have fought manfully to win public sympathy, and though their
success is not yet crowned, it is not impossible that an Occidental
school may ultimately be established. Thus far the great obstacle has
been that pictures painted in accordance with Western canons are not
suited to Japanese interiors and do not appeal to the taste of the most
renowned Japanese connoisseurs. Somewhat more successful has been an
attempt--inaugurated by Hashimoto Gaho and Kawabata Gyokusho--to combine
the art of the West with that of Japan by adding to the latter the
chiaroscuro and the linear perspective of the former. If the disciples
of this school could shake off the Sesshu tradition of strong outlines
and adopt the Kano Motonobu revelation of modelling by mass only, their
work would stand on a high place. But they, too, receive little
encouragement. The tendency of the time is conservative in art matters.

A series of magnificent publications has popularized art and its best
products in a manner such as could never have been anticipated. The
_Kokka_, a monthly magazine richly and beautifully illustrated and
edited by Japanese students, has reached its 223rd number; the _Shimbi
Daikan_, a colossal album containing chromoxylographic facsimiles of
celebrated examples in every branch of art, has been completed in 20
volumes; the masterpieces of Korin and Motonobu have been reproduced
in similar albums; the masterpieces of the _Ukiyo-e_ are in process of
publication, and it seems certain that the Japanese nation will
ultimately be educated to such a knowledge of its own art as will make
for permanent appreciation. Meanwhile the intrepid group of painters
in oil plod along unflinchingly, having formed themselves into an
association (the _hakuba-kai_) which gives periodical exhibitions, and
there are, in Tokyo and Kioto, well-organized and flourishing art
schools which receive a substantial measure of state aid, as well as a
private academy founded by Okakura with a band of seceders from the
hybrid fashions of the Gaho system. Altogether the nation seems to be
growing more and more convinced that its art future should not wander
far from the lines of the past. (W. An.; F. By.)

Engraving.

Although a little engraving on copper has been practised in Japan of
late years, it is of no artistic value, and the only branch of the art
which calls for recognition is the cutting of wood-blocks for use either
with colours or without. This, however, is of supreme importance, and as
its technique differs in most respects from the European practice, it
demands a somewhat detailed description.

The wood used is generally that of the cherry-tree, _sakura_, which
has a grain of peculiar evenness and hardness. It is worked plankwise
to a surface parallel with the grain, and not across it. A design is
drawn by the artist, to whom the whole credit of the production
generally belongs, with a brush on thin paper, which is then pasted
face downwards on the block. The engraver, who is very rarely the
designer, then cuts the outlines into the block with a knife,
afterwards removing the superfluous wood with gouges and chisels.
Great skill is shown in this operation, which achieves perhaps the
finest facsimile reproduction of drawings ever known without the aid
of photographic processes. A peculiar but highly artistic device is
that of gradually rounding off the surfaces where necessary, in order
to obtain in printing a soft and graduated mass of colour which does
not terminate too abruptly. In printing with colours a separate block
is made in this manner for each tint, the first containing as a rule
the mere lines of the composition, and the others providing for the
masses of tint to be applied. In all printing the paper is laid on the
upper surface of the block, and the impression rubbed off with a
circular pad, composed of twisted cord within a covering of paper
cloth and bamboo-leaf, and called the _baren_. In colour-printing, the
colours, which are much the same as those in use in Europe, are mixed,
with rice-paste as a medium, on the block for each operation, and the
power of regulating the result given by this custom to an intelligent
craftsman (who, again, is neither the artist nor the engraver) was
productive in the best period of very beautiful and artistic effects,
such as could never have been obtained by any mechanical device. A
wonderfully accurate register, or successive superposition of each
block, is got mainly by the skill of the printer, who is assisted only
by a mark defining one corner and another mark showing the opposite
side limit.

The origins of this method of colour-printing are obscure. It has been
practised to some extent in China and Korea, but there is no evidence of
its antiquity in these countries. It appears to be one of the few
indigenous arts of Japan. But before accepting this conclusion as final,
one must not lose sight of the fact that the so-called chiaroscuro
engraving was at the height of its use in Italy at the same time that
embassies from the Christians in Japan visited Rome, and that it is thus
possible that the suggestion at least may have been derived from
Europe. The fact that no traces of it have been discovered in Japan
would be easily accounted for, when it is remembered that the examples
taken home would almost certainly have been religious pictures, would
have been preserved in well-known and accessible places, and would thus
have been entirely destroyed in the terrible and minute extermination of
Christianity by Hideyoshi at the beginning of the 17th century. Japanese
tradition ascribes the invention of colour-printing to Idzumiya
Gonshiro, who, about the end of the 17th century, first made use of a
second block to apply a tint of red (_beni_) to his prints. Sir Ernest
Satow states more definitely that "Sakakibara attributes its origin to
the year 1695, when portraits of the actor Ichikawa Danjiuro, coloured
by this process, were sold in the streets of Yedo for five cash apiece."
The credit of the invention is also given to Torii Kiyonobu, who worked
at about this time, and, indeed, is said to have made the prints above
mentioned. But authentic examples of his work now remaining, printed in
three colours, seem to show a technique too complete for an origin quite
so recent. However, he is the first artist of importance to have
produced the broadsheets--for many years chiefly portraits of notable
actors, historical characters and famous courtesans--which are the
leading and characteristic use to which the art was applied. Pupils, the
chief of whom were Kiyomasa, Kiyotsume, Kiyomitsu, Kiyonaga and
Kiyomine, carried on his tradition until the end of the 18th century,
the three earlier using but few colours, while the works of the two last
named show a technical mastery of all the capabilities of the process.

The next artist of importance is Suzuki Harunobu (worked c.
1760-1780), to whom the Japanese sometimes ascribe the invention of
the process, probably on the grounds of an improvement in his
technique, and the fact that he seems to have been one of the first of
the colour-print makers to attain great popularity. Katsukawa Shunsho
(d. 1792) must next be mentioned, not only for the beauty of his own
work, but because he was the first master of Hokusai; then Yeishi
(worked c. 1781-1800), the founder of the Hosoda school; Utamaro
(1754-1806), whose prints of beautiful women were collected by
Dutchmen while he was still alive, and have had in our own day a vogue
greater, perhaps, than those of any other of his fellows; and Toyokuni
I. (1768-1825), who especially devoted himself to broadsheet portraits
of actors and dramatic scenes. The greatest of all the artists of the
popular school was, however, Hokusai (1760-1849). His most famous
series of broadsheets is the _Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji_
(1823-1829), which, in spite of the conventional title, includes at
least forty-six. His work is catalogued in detail by E. de Goncourt.
At the beginning of the 19th century the process was technically at
its greatest height, and in the hands of the great landscape artist,
Hiroshige I., as well as the pupils of Toyokuni I.--Kunisada and
Kuniyoshi--and those of Hokusai, it at first kept up an excellent
level. But an undue increase in the number of blocks used, combined
with the inferiority of the imported colours and carelessness or loss
of skill in printing, brought about a rapid decline soon after 1840.
This continued until the old traditions were well-nigh exhausted, but
since 1880 there has been a distinct revival. The prints of the
present day are cut with great skill, and the designs are excellent,
though both these branches seem to lack the vigour of conception and
breadth of execution of the older masters. The colours now used are
almost invariably of cheap German origin, and though they have a
certain prettiness--ephemeral, it is to be feared--they again can not
compare with the old native productions. Among workers in this style,
Yoshitoshi (d. c. 1898) was perhaps the best. Living artists in 1908
included Toshihide, Miyagawa Shuntei, Yoshiu Chikanobu--one of the
elder generation--Tomisuka Yeishu, Toshikata and Gekko. Formerly the
colour-print artist was of mean extraction and low social position,
but he now has some recognition at the hands of the professors of more
esteemed branches of art. This change is doubtless due in part to
Occidental appreciation of the products of his art, which were
formerly held in little honour by his own countrymen, the place
assigned to them being scarcely higher than that accorded to magazine
illustrations in Europe and America. But it is also largely due to his
displays of unsurpassed skill in preparing xylographs for the
beautiful art publications issued by the _Shimbi Shoin_ and the
_Kokka_ company. These xylographs prove that the Japanese art-artisan
of the present day was not surpassed by the greatest of his
predecessors in this line. (E. F. S.; F. By.)

Book Illustration.

The history of the illustrated book in Japan may be said to begin with
the _Ise monogatari_, a romance first published in the 10th century, of
which an edition adorned with woodcuts appeared in 1608. In the course
of the 17th century many other works of the same nature were issued,
including some in which the cuts were roughly coloured by hand; but the
execution of these is not as good as contemporary European work. The
date of the first use of colour-printing in Japanese book illustration
is uncertain. In 1667 a collection of designs for _kimono_ (garments)
appeared, in which inks of several colours were made use of; but these
were only employed in turn for single printings, and in no case were two
of them used on the same print. It is certain, however, that the mere
use of coloured inks must soon have suggested the combination of two or
more of them, and it is probable that examples of this will be
discovered much earlier in date than those known at present.

About the year 1680 Hishigawa Moronobu achieved a great popularity for
woodcut illustration, and laid the foundations of the splendid school
which followed. The names of the engravers who cut his designs are not
known, and in fact the reputation of these craftsmen is curiously
subordinated to that of the designers in all Japanese work of the
kind. With Moronobu must be associated Okumura Masanobu, a little
later perhaps in date, whose work is also of considerable value.
During the ensuing thirty years numerous illustrated books appeared,
including the earliest yet known which are illustrated by
colour-printing. Nishikawa Sukenobu (1671-1751) illustrated a very
large number of books, many of which were not published until after
his death. With him may be associated Ichio Shumboku (d. c. 1773) and
Tsukioka Tange (1717-1786), the latter of whom made the drawings for
many of the _meisho_ or guide-books which form so interesting and
distinctive a branch of Japanese illustration. The work of Tachibana
Morikuni (1670-1748) is also of great importance. The books
illustrated by the men of this school were mainly collections of
useful information, guide-books, romances and historical and religious
compilations; but much of the best of their work is to be found in the
collections of pictorial designs, very often taken from Chinese
sources, which were produced for the use of workers in lacquer,
pottery and similar crafts. These, both for design and for skill of
cutting, hold their own with the best work of European wood-cutting of
any period. The development of the art of Japanese colour-printing
naturally had its effect on book-illustration, and the later years of
the 18th and the earlier of the 19th century saw a vast increase of
books illustrated by this process. The subjects also now include a new
series of landscapes and views drawn as seen by the designers, and not
reproductions of the work of other men; and also sketches of scenes
and characters of everyday life and of the folk-lore in which Japan is
so rich. Among the artists of this period, as of all others in Japan,
Hokusai (1760-1849) is absolutely pre-eminent. His greatest production
in book-illustration was the _Mangwa_, a collection of sketches which
cover the whole ground of Japanese life and legend, art and
handicraft. It consists of fifteen volumes, which appeared at
intervals from 1812 to 1875, twelve being published during his life
and the others from material left by him. Among his many other works
may be mentioned the _Azuma Asobi_ (_Walks round Yedo_, 1799). Of his
pupils, Hokkei (1780-1856) and Kyosai were the greatest. Most of the
artists, whose main work was the designing of broadsheets, produced
elaborately illustrated books; and this series includes specimens of
printing in colours from wood-blocks, which for technique have never
been excelled. Among them should be mentioned Shunsho (_Seiro bijin
awase kagami_, 1776); Utamaro (_Seiro nenjyu gyoji_, 1804); Toyokuni
I. (_Yakusha kono teikishiwa_, 1801); as well as Harunobu Yeishi
(_Onna sanjyu rokkasen_, 1798), Kitao Masanobu and Tachibana Minko,
each of whom produced beautiful work of the same nature. In the period
next following, the chief artists were Keisai Yeisen (_Keisai so-gwa_,
1832) and Kikuchi Yosai (_Zenken kojitsu_), the latter of whom ranks
perhaps as highly as any of the artists who confined their work to
black and white. The books produced in the period 1880-1908 in Japan
are still of high technical excellence. The colours are,
unfortunately, of cheap European manufacture; and the design, although
quite characteristic and often beautiful, is as a rule merely pretty.
The engraving is as good as ever. Among the book-illustrators of our
own generation must be again mentioned Kyosai; Kono Bairei (d. 1895),
whose books of birds--the _Bairei hyakucho gwafu_ (1881 and 1884) and
_Yuaka-no-tsuki_ (1889)--are unequalled of their kind; Imao Keinen,
who also issued a beautiful set of illustrations of birds and flowers
(_Keinen kwacho gwafu_), engraved by Tanaka Jirokichi and printed by
Miki Nisaburo (1891-1892); and Watanabe Seitei, whose studies of
similar subjects have appeared in _Seitei kwacho gwafu_ (1890-1891)
and the _Bijutsu sekai_ (1894), engraved by Goto Tokujiro. Mention
should also be made of several charming series of fairy tales, of
which that published in English by the _Kobunsha_ in Tokyo in 1885 is
perhaps the best. In their adaptation of modern processes of
illustration the Japanese are entirely abreast of Western nations, the
chromo-lithographs and other reproductions in the _Kokka_, a
periodical record of Japanese works of art (begun in 1889), in the
superb albums of the _Shimbi Shoin_, and in the publications of Ogawa
being of quite a high order of merit. (E. F. S.; F. By.)

[Illustration: PLATE III. PAINTING

FIG. 6.--KWANNON, GODDESS OF MERCY. By Mincho or Cho Densu
(1352-1431).

FIG. 7.--LANDSCAPE IN SNOW. By Kano Motonobu (1476-1559).

FIG. 8.--JUROJIN. By Sesshiu (1420-1506).]

[Illustration: PLATE IV. PAINTING

FIG. 9.--PLUM TREES AND STREAM--SCREEN ON GOLD GROUND. By Korin
(1661-1716).

FIG. 10.--PEACOCKS. By Ganku (1749-1838).]

Historical Sketch.

_Sculpture and Carving._--Sculpture in wood and metal is of ancient
date in Japan. Its antiquity is not, indeed, comparable to that of
ancient Egypt or Greece, but no country besides Japan can boast a living
and highly developed art that has numbered upwards of twelve centuries
of unbroken and brilliant productiveness. Setting aside rude prehistoric
essays in stone and metal, which have special interest for the
antiquary, we have examples of sculpture in wood and metal, magnificent
in conception and technique, dating from the earliest periods of what we
may term historical Japan; that is, from near the beginning of the great
Buddhist propaganda under the emperor Kimmei (540-571) and the princely
hierarch, Shotoku Taishi (573-621). Stone has never been in favour in
Japan as a material for the higher expression of the sculptor's art.

First Period.

The first historical period of glyptic art in Japan reaches from the end
of the 6th to the end of the 12th century, culminating in the work of
the great Nara sculptors, Unkei and his pupil Kwaikei. Happily, there
are still preserved in the great temples of Japan, chiefly in the
ancient capital of Nara, many noble relics of this period.

The place of honour may perhaps be conferred upon sculptures in wood,
representing the Indian Buddhists, Asangha and Vasabandhu, preserved
in the Golden Hall of Kofuku-ji, Nara. These are attributed to a
Kamakura sculptor of the 8th or 9th century, and in simple and
realistic dignity of pose and grand lines of composition are worthy of
comparison with the works of ancient Greece. With these may be named
the demon lantern-bearers, so perfect in the grotesque treatment of
the diabolical heads and the accurate anatomical forms of the sturdy
body and limbs; the colossal temple guardians of the great gate of
Todai-ji, by Unkei and Kwaikei (11th century), somewhat
conventionalized, but still bearing evidence of direct study from
nature, and inspired with intense energy of action; and the smaller
but more accurately modelled temple guardians in the Saikondo, Nara,
which almost compare with the "fighting gladiator" in their
realization of menacing strength. The "goddess of art" of
Akishino-dera, Nara, attributed to the 8th century, is the most
graceful and least conventional of female sculptures in Japan, but
infinitely remote from the feminine conception of the Greeks. The
wooden portrait of Vimalakirtti, attributed to Unkei, at Kofuku-ji,
has some of the qualities of the images of the two Indian Buddhists.
The sculptures attributed to Jocho, the founder of the Nara school,
although powerful in pose and masterly in execution, lack the truth of
observation seen in some of the earlier and later masterpieces.

The most perfect of the ancient bronzes is the great image of
Bhaicha-djyaguru in the temple of Yakushi-ji, Nara, attributed to a
Korean monk of the 7th century, named Giogi. The bronze image of the
same divinity at Horyu-ji, said to have been cast at the beginning of
the 7th century by Tori Busshi, the grandson of a Chinese immigrant,
is of good technical quality, but much inferior in design to the
former. The colossal Nara Daibutsu (Vairocana) at Todai-ji, cast in
749 by a workman of Korean descent, is the largest of the great
bronzes in Japan, but ranks far below the Yakushi-ji image in artistic
qualities. The present head, however, is a later substitute for the
original, which was destroyed by fire.

The great Nara school of sculpture in wood was founded in the early
part of the 11th century by a sculptor of Imperial descent named
Jocho, who is said to have modelled his style upon that of the Chinese
wood-carvers of the Tang dynasty; his traditions were maintained by
descendants and followers down to the beginning of the 13th century.
All the artists of this period were men of aristocratic rank and
origin, and were held distinct from the carpenter-architects of the
imposing temples which were to contain their works.

Sacred images were not the only specimens of glyptic art produced in
these six centuries; reliquaries, bells, vases, incense-burners,
candlesticks, lanterns, decorated arms and armour, and many other
objects, showing no less mastery of design and execution, have reached
us. Gold and silver had been applied to the adornment of helmets and
breastplates from the 7th century, but it was in the 12th century that
the decoration reached the high degree of elaboration shown us in the
armour of the Japanese Bayard, Yoshitsune, which is still preserved at
Kasuga, Nara.

Wooden masks employed in the ancient theatrical performances were made
from the 7th century, and offer a distinct and often grotesque phase
of wood-carving. Several families of experts have been associated with
this class of sculpture, and their designs have been carefully
preserved and imitated down to the present day.

Second Period.

The second period in Japanese glyptic art extends from the beginning of
the 13th to the early part of the 17th century. The great struggle
between the Taira and Minamoto clans had ended, but the militant spirit
was still strong, and brought work for the artists who made and
ornamented arms and armour. The Miyochins, a line that claimed ancestry
from the 7th century, were at the head of their calling, and their work
in iron breastplates and helmets, chiefly in _repoussé_, is still
unrivalled. It was not until the latter half of the 15th century that
there came into vogue the elaborate decoration of the sword, a fashion
that was to last four hundred years.

The metal guard (_tsuba_), made of iron or precious alloy, was adorned
with engraved designs, often inlaid with gold and silver. The free end
of the hilt was crowned with a metallic cap or pommel (_kashira_), the
other extremity next the tsuba was embraced by an oval ring (_fuchi_),
and in the middle was affixed on each side a special ornament called
the _menuki_, all adapted in material and workmanship to harmonize
with the guard. The _kodzuka_, or handle of a little knife implanted
into the sheath of the short sword or dagger, was also of metal and
engraved with like care. The founder of the first great line of tsuba
and menuki artists was Goto Yujo (1440-1512), a friend of the painter
Kano Motonobu, whose designs he adopted. Many families of sword
artists sprang up at a later period, furnishing treasures for the
collector even down to the present day, and their labours reached a
level of technical mastery and refined artistic judgment almost
without parallel in the art industries of Europe. Buddhist sculpture
was by no means neglected during this period, but there are few works
that call for special notice. The most noteworthy effort was the
casting by Ono Goroyémon in 1252 of the well-known bronze image, the
Kamakura Daibutsu.

Third Period.

The third period includes the 17th, 18th and the greater part of the
19th centuries. It was the era of the artisan artist. The makers of
Buddhist images and of sword ornaments carried on their work with
undiminished industry and success, and some famous schools of the latter
arose during this period. The Buddhist sculptors, however, tended to
grow more conventional and the metal-workers more naturalistic as the
18th century began to wane. It was in connexion with architecture that
the great artisan movement began. The initiator was Hidari Jingoro
(1594-1652), at first a simple carpenter, afterwards one of the most
famous sculptors in the land of great artists. The gorgeous decoration
of the mausoleum of Iyeyasu at Nikko, and of the gateway of the Nishi
Hongwan temple at Kioto, are the most striking instances of his
handiwork or direction.

The pillars, architraves, ceilings, panels, and almost every available
part of the structure, are covered with arabesques and sculptured
figures of dragons, lions, tigers, birds, flowers, and even pictorial
compositions with landscapes and figures, deeply carved in solid or
open work--the wood sometimes plain, sometimes overlaid with pigment
and gilding, as in the panelled ceiling of the chapel of Iyeyasu in
Tokyo. The designs for these decorations, like those of the sword
ornaments, were adopted from the great schools of painting, but the
invention of the sculptor was by no means idle. From this time the
temple carvers, although still attached to the carpenters' guild, took
a place apart from the rest of their craft, and the genius of Hidari
Jingoro secured for one important section of the artisan world a
recognition like that which Hishigawa Moronobu, the painter and
book-illustrator, afterwards won for another.

A little later arose another art industry, also emanating from the
masses. The use of tobacco, which became prevalent in the 17th century,
necessitated the pouch. In order to suspend this from the girdle there
was employed a kind of button or toggle--the _netsuke_. The metallic
bowl and mouthpiece of the pipe offered a tempting surface for
embellishment, as well as the clasp of the pouch; and the netsuke, being
made of wood, ivory or other material susceptible of carving, also gave
occasion for art and ingenuity.

The engravers of pipes, pouch clasps, and the metallic discs
(_kagami-buta_) attached to certain netsuke, sprang from the same
class and were not less original. They worked, too, with a skill
little inferior to that of the Gotos, Naras, and other aristocratic
sculptors of sword ornaments, and often with a refinement which their
relative disadvantages in education and associations render especially
remarkable. The netsuke and the pipe, with all that pertained to it,
were for the commoners what the sword-hilt and guard were for the
gentry. Neither class cared to bestow jewels upon their persons, but
neither spared thought or expense in the embellishment of the object
they most loved. The final manifestation of popular glyptic art was
the _okimono_, an ornament pure and simple, in which utility was
altogether secondary in intention to decorative effect. Its
manufacture as a special branch of art work dates from the rise of the
naturalistic school of painting and the great expansion of the popular
school under the Katsugawa, but the okimono formed an occasional
amusement of the older glyptic artists. Some of the most exquisite and
most ingenious of these earlier productions, such as the magnificent
iron eagle in the South Kensington Museum, the wonderful articulated
models of crayfish, dragons, serpents, birds, that are found in many
European collections, came from the studios of the Miyochins; but
these were the play of giants, and were not made as articles of
commerce. The new artisan makers of the okimono struck out a line for
themselves, one influenced more by the naturalistic and popular
schools than by the classical art, and the quails of Kamejo, the
tortoises of Seimin, the dragons of Toun and Toryu, and in recent
years the falcons and the peacocks of Suzuki Chokichi, are the joy of
the European collector. The best of these are exquisite in
workmanship, graceful in design, often strikingly original in
conception, and usually naturalistic in ideal. They constitute a phase
of art in which Japan has few rivals.

The present generation is more systematically commercial in its glyptic
produce than any previous age. Millions of commercial articles in
metal-work, wood and ivory flood the European markets, and may be bought
in any street in Europe at a small price, but they offer a variety of
design and an excellence of workmanship which place them almost beyond
Western competition. Above all this, however, the Japanese sculptor is a
force in art. He is nearly as thorough as his forefathers, and maintains
the same love of all things beautiful; and if he cannot show any
epoch-making novelty, he is at any rate doing his best to support
unsurpassed the decorative traditions of the past.

Sword-making Families.

History has been eminently careful to preserve the names and records of
the men who chiselled sword furniture. The sword being regarded as the
soul of the samurai, every one who contributed to its manufacture,
whether as forger of the blade or sculptor of the furniture, was held in
high repute. The Goto family worked steadily during 14 generations, and
its 19th century representative--Goto Ichijo--will always be remembered
as one of the family's greatest experts. But there were many others
whose productions fully equalled and often excelled the best efforts of
the Goto. The following list gives the names and periods of the most
renowned families:--

(It should be noted that the division by centuries indicates the time
of a family's origin. In a great majority of cases the representatives
of each generation worked on through succeeding centuries).

_15th and 16th Centuries._

Miyochin; Goto; Umetada; Muneta; Aoki; Soami; Nakai.

_17th Century._

Kuwamura; Mizuno; Koichi; Nagayoshi;
Kuninaga; Yoshishige; Katsugi; Tsuji;
Muneyoshi; Tadahira; Shoami; Hosono;
Yokoya; Nara; Okada; Okamoto; Kinai; Akao;
Yoshioka; Hirata; Nomura; Wakabayashi; Inouye;
Yasui; Chiyo; Kaneko; Uemura; Iwamoto.

_18th Century._

Gorobei; Shoemon; Kikugawa; Yasuyama; Noda; Tamagawa; Fujita; Kikuoka;
Kizaemon; Hamano; Omori; Okamoto; Kashiwaya; Kusakari; Shichibei; Ito.

_19th Century._

Natsuo; Ishiguro; Yanagawa; Honjo; Tanaka; Okano; Kawarabayashi; Oda;
and many masters of the Omori, Hamano and Iwamoto families, as well as
the five experts, Shuraku, Temmin, Ryumin, Minjo and Minkoku.
(W. An.; F. By.)

Japanese Point of View.

There is a radical difference between the points of view of the Japanese
and the Western connoisseur in estimating the merits of sculpture in
metal. The quality of the chiselling is the first feature to which the
Japanese directs his attention; the decorative design is the prime
object of the Occidental's attention. With very rare exceptions, the
decorative motives of Japanese sword furniture were always supplied by
painters. Hence it is that the Japanese connoisseur draws a clear
distinction between the decorative design and its technical execution,
crediting the former to the pictorial artist and the latter to the
sculptor. He detects in the stroke of a chisel and the lines of a
graving tool subjective beauties which appear to be hidden from the
great majority of Western dilettanti. He estimates the rank of a
specimen by the quality of the chisel-work. The Japanese _kinzoku-shi_
(metal sculptor) uses thirty-six principal classes of chisel, each with
its distinctive name, and as most of these classes comprise from five to
ten sub-varieties, his cutting and graving tools aggregate about two
hundred and fifty.

The Field for Sculptured Decoration.

Scarcely less important in Japanese eyes than the chiselling of the
decorative design itself is the preparation of the field to which it is
applied. There used to be a strict canon with reference to this in
former times. _Namako_ (fish-roe) grounds were essential for the
mountings of swords worn on ceremonial occasions, the _ishime_
(stone-pitting) or _jimigaki_ (polished) styles being considered less
aristocratic.

Namako is obtained by punching the whole surface--except the portion
carrying the decorative design--into a texture of microscopic dots.
The first makers of namako did not aim at regularity in the
distribution of these dots; they were content to produce the effect of
millet-seed sifted haphazard over the surface. But from the 15th
century the punching of the dots in rigidly straight lines came to be
considered essential, and the difficulty involved was so great that
namako-making took its place among the highest technical achievements
of the sculptor. When it is remembered that the punching tool was
guided solely by the hand and eye, and that three or more blows of the
mallet had to be struck for every dot, some conception may be formed
of the patience and accuracy needed to produce these tiny
protuberances in perfectly straight lines, at exactly equal intervals
and of absolutely uniform size. Namako disposed in straight parallel
lines originally ranked at the head of this kind of work. But a new
kind was introduced in the 16th century. It was obtained by punching
the dots in intersecting lines, so arranged that the dots fell
uniformly into diamond-shaped groups of five each. This is called
_go-no-me-namako_, because of its resemblance to the disposition of
chequers in the Japanese game of _go_. A century later, the _daimyo
namako_ was invented, in which lines of dots alternated with lines of
polished ground. _Ishime_ may be briefly described as diapering. There
is scarcely any limit to the ingenuity and skill of the Japanese
expert in diapering a metal surface. It is not possible to enumerate
here even the principal styles of ishime, but mention may be made of
the _zara-maki_ (broad-cast), in which the surface is finely but
irregularly pitted after the manner of the face of a stone; the
_nashi-ji_ (pear-ground), in which we have a surface like the rind of
a pear; the _hari-ishime_ (needle ishime), where the indentations are
so minute that they seem to have been made with the point of a needle;
the _gama-ishime_, which is intended to imitate the skin of a toad;
the _tsuya-ishime_, produced with a chisel sharpened so that its
traces have a lustrous appearance; the _ore-kuchi_ (broken-tool), a
peculiar kind obtained with a jagged tool; and the _gozamé_, which
resembles the plaited surface of a fine straw mat.

Patina.

Great importance has always been attached by Japanese experts to the
patina of metal used for artistic chiselling. It was mainly for the
sake of their patina that value attached to the remarkable alloys
_shakudo_ (3 parts of gold to 97 of copper) and _shibuichi_ (1 part of
silver to 3 of copper). Neither metal, when it emerges from the
furnace, has any beauty, shakudo being simply dark-coloured copper and
shibuichi pale gun-metal. But after proper treatment[2] the former
develops a glossy black patina with violet sheen, and the latter shows
beautiful shades of grey with silvery lustre. Both these compounds
afford delicate, unobtrusive and effective grounds for inlaying with
gold, silver and other metals, as well as for sculpture, whether
incised or in relief. Copper, too, by patina-producing treatment, is
made to show not merely a rich golden sheen with pleasing limpidity,
but also red of various hues, from deep coral to light vermilion,
several shades of grey, and browns of numerous tones from dead-leaf to
chocolate. Even greater value has always been set upon the patina of
iron, and many secret recipes were preserved in artist families for
producing the fine, satin-like texture so much admired by all
connoisseurs.

Methods of Chiselling.

In Japan, as in Europe, three varieties of relief carving are
distinguished--_alto_ (_taka-bori_), mezzo (_chuniku-bori_) and
_basso_ (_usuniku-bori_). In the opinion of the Japanese expert, these
styles hold the same respective rank as that occupied by the three
kinds of ideographic script in caligraphy. High relief carving
corresponds to the _kaisho_, or most classical form of writing; medium
relief to the _gyosho_, or semi-cursive style; and low relief to the
_sosho_ or grass character. With regard to incised chiselling, the
commonest form is _kebori_ (hair-carving), which may be called
engraving, the lines being of uniform thickness and depth. Very
beautiful results are obtained by the kebori method, but incomparably
the finest work in the incised class is that known as
_kata-kiri-bori_. In this kind of chiselling the Japanese artist can
claim to be unique as well as unrivalled. Evidently the idea of the
great Yokoya experts, the originators of the style, was to break away
from the somewhat formal monotony of ordinary engraving, where each
line performs exactly the same function, and to convert the chisel
into an artist's brush instead of using it as a common cutting tool.
They succeeded admirably. In the kata-kiri-bori every line has its
proper value in the pictorial design, and strength and directness
become cardinal elements in the strokes of the burin just as they do
in the brushwork of the picture-painter. The same fundamental rule
applied, too, whether the field of the decoration was silk, paper or
metal. The artist's tool, be it brush or burin, must perform its task
by one effort. There must be no appearance of subsequent deepening, or
extending, or re-cutting or finishing. Kata-kiri-bori by a great
expert is a delight. One is lost in astonishment at the nervous yet
perfectly regulated force and the unerring fidelity of every trace of
the chisel. Another variety of carving much affected by artists of the
17th century, and now largely used, is called _shishi-ai-bori_ or
_niku-ai-bori_. In this style the surface of the design is not raised
above the general plane of the field, but an effect of projection is
obtained either by recessing the whole space immediately surrounding
the design, or by enclosing the latter in a scarped frame. Yet another
and very favourite method, giving beautiful results, is to model the
design on both faces of the metal so as to give a sculpture in the
round. The fashion is always accompanied by chiselling _à jour_
(_sukashi-bori_), so that the sculptured portions stand out in their
entirety.

Inlaying.

Inlaying with gold or silver was among the early forms of decoration
in Japan. The skill developed in modern times is at least equal to
anything which the past can show, and the results produced are much
more imposing. There are two principal kinds of inlaying: the first
called _hon-zogan_ (true inlaying), the second _nunome-zogan_
(linen-mesh inlaying). As to the former, the Japanese method does not
differ from that seen in the beautiful iron censers and vases inlaid
with gold which the Chinese produced from the _Süen-te_ era
(1426-1436). In the surface of the metal the workman cuts grooves
wider at the base than at the top, and then hammers into them gold or
silver wire. Such a process presents no remarkable features, except
that it has been carried by the Japanese to an extraordinary degree of
elaborateness. The nunome-zogan is more interesting. Suppose, for
example, that the artist desires to produce an inlaid diaper. His
first business is to chisel the surface in lines forming the basic
pattern of the design. Thus, for a diamond-petal diaper the chisel is
carried across the face of the metal horizontally, tracing a number of
parallel bands divided at fixed intervals by ribs which are obtained
by merely straightening the chisel and striking it a heavy blow. The
same process is then repeated in another direction, so that the new
bands cross the old at an angle adapted to the nature of the design.
Several independent chisellings may be necessary before the lines of
the diaper emerge clearly, but throughout the whole operation no
measurement of any kind is taken, the artist being guided entirely by
his hand and eye. The metal is then heated, not to redness, but
sufficiently to develop a certain degree of softness, and the workman,
taking a very thin sheet of gold (or silver), hammers portions of it
into the salient points of the design. In ordinary cases this is the
sixth process. The seventh is to hammer gold into the outlines of the
diaper; the eighth, to hammer it into the pattern filling the spaces
between the lines, and the ninth and tenth to complete the details. Of
course the more intricate the design the more numerous the processes.
It is scarcely possible to imagine a higher effort of hand and eye
than this _nunome-zogan_ displays, for while intricacy and
elaborateness are carried to the very extreme, absolute mechanical
accuracy is obtained. Sometimes in the same design we see gold of
three different hues, obtained by varying the alloy. A third kind of
inlaying, peculiar to Japan, is _sumi-zogan_ (ink-inlaying), so called
because the inlaid design gives the impression of having been painted
with Indian ink beneath the transparent surface of the metal. The
difference between this process and ordinary inlaying is that for
_sumi-zogan_ the design to be inlaid is fully chiselled out of an
independent block of metal with sides sloping so as to be broader at
the base than at the top. The object which is to receive the
decoration is then channelled in dimensions corresponding to those of
the design block, and the latter having been fixed in the channels,
the surface is ground and polished until an intimate union is obtained
between the inlaid design and the metal forming its field. Very
beautiful effects are thus produced, for the design seems to have
grown up to the surface of the metal field rather than to have been
planted in it. Shibuichi inlaid with shakudo used to be the commonest
combination of metals in this class of decoration, and the objects
usually depicted were bamboos, crows, wild-fowl under the moon, peony
sprays and so forth.

Wood-grained Grounds.

A variety of decoration much practised by early experts, and carried
to a high degree of excellence in modern times, is _mokume-ji_
(wood-grained ground). The process in this case is to take a thin
plate of metal and beat it into another plate of similar metal, so
that the two, though welded together, retain their separate forms. The
mass, while still hot, is coated with _hena-tsuchi_ (a kind of marl)
and rolled in straw ash, in which state it is roasted over a charcoal
fire raised to glowing heat with the bellows. The clay having been
removed, another plate of the same metal is beaten in, and the same
process is repeated. This is done several times, the number depending
on the quality of graining that the expert desires to produce. The
manifold plate is then heavily punched from one side, so that the
opposite face protrudes in broken blisters, which are then hammered
down until each becomes a centre of wave propagation. In fine work the
apex of the blister is ground off before the final hammering. Iron was
the metal used exclusively for work of this kind down to the 16th
century, but various metals began thenceforth to be combined. Perhaps
the choicest variety is gold graining in a shakudo field. By repeated
hammering and polishing the expert obtains such control of the
wood-grain pattern that its sinuosities and eddies seem to have
developed symmetry without losing anything of their fantastic grace.
There are other methods of producing _mokume-ji_.

Modern and Ancient Skill.

It has been frequently asserted by Western critics that the year (1876)
which witnessed the abolition of sword-wearing in Japan, witnessed also
the end of her artistic metal-work. That is a great mistake. The art has
merely developed new phases in modern times. Not only are its masters as
skilled now as they were in the days of the Goto, the Nara, the Yokoya
and the Yanagawa celebrities, but also their productions must be called
greater in many respects and more interesting than those of their
renowned predecessors. They no longer devote themselves to the
manufacture of sword ornaments, but work rather at vases, censers,
statuettes, plaques, boxes and other objects of a serviceable or
ornamental nature. All the processes described above are practised by
them with full success, and they have added others quite as remarkable.

Of these, one of the most interesting is called _kiribame_
(insertion). The decorative design having been completely chiselled in
the round, is then fixed in a field of a different metal, in which a
design of exactly similar outline has been cut out. The result is that
the picture has no blank reverse. For example, on the surface of a
shibuichi box-lid we see the backs of a flock of geese chiselled in
silver, and when the lid is opened, their breasts and the under-sides
of their pinions appear. The difficulty of such work is plain.
Microscopic accuracy has to be attained in cutting out the space for
the insertion of the design, and while the latter must be soldered
firmly in its place, not the slightest trace of solder or the least
sign of junction must be discernible between the metal of the inserted
picture and that of the field in which it is inserted. Suzuki Gensuke
is the inventor of this method. He belongs to a class of experts
called _uchimono-shi_ (hammerers) who perform preparatory work for
glyptic artists in metal. The skill of these men is often wonderful.
Using the hammer only, some of them can beat out an intricate shape as
truly and delicately as a sculptor could carve it with his chisels.
Ohori Masatoshi, an uchimono-shi of Aizu (d. 1897), made a silver
cake-box in the form of a sixteen-petalled chrysanthemum. The shapes
of the body and lid corresponded so intimately that, whereas the lid
could be slipped on easily and smoothly without any attempt to adjust
its curves to those of the body, it always fitted so closely that the
box could be lifted by grasping the lid only. Another feat of his was
to apply a lining of silver to a shakudo box by shaping and hammering
only, the fit being so perfect that the lining clung like paper to
every part of the box. Suzuki Gensuke and Hirata Soko are scarcely
less expert. The latter once exhibited in Tokyo a silver game-cock
with soft plumage and surface modelling of the most delicate
character. It had been made by means of the hammer only. Suzuki's
kiribame process is not to be confounded with the _kiribame-zogan_
(inserted inlaying) of Toyoda Koko, also a modern artist. The gist of
the latter method is that a design chiselled _à jour_ has its outlines
veneered with other metal which serves to emphasize them. Thus, having
pierced a spray of flowers in a thin sheet of shibuichi, the artist
fits a slender rim of gold, silver or shakudo to the petals, leaves
and stalks, so that an effect is produced of transparent blossoms
outlined in gold, silver or purple. Another modern achievement--also
due to Suzuki Gensuke--is _maze-gane_ (mixed metals). It is a singular
conception, and the results obtained depend largely on chance.
Shibuichi and shakudo are melted separately, and when they have cooled
just enough not to mingle too intimately, they are cast into a bar
which is subsequently beaten flat. The plate thus obtained shows
accidental clouding, or massing of dark tones, and these patches are
taken as the basis of a pictorial design to which final character is
given by inlaying with gold and silver, and by kata-kiri sculpture.
Such pictures partake largely of the impressionist character, but they
attain much beauty in the hands of the Japanese artist with his
extensive _répertoire_ of suggestive symbols. A process resembling
maze-gane, but less fortuitous, is _shibuichi-doshi_ (combined
shibuichi), which involves beating together two kinds of shibuichi and
then adding a third variety, after which the details of the picture
are worked in as in the case of maze-gane. The charm of these methods
is that certain parts of the decorative design seem to float, not on
the surface of the metal, but actually within it, an admirable effect
of depth and atmosphere being thus produced. Mention must also be made
of an extraordinarily elaborate and troublesome process invented by
Kajima Ippu, a great artist of the present day. It is called
_togi-dashi-zogan_ (ground-out inlaying). In this exquisite and
ingenious kind of work the design appears to be growing up from the
depths of the metal, and a delightful impression of atmosphere and
water is obtained. All these processes, as well as that of _repoussé_,
in which the Japanese have excelled from a remote period, are now
practised with the greatest skill in Tokyo, Kioto, Osaka and Kanazawa.
At the art exhibitions held twice a year in the principal cities there
may be seen specimens of statuettes, alcove ornaments, and household
utensils which show that the Japanese worker in metals stands more
indisputably than ever at the head of the world's artists in that
field. The Occident does not yet appear to have full realized the
existence of such talent in Japan; partly perhaps because its displays
in former times were limited chiefly to sword-furniture, possessing
little interest for the average European or American; and partly
because the Japanese have not yet learned to adapt their skill to
foreign requirements. They confine themselves at present to decorating
plaques, boxes and cases for cigars or cigarettes, and an occasional
tea or coffee service; but the whole domain of salvers,
dessert-services, race-cups and so on remains virtually unexplored.
Only within the past few years have stores been established in the
foreign settlements for the sale of silver utensils, and already the
workmanship on these objects displays palpable signs of the
deterioration which all branches of Japanese art have undergone in the
attempt to cater for foreign taste. In a general sense the European or
American connoisseur is much less exacting than the Japanese. Broad
effects of richness and splendour captivate the former, whereas the
latter looks for delicacy of finish, accuracy of detail and, above
all, evidences of artistic competence. It is nothing to a Japanese
that a vase should be covered with profuse decoration of flowers and
foliage: he requires that every blossom and every leaf shall be
instinct with vitality, and the comparative costliness of fine
workmanship does not influence his choice. But if the Japanese
sculptor adopted such standards in working for foreign patrons, his
market would be reduced to very narrow dimensions. He therefore adapts
himself to his circumstances, and, using the mould rather than the
chisel, produces specimens which snow tawdry handsomeness and are
attractively cheap. It must be admitted, however, that even though
foreign appreciative faculty were sufficiently educated, the Japanese
artist in metals would still labour under the great difficulty of
devising shapes to take the place of those which Europe and America
have learned to consider classical.

Bronze Casting.

Bronze is called by the Japanese _kara-kane_, a term signifying "Chinese
metal" and showing clearly the source from which knowledge of the alloy
was obtained. It is a copper-lead-tin compound, the proportions of its
constituents varying from 72 to 88% of copper, from 4 to 20% of lead and
from 2 to 8% of tin. There are also present small quantities of arsenic
and antimony, and zinc is found generally as a mere trace, but sometimes
reaching to 6%. Gold is supposed to have found a place in ancient
bronzes, but its presence has never been detected by analysis, and of
silver not more than 2% seems to have been admitted at any time. Mr W.
Gowland has shown that, whatever may have been the practice of Japanese
bronze makers in ancient and medieval eras, their successors in later
days deliberately introduced arsenic and antimony into the compound in
order to harden the bronze without impairing its fusibility, so that it
might take a sharper impression of the mould. Japanese bronze is well
suited for castings, not only because of its low melting-point, great
fluidity and capacity for taking sharp impressions, but also because it
has a particularly smooth surface and readily develops a fine patina.
One variety deserves special mention. It is a golden yellow bronze,
called _sentoku_--this being the Japanese pronunciation of _Suen-te_,
the era of the Ming dynasty of China when this compound was invented.
Copper, tin, lead and zinc, mixed in various proportions by different
experts, are the ingredients, and the beautiful golden hues and glossy
texture of the surface are obtained by patina-producing processes, in
which branch of metal-work the Japanese show altogether unique skill.

From the time when they began to cast bronze statues, Japanese experts
understood how to employ a hollow, removable core round which the
metal was run in a skin just thick enough for strength without waste
of material; and they also understood the use of wax for modelling
purposes. In ordinary circumstances, a casting thus obtained took the
form of a shell without any break of continuity. But for very large
castings the process had to be modified. The great image of Lochana
Buddha at Nara, for example, would measure 138 ft. in height were it
standing erect, and its weight is about 550 tons. The colossal Amida
at Kamakura has a height only 3 ft. less. It would have been scarcely
possible to cast such statues in one piece _in situ_, or, if cast
elsewhere, to transport them and elevate them on their pedestals. The
plan pursued was to build them up gradually in their places by
casting segment after segment. Thus, for the Nara Daibutsu, the mould
was constructed in a series of steps ascending 12 in. at a time, until
the head and neck were reached, which, of course, had to be cast in
one shell, 12 ft. high.

The term "parlour bronzes" serves to designate objects for domestic
use, as flower-vases, incense-burners and alcove ornaments.
Bronze-casters began to turn their attention to these objects about
the middle of the 17th century. The art of casting bronze reached its
culmination in the hands of a group of great experts--Seimin, Toun,
Masatune, Teijo, Somin, Keisai, Takusai, Gido, Zenryusai and
Hotokusai--who flourished during the second half of the 18th century
and the first half of the 19th. Many brilliant specimens of these
men's work survive, their general features being that the motives are
naturalistic, that the quality of the metal is exceptionally fine,
that in addition to beautifully clear casting obtained by highly
skilled use of the _cera-perduta_ process, the chisel was employed to
impart delicacy and finish to the design, and that modelling in high
relief is most successfully introduced. But it is a mistake to assert,
as many have asserted, that after the era of the above ten
masters--the latest of whom, Somin, ceased to work in 1871--no bronzes
comparable with theirs were cast. Between 1875 and 1879 some of the
finest bronzes ever produced in Japan were turned out by a group of
experts working under the business name of Sanseisha. Started by two
brothers, Oshima Katsujiro (art-name Joun) and Oshima Yasutaro
(art-name Shokaku), this association secured the services of a number
of skilled chisellers of sword-furniture, who had lost their
occupation by the abandonment of sword-wearing. Nothing could surpass
the delicacy of the works executed at the Sanseisha's atelier in
Tokyo, but unfortunately such productions were above the standard of
the customers for whom they were intended. Foreign buyers, who alone
stood in the market at that time, failed to distinguish the fine and
costly bronzes of Joun, Shokaku and their colleagues from cheap
imitations which soon began to compete with them, so that ultimately
the Sanseisha had to be closed. This page in the modern history of
Japan's bronzes needs little alteration to be true of her applied art
in general. Foreign demand has shown so little discrimination that
experts, finding it impossible to obtain adequate remuneration for
first-class work, have been obliged to abandon the field altogether,
or to lower their standard to the level of general appreciation, or by
forgery to cater for the perverted taste which attaches unreasoning
value to age. Joun has produced, and is thoroughly capable of
producing, bronzes at least equal to the best of Seimin's
masterpieces, yet he has often been induced to put Seimin's name on
objects for the sake of attracting buyers who attach more value to
cachet than to quality. If to the names of Joun and his brilliant
pupil Ryuki we add those of Suzuki Chokichi, Okazaki Sessei, Hasegawa
Kumazo, Kanaya Gorosaburo and Jomi Eisuke, we have a group of modern
bronze-casters who unquestionably surpass the ten experts beginning
with Seimin and ending with Somin. Okazaki Sessei has successfully
achieved the casting of huge panels carrying designs in high relief;
and whether there is question of patina or of workmanship, Jomi Eisuke
has never been surpassed.

Occidental influence has been felt, of course, in the field of modern
bronze-casting. At a school of art officially established in Tokyo in
1873 under the direction of Italian teachers--a school which owed its
signal failure partly to the incompetence and intemperate behaviour of
some of its foreign professors, and partly to a strong renaissance of
pure Japanese classicism--one of the few accomplishments successfully
taught was that of modelling in plaster and chiselling in marble after
Occidental methods. Marble statues are out of place in the wooden
buildings as well as in the parks of Japan, and even plaster busts or
groups, though less incongruous perhaps, have not yet found favour.
Hence the skill undoubtedly possessed by several graduates of the
defunct art school has to be devoted chiefly to a subordinate purpose,
namely, the fashioning of models for metal-casters. To this
combination of modellers in European style and metal-workers of such
force as Suzuki and Okazaki, Japan owes various memorial bronzes and
effigies which are gradually finding a place in her parks, her
museums, her shrines or her private houses. There is here little
departure from the well-trodden paths of Europe. Studies in drapery,
prancing steeds, ideal poses, heads with fragments of torsos attached
(in extreme violation of true art), crouching beasts of prey--all the
stereotyped styles are reproduced. The imitation is excellent.

Carving in Wood and Ivory.

Among the artists of early times it is often difficult to distinguish
between the carver of wood and the caster of bronze. The latter
sometimes made his own models in wax, sometimes chiselled them in wood,
and sometimes had recourse to a specialist in wood-carving. The group of
splendid sculptors in wood that graced the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries
left names never to be forgotten, but undoubtedly many other artists of
scarcely less force regarded bronze-casting as their principal business.
Thus the story of wood-carving is very difficult to trace. Even in the
field of architectural decoration for interiors, tradition tells us
scarcely anything about the masters who carved such magnificent works as
those seen in the Kioto temples, the Tokugawa mausolea, and some of the
old castles. There are, however, no modern developments of such work to
be noted. The ability of former times exists and is exercised in the old
way, though the field for its employment has been greatly narrowed.

[Illustration: PLATE V. SCULPTURE

FIG. 11.--VAJRA MALLA. By Unkei (13th century).

FIG. 12.--STATUE OF ASANGA (12th century, artist unknown).

FIG. 13.--STATUES OF BUDDHA AMI'TABHA AND TWO BODHISATTVAS (7th
century).]

[Illustration: PLATE VI. METAL WORK AND LACQUER

FIG 14.--DOOR OF BRONZE LANTERN IN THE TODAI TEMPLE (8th century).

FIG. 15.--BRONZE DUCK INCENSE BURNER (15th century). British Museum.

FIG. 16.--BRONZE MIRROR (12th to 13th century).

FIG. 17.--INKSTONE BOX IN LACQUER. By Koyetsu (1557-1637).]

Netsuke Carvers.

When Japanese sculpture in wood or ivory is spoken of, the first idea
that presents itself is connected with the netsuke, which, of all the
art objects found in Japan, is perhaps the most essentially Japanese.
If Japan had given us nothing but the netsuke, we should still have no
difficulty in differentiating the bright versatility of her national
genius from the comparatively sombre, mechanic and unimaginative
temperament of the Chinese. But the netsuke may now be said to be a
thing of the past. The _inro_ (medicine-box), which it mainly served
to fix in the girdle, has been driven out of fashion by the new
civilization imported from the West, and artists who would have carved
netsuke in former times now devote their chisels to statuettes and
alcove ornaments. It is not to be inferred, however, though it is a
favourite assertion of collectors, that no good netsuke have been made
in modern times. That theory is based upon the fact that after the
opening of the country to foreign intercourse in 1857, hundreds of
inferior specimens of netsuke were chiselled by inexpert hands,
purchased wholesale by treaty-port merchants, and sent to New York,
London and Paris, where, though they brought profit to the exporter,
they also disgusted the connoisseur and soon earned discredit for
their whole class. But in fact the glyptic artists of Tokyo, Osaka and
Kioto, though they now devote their chisels chiefly to works of more
importance than the netsuke, are in no sense inferior to their
predecessors of feudal days, and many beautiful netsuke bearing their
signatures are in existence. As for the modern ivory statuette or
alcove ornament, of which great numbers are now carved for the foreign
market, it certainly stands on a plane much higher than the netsuke,
since anatomical defects which escape notice in the latter owing to
its diminutive size, become obtrusive in the former.

The Realistic Departure.

One of the most remarkable developments of figure sculpture in modern
Japan was due to Matsumoto Kisaburo (1830-1869). He carved human
figures with as much accuracy as though they were destined for
purposes of surgical demonstration. Considering that this man had
neither art education nor anatomical instruction, and that he never
enjoyed an opportunity of studying from a model in a studio, his
achievements were remarkable. He and the craftsmen of the school he
established completely refute the theory that the anatomical solecisms
commonly seen in the works of Japanese sculptors are due to faulty
observation. Without scientific training of any kind Matsumoto and his
followers produced works in which the eye of science cannot detect any
error. But it is impossible to admit within the circle of high-art
productions these wooden figures of everyday men and women, unrelieved
by any subjective element, and owing their merit entirely to the
fidelity with which their contours are shaped, their muscles modelled,
and their anatomical proportions preserved. They have not even the
attraction of being cleanly sculptured in wood, but are covered with
thinly lacquered muslin, which, though doubtless a good preservative,
accentuates their puppet-like character. Nevertheless, Matsumoto's
figures marked an epoch in Japanese wood sculpture. Their vivid
realism appealed strongly to the taste of the average foreigner. A
considerable school of carvers soon began to work in the Matsumoto
style, and hundreds of their productions have gone to Europe and
America, finding no market in Japan.

The Semi-foreign School.

Midway between the Matsumoto school and the pure style approved by the
native taste in former times stand a number of wood-carvers headed by
Takamura Koun, who occupies in the field of sculpture much the same
place as that held by Hashimoto Gaho in the realm of painting. Koun
carves figures in the round which not only display great power of
chisel and breadth of style, but also tell a story not necessarily
drawn from the motives of the classical school. This departure from
established canons must be traced to the influence of the short-lived
academy of Italian art established by the Japanese government early in
the Meiji era. In the forefront of the new movement are to be found
men like Yoneharu Unkai and Shinkai Taketaro; the former chiselled a
figure of Jenner for the Medical Association of Japan when they
celebrated the centenary of the great physician, and the latter has
carved life-size effigies of two Imperial princes who lost their lives
in the war with China (1894-95). The artists of the Koun school,
however, do much work which appeals to emotions in general rather than
to individual memories. Thus Arakawa Reiun, one of Koun's most
brilliant pupils, has exhibited a figure of a swordsman in the act of
driving home a furious thrust. The weapon is not shown. Reiun
sculptured simply a man poised on the toes of one foot, the other foot
raised, the arm extended, and the body straining forward in strong yet
elastic muscular effort. A more imaginative work by the same artist
is a figure of a farmer who has just shot an eagle that swooped upon
his grandson. The old man holds his bow still raised. Some of the
eagle's feathers, blown to his side, suggest the death of the bird; at
his feet lies the corpse of the little boy, and the horror, grief and
anger that such a tragedy would inspire are depicted with striking
realism in the farmer's face. Such work has very close affinities with
Occidental conceptions. The chief distinguishing feature is that the
glyptic character is preserved at the expense of surface finish. The
undisguised touches of the chisel tell a story of technical force and
directness which could not be suggested by perfectly smooth surfaces.
To subordinate process to result is the European canon; to show the
former without marring the latter is the Japanese ideal. Many of
Koun's sculptures appear unfinished to eyes trained in Occidental
galleries, whereas the Japanese connoisseur detects evidence of a
technical feat in their seeming roughness.

Private Dwellings.

_Architecture._--From the evidence of ancient records it appears that
before the 5th century the Japanese resided in houses of a very rude
character. The sovereign's palace itself was merely a wooden hut. Its
pillars were thrust into the ground and the whole framework--consisting
of posts, beams, rafters, door-posts and window-frames--was tied
together with cords made by twisting the long fibrous stems of climbing
plants. The roof was thatched, and perhaps had a gable at each end with
a hole to allow the smoke of the wood fire to escape. Wooden doors swung
on a kind of hook; the windows were mere holes in the walls. Rugs of
skins or rush matting were used for sitting on, and the whole was
surrounded with a palisade. In the middle of the 5th century
two-storeyed houses seem to have been built, but the evidence on the
subject is slender. In the 8th century, however, when the court was
moved to Nara, the influence of Chinese civilization made itself felt.
Architects, turners, tile-makers, decorative artists and sculptors,
coming from China and from Korea, erected grand temples for the worship
of Buddha enshrining images of much beauty and adorned with paintings
and carvings of considerable merit. The plan of the city itself was
taken from that of the Chinese metropolis. A broad central avenue led
straight to the palace, and on either side of it ran four parallel
streets, crossed at right angles by smaller thoroughfares. During this
century the first sumptuary edict ordered that the dwellings of all high
officials and opulent civilians should have tiled roofs and be coloured
red, the latter injunction being evidently intended to stop the use of
logs carrying their bark. Tiles thenceforth became the orthodox covering
for a roof, but vermilion, being regarded as a religious colour, found
no favour in private dwellings. In the 9th century, after the capital
had been established at Kioto, the palace of the sovereigns and the
mansions of ministers and nobles were built on a scale of unprecedented
grandeur. It is true that all the structures of the time had the defect
of a box-like appearance. Massive, towering roofs, which impart an air
of stateliness even to a wooden building and yet, by their graceful
curves, avoid any suggestion of ponderosity, were still confined to
Buddhist edifices. The architect of private dwellings attached more
importance to satin-surfaced boards and careful joinery than to any
appearance of strength or solidity.

Except for the number of buildings composing it, the palace had little
to distinguish it from a nobleman's mansion. The latter consisted of a
principal hall, where the master of the house lived, ate and slept,
and of three suites of chambers, disposed on the north, the east and
the west of the principal hall. In the northern suite the lady of the
house dwelt, the eastern and western suites being allotted to other
members of the family. Corridors joined the principal hall to the
subordinate edifices, for as yet the idea had not been conceived of
having more than one chamber under the same roof. The principal hall
was usually 42 ft. square. Its centre was occupied by a "parent
chamber," 30 ft. square, around which ran an ambulatory and a veranda,
each 6 ft. wide. The parent chamber and the ambulatory were ceiled,
sometimes with interlacing strips of bark or broad laths, so as to
produce a plaited effect; sometimes with plain boards. The veranda had
no ceiling. Sliding doors, a characteristic feature of modern Japanese
houses, had not yet come into use, and no means were provided for
closing the veranda, but the ambulatory was surrounded by a wall of
latticed timber or plain boards, the lower half of which could be
removed altogether, whereas the upper half, suspended from hooks,
could be swung upward and outward. Privacy was obtained by blinds of
split bamboo, and the parent chamber was separated from the
ambulatory by similar bamboo blinds with silk cords for raising or
lowering them, or by curtains. The thick rectangular mats of uniform
size which, fitting together so as to present a level unbroken
surface, cover the floor of all modern Japanese houses, were not yet
in use: floors were boarded, having only a limited space matted. This
form of mansion underwent little modification until the 12th century,
when the introduction of the Zen sect of Buddhism with its
contemplative practice called for greater privacy. Interiors were then
divided into smaller rooms by means of sliding doors covered with thin
rice-paper, which permitted the passage of light while obstructing
vision; the hanging lattices were replaced by wooden doors which could
be slid along a groove so as to be removable in the daytime, and an
alcove was added in the principal chamber for a sacred picture or
Buddhist image to serve as an object of contemplation for a devotee
while practising the rite of abstraction. Thus the main features of
the Japanese dwelling-house were evolved, and little change took place
subsequently, except that the brush of the painter was freely used for
decorating partitions, and in aristocratic mansions unlimited care was
exercised in the choice of rare woods.

Buddhist Temple Architecture.

The Buddhist temple underwent little change at Japanese hands except in
the matter of decoration. Such as it was in outline when first erected
in accordance with Chinese models, such it virtually remained, though in
later times all the resources of the sculptor and the painter were
employed to beautify it externally and internally.

"The building, sometimes of huge dimensions, is invariably surrounded
by a raised gallery, reached by a flight of steps in the centre of the
approach front, the balustrade of which is a continuation of the
gallery railing. This gallery is sometimes supported upon a deep
system of bracketing, corbelled out from the feet of the main pillars.
Within this raised gallery, which is sheltered by the over-sailing
eaves, there is, in the larger temples, a columned loggia passing
round the two sides and the front of the building, or, in some cases,
placed on the façade only. The ceilings of the loggias are generally
sloping, with richly carved roof-timbers showing below at intervals;
and quaintly carved braces connect the outer pillars with the main
posts of the building. Some temples are to be seen in which the
ceiling of the loggia is boarded flat and decorated with large
paintings of dragons in black and gold. The intercolumniation is
regulated by a standard of about six or seven feet, and the general
result of the treatment of columns, wall-posts, &c., is that the whole
mural space, not filled in with doors or windows, is divided into
regular oblong panels, which sometimes receive plaster, sometimes
boarding and sometimes rich framework and carving or painted panels.
Diagonal bracing or strutting is nowhere to be found, and in many
cases mortises and other joints are such as very materially to weaken
the timbers at their points of connexion. It would seem that only the
immense weight of the roofs and their heavy projections prevent a
collapse of some of these structures in high winds. The principal
façade of the temple is filled in one, two or three compartments with
hinged doors, variously ornamented and folding outwards, sometimes in
double folds. From these doorways, generally left open, the interior
light is principally obtained, windows, as the term is generally
understood, being rare. An elaborate cornice of wooden bracketing
crowns the walls, forming one of the principal ornaments of the
building. The whole disposition of pillars, posts, brackets and
rafters is harmonically arranged according to some measure of the
standard of length. A very important feature of the façade is the
portico or porch-way, which covers the principal steps and is
generally formed by producing the central portion of the main roof
over the steps and supporting such projection upon isolated wooden
pillars braced together near the top with horizontal ties, carved,
moulded and otherwise fantastically decorated. Above these ties are
the cornice brackets and beams, corresponding in general design to the
cornice of the walls, and the intermediate space is filled with open
carvings of dragons or other characteristic designs. The forms of roof
are various, but mostly they commence in a steep slope at the top,
gradually flattening towards the eaves so as to produce a slightly
concave appearance, this concavity being rendered more emphatic by the
tilt which is given to the eaves at the four corners. The appearance
of the ends of the roof is half hip, half gable. Heavy ribs of
tile-cresting with large terminals are carried along the ridge and the
slope of the gable. The result of the whole is very picturesque, and
has the advantage of looking equally satisfactory from any point of
view. The interior arrangement of wall columns, horizontal beams and
cornice bracketing corresponds with that on the outside. The ceiling
is invariably boarded and subdivided by ribs into small rectangular
coffers. Sometimes painting is introduced into these panels and
lacquer and metal clasps are added to the ribs. When the temple is of
very large dimensions an interior peristyle of pillars is introduced
to assist in supporting the roof, and in such cases each pillar
carries profuse bracketing corresponding to that of the cornice. The
construction of the framework of the Japanese roof is such that the
weights all act vertically; there is no thrust on the outer walls,
and every available point of the interior is used as a means of
support.

"The floor is partly boarded and partly matted. The shrines, altars
and oblatory tables are placed at the back in the centre, and there
are often other secondary shrines at the sides. In temples of the best
class the floor of the gallery and of the central portion of the main
building from entrance to altar are richly lacquered; in those of
inferior class they are merely polished by continued rubbing."--(J.
Conder, in the _Proceedings of the Royal Institute of British
Architects._)

Shinto Architecture.

None of the magnificence of the Buddhist temple belongs to the Shinto
shrine. In the case of the latter conservatism has been absolute from
time immemorial. The shrines of Ise, which may be called the Mecca of
Shinto devotees, are believed to present to-day precisely the appearance
they presented in 478, when they were moved thither in obedience to a
revelation from the Sun-goddess. It has been the custom to rebuild them
every twentieth year, alternately on each of two sites set apart for the
purpose, the features of the old edifice being reproduced in the new
with scrupulous accuracy.

They are enlarged replicas of the primeval wooden hut described above,
having rafters with their upper ends crossed; thatched or shingled
roof; boarded floors, and logs laid on the roof-ridge at right angles
for the purpose of binding the ridge and the rafters firmly together.
A thatched roof is imperative in the orthodox shrine, but in modern
days tiles or sheets of copper are sometimes substituted. At Ise,
however, no such novelties are tolerated. The avenue of approach
generally passes under a structure called _torii_. Originally designed
as a perch for fowls which sang to the deities at daybreak, this torii
subsequently came to be erroneously regarded as a gateway
characteristic of the Shinto shrine. It consists of two thick trunks
placed upright, their upper ends mortised into a horizontal log which
projects beyond them at either side. The structure derives some grace
from its extreme simplicity.

_Textile Fabrics and Embroidery._--In no branch of applied art does the
decorative genius of Japan show more attractive results than in that of
textile fabrics, and in none has there been more conspicuous progress
during recent years. Her woven and embroidered stuffs have always been
beautiful; but in former times few pieces of size and splendour were
produced, if we except the curtains used for draping festival cars and
the hangings of temples. Tapestry, as it is employed in Europe, was not
thought of, nor indeed could the small hand-looms of the period be
easily adapted to such work. All that has been changed, however. Arras
of large dimensions, showing remarkable workmanship and grand
combinations of colours, is now manufactured in Kioto, the product of
years of patient toil on the part of weaver and designer alike.
Kawashima of Kioto has acquired high reputation for work of this kind.
He inaugurated the new departure a few years ago by copying a Gobelin,
but it may safely be asserted that no Gobelin will bear comparison with
the pieces now produced in Japan.

The most approved fashion of weaving is called _tsuzure-ori_
(linked-weaving); that is to say, the cross threads are laid in with
the fingers and pushed into their places with a comb by hand, very
little machinery being used. The threads extend only to the outlines
of each figure, and it follows that every part of the pattern has a
rim of minute holes like pierced lines separating postage stamps in a
sheet, the effect being that the design seems to hang suspended in the
ground--linked into it, as the Japanese term implies.[3] A specimen of
this nature recently manufactured by Kawashima's weavers measured 20
ft. by 13, and represented the annual festival at the Nikko mausolea.
The chief shrine was shown, as were also the gate and the long flight
of stone steps leading up to it, several other buildings, the groves
of cryptomeria that surround the mausolea, and the festival
procession. All the architectural and decorative details, all the
carvings and colours, all the accessories--everything was wrought in
silk, and each of the 1500 figures forming the procession wore exactly
appropriate costume. Even this wealth of detail, remarkable as it was,
seemed less surprising than the fact that the weaver had succeeded in
producing the effect of atmosphere and aerial perspective. Through the
graceful cryptomerias distant mountains and the still more distant sky
could be seen, and between the buildings in the foreground and those
in the middle distance atmosphere appeared to be perceptible. Two
years of incessant labour with relays of artisans working steadily
throughout the twenty-four hours were required to finish this piece.
Naturally such specimens are not produced in large numbers. Next in
decorative importance to tsuzure-ori stands _yuzen birôdo_, commonly
known among English-speaking people as cut velvet. Dyeing by the
_yuzen_ process is an innovation of modern times. The design is
painted on the fabric, after which the latter is steamed, and the
picture is ultimately fixed by methods which are kept secret. The soft
silk known as _habutaye_ is a favourite ground for such work, but silk
crape also is largely employed. No other method permits the decorator
to achieve such fidelity and such boldness of draughtsmanship. The
difference between the results of the ordinary and the yuzen processes
of dyeing is, in fact, the difference between a stencilled sketch and
a finished picture. In the case of cut velvet, the yuzen process is
supplemented as follows: The cutter, who works at an ordinary wooden
bench, has no tool except a small sharp chisel with a V-shaped point.
This chisel is passed into an iron pencil having at the end guards,
between which the point of the chisel projects, so that it is
impossible for the user to cut beyond a certain depth. When the velvet
comes to him, it already carries a coloured picture permanently fixed
by the yuzen process, but the wires have not been withdrawn. It is, in
fact, velvet that has passed through all the usual stages of
manufacture except the cutting of the thread along each wire and the
withdrawal of the wires. The cutting artist lays the piece of
unfinished velvet on his bench, and proceeds to carve into the pattern
with his chisel, just as though he were shading the lines of the
design with a steel pencil. When the pattern is lightly traced, he
uses his knife delicately; when the lines are strong and the shadows
heavy, he makes the point pierce deeply. In short, the little chisel
becomes in his fingers a painter's brush, and when it is remembered
that, the basis upon which he works being simply a thread of silk, his
hand must be trained to such delicacy of muscular effort as to be
capable of arresting the edge of the knife at varying depths within
the diameter of the tiny filament, the difficulty of the achievement
will be understood. Of course it is to be noted that the edge of the
cutting tool is never allowed to trespass upon a line which the
exigencies of the design require to be solid. The veining of a cherry
petal, for example, the tessellation of a carp's scales, the serration
of a leaf's edge--all these lines remain intact, spared by the
cutter's tool, while the leaf itself, or the petal, or the scales of
the fish, have the threads forming them cut so as to show the velvet
nap and to appear in soft, low relief. In one variety of this fabric,
a slip of gold foil is laid under each wire, and left in position
after the wire is withdrawn, the cutting tool being then used with
freedom in some parts of the design, so that the gold gleams through
the severed thread, producing a rich and suggestive effect. Velvet,
however, is not capable of being made the basis for pictures so
elaborate and microscopically accurate as those produced by the yuzen
process on silk crape or habutaye. The rich-toned, soft plumage of
birds or the magnificent blending of colours in a bunch of peonies or
chrysanthemums cannot be obtained with absolute fidelity on the ribbed
surface of velvet.

Embroidery.

The embroiderer's craft has been followed for centuries in Japan with
eminent success, but whereas it formerly ranked with dyeing and weaving,
it has now come to be regarded as an art. Formerly the embroiderer was
content to produce a pattern with his needle, now he paints a picture. So
perfectly does the modern Japanese embroiderer elaborate his scheme of
values that all the essential elements of pictorial effects--chiaroscuro,
aerial perspective and atmosphere are present in his work. Thus a
graceful and realistic school has replaced the comparatively stiff and
conventional style of former times.

Further, an improvement of a technical character was recently made,
which has the effect of adding greatly to the durability of these
embroideries. Owing to the use of paper among the threads of the
embroidery and sizing in the preparation of the stuff forming the
ground, every operation of folding used to cause perceptible injury to
a piece, so that after a few years it acquired a crumpled and dingy
appearance. But by the new method embroiderers now succeed in
producing fabrics which defy all destructive influences--except, of
course, dirt and decay.

Early Period.

_Ceramics._--All research proves that up to the 12th century of the
Christian era the ceramic ware produced in Japan was of a very rude
character. The interest attaching to it is historical rather than
technical. Pottery was certainly manufactured from an early date, and
there is evidence that kilns existed in some fifteen provinces in the
10th century. But although the use of the potter's wheel had long been
understood, the objects produced were simple utensils to contain
offerings of rice, fruit and fish at the austere ceremonials of the
Shinto faith, jars for storing seeds, and vessels for common domestic
use. In the 13th century, however, the introduction of tea from China,
together with vessels for infusing and serving it, revealed to the
Japanese a new conception of ceramic possibilities, for the potters of
the Middle Kingdom had then (Sung dynasty) fully entered the road which
was destined to carry them ultimately to a high pinnacle of their craft.
It had long been customary in Japan to send students to China for the
purpose of studying philosophy and religion, and she now (1223) sent a
potter, Kato Shirozaemon, who, on his return, opened a kiln at Seto in
the province of Owari, and began to produce little jars for preserving
tea and cups for drinking it. These were conspicuously superior to
anything previously manufactured. Kato is regarded as the father of
Japanese ceramics. But the ware produced by him and his successors at
the Seto kilns, or by their contemporaries in other parts of the
country, had no valid claim to decorative excellence. Nearly three
centuries elapsed before a radically upward movement took place, and on
this occasion also the inspiration came from China. In 1520 a potter
named Gorodayu Goshonzui (known to posterity as Shonzui) made his way to
Fuchow and thence to King-te-chen, where, after five years' study, he
acquired the art of manufacturing porcelain, as distinguished from
pottery, together with the art of applying decoration in blue under the
glaze. He established his kiln at Arita in Hizen, and the event marked
the opening of the second epoch of Japanese ceramics. Yet the new
departure then made did not lead far. The existence of porcelain clay in
Hizen was not discovered for many years, and Shonzui's pieces being made
entirely with kaolin imported from China, their manufacture ceased after
his death, though knowledge of the processes learned by him survived and
was used in the production of greatly inferior wares. The third clearly
differentiated epoch was inaugurated by the discovery of true kaolin at
Izumi-yama in Hizen, the discoverer being one of the Korean potters who
came to Japan in the train of Hideyoshi's generals returning from the
invasion of Korea, and the date of the discovery being about 1605. Thus
much premised, it becomes possible to speak in detail of the various
wares for which Japan became famous.

The principal kinds of ware are Hizen, Kioto, Satsuma, Kutani, Owari,
Bizen, Takatori, Banko, Izumo and Yatsushiro.

Hizen.

There are three chief varieties of Hizen ware, namely, (1) the
enamelled porcelain of Arita--the "old Japan" of European collectors;
(2) the enamelled porcelain of Nabeshima; and (3) the blue and white,
or plain white, porcelain of Hirado. The earliest manufacture of
porcelain--as distinguished from pottery--began in the opening years
of the 16th century, but its materials were exotic. Genuine Japanese
porcelain dates from about a century later. The decoration was
confined to blue under the glaze, and as an object of art the ware
possessed no special merit. Not until the year 1620 do we find any
evidence of the style for which Arita porcelain afterwards became
famous, namely, decoration with vitrifiable enamels. The first efforts
in this direction were comparatively crude; but before the middle of
the 17th century, two experts--Goroshichi and Kakiemon--carried the
art to a point of considerable excellence. From that time forward the
Arita factories turned out large quantities of porcelain profusely
decorated with blue under the glaze and coloured enamels over it. Many
pieces were exported by the Dutch, and some also were specially
manufactured to their order. Specimens of the latter are still
preserved in European collections, where they are classed as genuine
examples of Japanese ceramic art, though beyond question their style
of decoration was greatly influenced by Dutch interference. The
porcelains of Arita were carried to the neighbouring town of Imari for
sale and shipment. Hence the ware came to be known to Japanese and
foreigners alike as _Imari-yaki_ (_yaki_ = anything baked; hence
ware).

Nabeshima.

The Nabeshima porcelain--so called because of its production at
private factories under the special patronage of Nabeshima Naoshige,
feudal chief of Hizen--was produced at Okawachiyama. It differed from
Imari-yaki in the milky whiteness and softness of its glaze, the
comparative sparseness of its enamelled decoration, and the relegation
of blue _sous couverte_ to an entirely secondary place. This is
undoubtedly the finest jewelled porcelain in Japan; the best examples
leave nothing to be desired. The factory's period of excellence began
about the year 1680, and culminated at the close of the 18th century.

Hirado.

The Hirado porcelain--so called because it enjoyed the special
patronage of Matsuura, feudal chief of Hirado--was produced at
Mikawa-uchi-yama, but did not attain excellence until the middle of
the 18th century, from which time until about 1830 specimens of rare
beauty were produced. They were decorated with blue under the glaze,
but some were pure white with exquisitely chiselled designs incised or
in relief. The production was always scanty, and, owing to official
prohibitions, the ware did not find its way into the general market.

Kioto.

The history of Kioto ware--which, being for the most part faience,
belongs to an entirely different category from the Hizen porcelains
spoken of above--is the history of individual ceramists rather than of
special manufactures. Speaking broadly, however, four different
varieties are usually distinguished. They are _raku-yaki_,
_awata-yaki_, _iwakura-yaki_ and _kiyomizu-yaki_.

Raku.

Raku-yaki is essentially the domestic faience of Japan; for, being
entirely hand-made and fired at a very low temperature, its
manufacture offers few difficulties, and has consequently been carried
on by amateurs in their own homes at various places throughout the
country. The raku-yaki of Kioto is the parent of all the rest. It was
first produced by a Korean who emigrated to Japan in the early part of
the 16th century. But the term _raku-yaki_ did not come into use until
the close of the century, when Chojiro (artistic name, Choryu)
received from Hideyoshi (the Taiko) a seal bearing the ideograph
_raku_, with which he thenceforth stamped his productions. Thirteen
generations of the same family carried on the work, each using a stamp
with the same ideograph, its calligraphy, however, differing
sufficiently to be identified by connoisseurs. The faience is thick
and clumsy, having soft, brittle and very light _pâte_. The staple
type has black glaze showing little lustre, and in choice varieties
this is curiously speckled and pitted with red. Salmon-coloured, red,
yellow and white glazes are also found, and in late specimens gilding
was added. The raku faience owed much of its popularity to the
patronage of the tea clubs. The nature of its paste and glaze adapted
it for the infusion of powdered tea, and its homely character suited
the austere canons of the tea ceremonies.

Awata.

Awata-yaki is the best known among the ceramic productions of Kioto.
There is evidence to show that the art of decoration with enamels over
the glaze reached Kioto from Hizen in the middle of the 17th century.
Just at that time there flourished in the Western capital a potter of
remarkable ability, called Nomura Seisuke. He immediately utilized the
new method, and produced many beautiful examples of jewelled faience,
having close, hard _pâte_, yellowish-white, or brownish-white, glaze
covered with a network of fine crackle, and sparse decoration in pure
full-bodied colours--red, green, gold and silver. He worked chiefly at
Awata, and thus brought that factory into prominence. Nomura Seisuke,
or Ninsei as he is commonly called, was one of Japan's greatest
ceramists. Genuine examples of his faience have always been highly
prized, and numerous imitations were subsequently produced, all
stamped with the ideograph Ninsei. After Ninsei's time, the most
renowned ceramists of the Awata factories were Kenzan (1688-1740);
Ebisei, a contemporary of Kenzan; Dohachi (1751-1763), who
subsequently moved to Kiyomizu-zaka, another part of Kioto, the
faience of which constitutes the Kiyomizu-yaki mentioned above;
Kinkozan (1745-1760); Hozan (1690-1721); Taizan (1760-1800); Bizan
(1810-1838); and Tanzan, who was still living in 1909. It must be
noted that several of these names, as Kenzan, Dohachi, Kinkozan, Hozan
and Taizan, were not limited to one artist. They are family names, and
though the dates we have given indicate the eras of the most noted
ceramists in each family, amateurs must not draw any chronological
conclusion from the mere fact that a specimen bears such and such a
name.

Iwakura.

The origin of the Iwakura-yaki is somewhat obscure, and its history,
at an early date, becomes confused with that of the Awata yaki, from
which, indeed, it does not materially differ.

Kiyomizu.

In the term Kiyomizu-yaki may be included roughly all the faience of
Kioto, with the exception of the three varieties described above. The
distinction between Kiyomizu, Awata and Iwakura is primarily local.
They are parts of the same city, and if their names have been used to
designate particular classes of pottery, it is not because the
technical or decorative features of each class distinguish it from the
other two, but chiefly for the purpose of identifying the place of
production. On the slopes called Kiyomizu-zaka and Gojo-zaka lived a
number of ceramists, all following virtually the same models with
variations due to individual genius. The principal Kiyomizu artists
were: Ebisei, who moved from Awata to Gojo-zaka in 1688; Eisen and
Rokubei, pupils of Ebisei; Mokubei, a pupil of Eisen, but more
celebrated than his master; Shuhei (1790-1810), Kentei (1782-1820),
and Zengoro Hozen, generally known as Eiraku (1790-1850). Eisen was
the first to manufacture porcelain (as distinguished from faience) in
Kioto, and this branch of the art was carried to a high standard of
excellence by Eiraku, whose speciality was a rich coral-red glaze with
finely executed decoration in gold. The latter ceramist excelled also
in the production of purple, green and yellow glazes, which he
combined with admirable skill and taste. Some choice ware of the
latter type was manufactured by him in Kishu, by order of the feudal
chief of that province. It is known as _Kaira-ku-yen-yaki_ (ware of
the Kairaku park).

[Illustration: PLATE VIII. POTTERY AND PORCELAIN

FIG. 23.--TEA BOWL. By Kenzan.

FIG. 24.--TEA JAR. By Ninsei.

FIG. 25.--FIGURE. By Kakiemon. Arita porcelain.

FIG. 26.--LION. By Chojiro Raku.

FIG. 27.--CENSER, WITH KOCHI GLAZE. By Eisen.

FIG. 28.--TEA JAR. By Ninsei.

FIG. 29.--BIZEN WARE. Samantabhadra

FIG. 30.--CENSER. By Kenzan.]

[Illustration: PLATE VII. LACQUER

FIG. 18.--LID OF BOX. By Korin.

FIG. 19.--CASE FOR HEAD OF A SKAKUJO.

FIG. 20.--OWL ON A BRANCH. By Ritsuo.

FIG. 21.--BOX WITH BUTTERFLIES AND FLOWERS IN GOLD (12th century).

FIG. 22.--LACQUERED BOXES. By Kôami (1598-1651).]

Satsuma.

No phrase is commoner in the mouths of Western collectors than "Old
Satsuma"; no ware is rarer in Western collections. Nine hundred and
ninety-nine pieces out of every thousand that do duty as genuine
examples of this prince of faiences are simply examples of the skill
of modern forgers. In point of fact, the production of faience
decorated with gold and coloured enamels may be said to have commenced
at the beginning of the igth century in Satsuma. Some writers maintain
that it did actually commence then, and that nothing of the kind had
existed there previously. Setting aside, however, the strong
improbability that a style of decoration so widely practised and so
highly esteemed could have remained unknown during a century and a
half to experts working for one of the most puissant chieftains in
Japan, we have the evidence of trustworthy traditions and written
records that enamelled faience was made by the potters at
Tatsumonji--the principal factory of Satsuma-ware in early days--as
far back as the year 1676. Mitsuhisa, then feudal lord of Satsuma, was
a munificent patron of art. He summoned to his fief the painter
Tangen--a pupil of the renowned Tanyu, who died in 1674--and employed
him to paint faience or to furnish designs for the ceramists of
Tatsumonji. The ware produced under these circumstances is still known
by the name of Satsuma Tangen. But the number of specimens was small.
Destined chiefly for private use or for presents, their decoration was
delicate rather than rich, the colour chiefly employed being brown, or
reddish brown, under the glaze, and the decoration over the glaze
being sparse and chaste. Not until the close of the l8th century or
the beginning of the 19th did the more profuse fashion of enamelled
decoration come to be largely employed. It was introduced by two
potters who had visited Kioto, and there observed the ornate methods
so well illustrated in the wares of Awata and Kiyomizu. At the same
time a strong impetus was given to the production of faience at
Tadeno--then the chief factory in Satsuma--owing to the patronage of
Shimazu Tamanobu, lord of the province. To this increase in production
and to the more elaborate application of verifiable enamels may be
attributed the erroneous idea that Satsuma faience decorated with gold
and coloured enamels had its origin at the close of the 18th century.
For all the purposes of the ordinary collector it may be said to have
commenced then, and to have come to an end about 1860; but for the
purposes of the historian we must look farther back.

The ceramic art in Satsuma owed much to the aid of a number of Korean
experts who settled there after the return of the Japanese forces from
Korea. One of these men, Boku Heii, discovered (1603) clay fitted for
the manufacture of white _craquelé_ faience. This was the subsequently
celebrated _Satsuma-yaki_. But in Boku's time, and indeed as long as
the factories flourished, many other kinds of faience were produced,
the principal having rich black or _flambé_ glazes, while a few were
green or yellow monochromes. One curious variety, called _same-yaki_,
had glaze chagrined like the skin of a shark. Most of the finest
pieces of enamelled faience were the work of artists at the Tadeno
factory, while the best specimens of other kinds were by the artists
of Tatsumonji.

Kutani.

The porcelain of Kutani is among those best known to Western
collectors, though good specimens ofthe old ware have always been
scarce. Its manufacture dates from the close of the 17th century, when
the feudal chief of Kaga took the industry under his patronage. There
were two principal varieties of the ware: _ao-Kutani_, so called
because of a green (_ao_) enamel of great brilliancy and beauty which
was largely used in its decoration, and Kutani with painted and
enamelled _pâte_ varying from hard porcelain to pottery. Many of the
pieces are distinguished by a peculiar creamy whiteness of glaze,
suggesting the idea that they were intended to imitate the soft-paste
wares of China. The enamels are used to delineate decorative subjects
and are applied in masses, the principal colours being green, yellow
and soft Prussian blue, all brilliant and transparent, with the
exception of the last which is nearly opaque. In many cases we find
large portions of the surface completely covered with green or yellow
enamel overlying black diapers or scroll patterns. The second variety
of Kutani ware may often be mistaken for "old Japan" (i.e. Imari
porcelain). The most characteristic examples of it are
distinguishable, however, by the preponderating presence of a peculiar
russet red, differing essentially from the full-bodied and
comparatively brilliant colour of the Arita pottery. Moreover, the
workmen of Kaga did not follow the Arita precedent of massing blue
under the glaze. In the great majority of cases they did not use blue
at all in this position, and when they did, its place was essentially
subordinate. They also employed silver freely for decorative purposes,
whereas we rarely find it thus used on "old Japan" porcelain.

About the time (1843) of the ao-Kutani revival, a potter called lida
Hachiroemon introduced a style of decoration which subsequently came
to be regarded as typical of all Kaga procelains. Taking the Eiraku
porcelains of Kioto as models, Hachiroemon employed red grounds with
designs traced on them in gold. The style was not absolutely new in
Kaga. We find similar decoration on old and choice examples of
Kutani-yaki. But the character of the old red differs essentially from
that of the modern manufacture--the former being a soft, subdued
colour, more like a bloom than an enamel; the latter a glossy and
comparatively crude pigment. In Hachiroemon's time and during the
twenty years following the date of his innovation, many beautiful
examples of elaborately decorated Kutani porcelain were produced. The
richness, profusion and microscopic accuracy of their decoration could
scarcely have been surpassed; but, with very rare exceptions, their
lack of delicacy of technique disqualifies them to rank as fine
porcelains.

Owari.

It was at the little village of Seto, some five miles from Nagoya, the
chief town of the province of Owari, or Bishu, that the celebrated
Kato Shirozaemon made the first Japanese faience worthy to be
considered a technical success. Shirozaemon produced dainty little
tea-jars, ewers and other _cha-no-yu_ utensils. These, being no longer
stoved in an inverted position, as had been the habit before
Shirozaemon's time, were not disfigured by the bare, blistered lips of
their predecessors. Their _pâte_ was close and well-manufactured
pottery, varying in colour from dark brown to russet, and covered with
thick, lustrous glazes--black, amber-brown, chocolate and yellowish
grey. These glazes were not monochromatic: they showed differences of
tint, and sometimes marked varieties of colour; as when
chocolate-brown passed into amber, or black was relieved by streaks
and clouds of grey and dead-leaf red. This ware came to be known as
_Toshiro-yaki_, a term obtained by combining the second syllable of
Kato with the two first of Shirozaemon. A genuine example of it is at
present worth many times its weight in gold to Japanese dilettanti,
though in foreign eyes it is little more than interesting. Shirozaemon
was succeeded at the kiln by three generations of his family, each
representative retaining the name of Toshiro, and each distinguishing
himself by the excellence of his work. Thenceforth Seto became the
headquarters of the manufacture of _cha-no-yu_ utensils, and many of
the tiny pieces turned out there deserve high admiration, their
technique being perfect, and their mahogany, russet-brown, amber and
buff glazes showing wonderful lustre and richness. Seto, in fact,
acquired such a widespread reputation for its ceramic productions that
the term _seto-mono_ (Seto article) came to be used generally for all
pottery and porcelain, just as "China" is in the West. Seto has now
ceased to be a pottery-producing centre, and has become the chief
porcelain manufactory of Japan. The porcelain industry was inaugurated
in 1807 by Tamikichi, a local ceramist, who had visited Hizen and
spent three years there studying the necessary processes. Owari
abounds in porcelain stone; but it does not occur in constant or
particularly simple forms, and as the potters have not yet learned to
treat their materials scientifically, their work is often marred by
unforeseen difficulties. For many years after Tamikichi's processes
had begun to be practised, the only decoration employed was blue under
the glaze. Sometimes Chinese cobalt was used, sometimes Japanese, and
sometimes a mixture of both. To Kawamoto Hansuke, who flourished about
1830-1845, belongs the credit of having turned out the richest and
most attractive ware of this class. But, speaking generally, Japanese
blues do not rank on the same decorative level with those of China. At
Arita, although pieces were occasionally turned out of which the
colour could not be surpassed in purity and brilliancy, the general
character of the blue _sous couverte_ was either thin or dull. At
Hirado the ceramists affected a lighter and more delicate tone than
that of the Chinese, and, in order to obtain it, subjected the choice
pigment of the Middle Kingdom to refining processes of great severity.
The Hirado blue, therefore, belongs to a special aesthetic category.
But at Owari the experts were content with an inferior colour, and
their blue-and-white porcelains never enjoyed a distinguished
reputation, though occasionally we find a specimen of great merit.

Decoration with vitrifiable enamels over the glaze, though it began to
be practised at Owari about the year 1840, never became a speciality
of the place. Nowadays, indeed, numerous examples of porcelains
decorated in this manner are classed among Owari products. But they
receive their decoration, almost without exception, in Tokyo or
Yokohama, where a large number of artists, called _e-tsuke-shi_,
devote themselves entirely to porcelain-painting. These men seldom use
vitrifiable enamels, pigments being much more tractable and less
costly. The dominant feature of the designs is pictorial. They are
frankly adapted to Western taste. Indeed, of this porcelain it may be
said that, from the monster pieces of blue-and-white manufactured at
Seto--vases six feet high and garden pillar-lamps half as tall again
do not dismay the Bishu ceramist--to tiny coffee-cups decorated in
Tokyo, with their delicate miniatures of birds, flowers, insects,
fishes and so forth, everything indicates the death of the old severe
aestheticism. To such a depth of debasement had the ceramic art fallen
in Owari, that before the happy renaissance of the past ten years,
Nagoya discredited itself by employing porcelain as a base for
cloisonné enamelling. Many products of this vitiated industry have
found their way into the collections of foreigners.

Bizen.

Pottery was produced at several hamlets in Bizen as far back as the
14th century, but ware worthy of artistic notice did not make its
appearance until the close of the 16th century, when the Taiko himself
paid a visit to the factory at Imbe. Thenceforth utensils for the use
of the tea clubs began to be manufactured. This _Bizen-yaki_ was red
stoneware, with thin diaphanous glaze. Made of exceedingly refractory
clay, it underwent stoving for more than three weeks, and was
consequently remarkable for its hardness and metallic timbre. Some
fifty years later, the character of the choicest Bizen-yaki underwent
a marked change. It became slate-coloured or bluish-brown faience,
with _pâte_ as fine as pipe-clay, but very hard. In the _ao-Bizen_
(blue Bizen), as well as in the red variety, figures of mythical
beings and animals, birds, fishes and other natural objects, were
modelled with a degree of plastic ability that can scarcely be spoken
of in too high terms. Representative specimens are truly
admirable--every line, every contour faithful. The production was very
limited, and good pieces soon ceased to be procurable except at long
intervals and heavy expense. The Bizen-yaki familiar to Western
collectors is comparatively coarse brown or reddish brown, stoneware,
modelled rudely, though sometimes redeemed by touches of the genius
never entirely absent from the work of the Japanese artisan-artist.
Easy to be confounded with it is another ware of the same type
manufactured at Shidoro in the province of Totomi.

Takatori.

The Japanese potters could never vie with the Chinese in the
production of glazes: the wonderful monochromes and polychromes of the
Middle Kingdom had no peers anywhere. In Japan they were most closely
approached by the faience of Takatori in the province of Chikuzen. In
its early days the ceramic industry of this province owed something to
the assistance of Korean experts who settled there after the
expedition of 1592. But its chief development took place under the
direction of Igarashi Jizaemon, an amateur ceramist, who, happening to
visit Chikuzen about 1620, was taken under the protection of the chief
of the fief and munificently treated. Taking the renowned
_yao-pien-yao_, or "transmutation ware" of China as a model, the
Takatori potters endeavoured, by skilful mixing of colouring
materials, to reproduce the wonderful effects of oxidization seen in
the Chinese ware. They did not, indeed, achieve their ideal, but they
did succeed in producing some exquisitely lustrous glazes of the
_flambé_ type, rich transparent brown passing into claret colour, with
flecks or streaks of white and clouds of "iron dust." The _pâte_ of
this faience was of the finest description, and the technique in every
respect faultless. Unfortunately, the best experts confined themselves
to working for the tea clubs, and consequently produced only
insignificant pieces, as tea-jars, cups and little ewers. During the
18th century, a departure was made from these strict canons. From this
period date most of the specimens best known outside Japan--cleverly
modelled figures of mythological beings and animals covered with
lustrous variegated glazes, the general colours being grey or buff,
with tints of green, chocolate, brown and sometimes blue.

Awaji.

A ware of which considerable quantities have found their way westward
of late years in the _Awaji-yaki_, so called from the island of Awaji
where it is manufactured in the village of Iga. It was first produced
between the years 1830 and 1840 by one Kaju Mimpei, a man of
considerable private means who devoted himself to the ceramic art out
of pure enthusiasm. His story is full of interest, but it must suffice
here to note the results of his enterprise. Directing his efforts at
first to reproducing the deep green and straw-yellow glazes of China,
he had exhausted almost his entire resources before success came, and
even then the public was slow to recognize the merits of his ware.
Nevertheless he persevered, and in 1838 we find him producing not only
green and yellow monochromes, but also greyish white and mirror-black
glazes of high excellence. So thoroughly had he now mastered the
management of glazes that he could combine yellow, green, white and
claret colour in regular patches to imitate tortoise-shell. Many of
his pieces have designs incised or in relief, and others are skilfully
decorated with gold and silver. Awaji-yaki, or _Mimpei-yaki_ as it is
often called, is generally porcelain, but we occasionally find
specimens which may readily be mistaken for Awata faience.

Banko.

Banko faience is a universal favourite with foreign collectors. The
type generally known to them is exceedingly light ware, for the most
part made of light grey, unglazed clay, and having hand-modelled
decoration in relief. But there are numerous varieties. Chocolate or
dove-coloured grounds with delicate diapers in gold and _engobe_;
brown or black faience with white, yellow and pink designs incised or
in relief; pottery curiously and deftly marbled by combinations of
various coloured clays--these and many other kinds are to be found,
all, however, presenting one common feature, namely, skilful
finger-moulding and a slight roughening of the surface as though it
had received the impression of coarse linen or crape before baking.
This modern _banko-yaki_ is produced chiefly at Yokkaichi in the
province of Ise. It is entirely different from the original banko-ware
made in Kuwana, in the same province, by Numanami Gozaemon at the
close of the 18th century. Gozaemon was an imitator. He took for his
models the raku faience of Kioto, the masterpieces of Ninsei and
Kenzan, the rococo wares of Korea, the enamelled porcelain of China,
and the blue-and-white ware of Delft. He did not found a school,
simply because he had nothing new to teach, and the fact that a modern
ware goes by the same name as his productions is simply because his
seal--the inscription on which (_banko_, everlasting) suggested the
name of the ware--subsequently (1830) fell into the hands of one Mori
Yusetsu, who applied it to his own ware. Mori Yusetsu, however, had
more originality than Numanami. He conceived the idea of shaping his
pieces by putting the mould inside and pressing the clay with the hand
into the matrix. The consequence was that his wares received the
design on the inner as well as the outer surface, and were moreover
thumb-marked--essential characteristics of the banko-yaki now so
popular.

Izumo.

Among a multitude of other Japanese wares, space allows us to mention
only two, those of Izumo and Yatsushiro. The chief of the former is
faience, having light grey, close _pâte_ and yellow or straw-coloured
glaze, with or without crackle, to which is applied decoration in
gold and green enamel. Another variety has chocolate glaze, clouded
with amber and flecked with gold dust. The former faience had its
origin at the close of the 17th century, the latter at the close of
the 18th; but the _Izumo-yaki_ now procurable is a modern production.

Yatsushiro.

The Yatsushiro faience is a production of the province of Higo, where
a number of Korean potters settled at the close of the 17th century.
It is the only Japanese ware in which the characteristics of a Korean
original are unmistakably preserved. Its diaphanous, pearl-grey glaze,
uniform, lustrous and finely crackled, overlying encaustic decoration
in white slip, the fineness of its warm reddish _pâte_, and the
general excellence of its technique, have always commanded admiration.
It is produced now in considerable quantities, but the modern ware
falls far short of its predecessor.

Many examples of the above varieties deserve the enthusiastic admiration
they have received, yet they unquestionably belong to a lower rank of
ceramic achievements than the choice productions of Chinese kilns. The
potters of the Middle Kingdom, from the early eras of the Ming dynasty
down to the latest years of the 18th century, stood absolutely without
rivals as makers of porcelain. Their technical ability was
incomparable--though in grace of decorative conception they yielded the
palm to the Japanese--and the representative specimens they bequeathed
to posterity remained, until quite recently, far beyond the imitative
capacity of European or Asiatic experts. As for faience and pottery,
however, the Chinese despised them in all forms, with one notable
exception, the _yi-hsing-yao_, known in the Occident as _boccaro_. Even
the _yi-hsing-yao_, too, owed much of its popularity to special utility.
It was essentially the ware of the tea-drinker. If in the best specimens
exquisite modelling, wonderful accuracy of finish and _pâtes_ of
interesting tints are found, such pieces are, none the less, stamped
prominently with the character of utensils rather than with that of
works of art. In short, the artistic output of Chinese kilns in their
palmiest days was, not faience or pottery, but porcelain, whether of
soft or hard paste. Japan, on the contrary, owes her ceramic distinction
in the main to her faience. A great deal has been said by enthusiastic
writers about the _famille chrysanthemo-péonienne_ of Imari and the
_genre Kakiemon_ of Nabeshima, but these porcelains, beautiful as they
undoubtedly are, cannot be placed on the same level with the _kwan-yao_
and _famille rose_ of the Chinese experts. The Imari ware, even though
its thick biscuit and generally ungraceful shapes be omitted from the
account, shows no enamels that can rival the exquisitely soft, broken
tints of the _famille rose_; and the _Kakiemon_ porcelain, for all its
rich though chaste contrasts, lacks the delicate transmitted tints of
the shell-like _kwan-yao_. So, too, the blue-and-white porcelain of
Hirado, though assisted by exceptional tenderness of sous-pâte colour,
by milk-white glaze, by great beauty of decorative design, and often by
an admirable use of the modelling or graving tool, represents a ceramic
achievement palpably below the soft paste _kai-pien-yao_ of
King-te-chen. It is a curious and interesting fact that this last
product of Chinese skill remained unknown in Japan down to very recent
days. In the eyes of a Chinese connoisseur, no blue-and-white porcelain
worthy of consideration exists, or ever has existed, except the
_kai-pien-yao_, with its imponderable _pâte_, its wax-like surface, and
its rich, glowing blue, entirely free from superficiality or garishness
and broken into a thousand tints by the microscopic crackle of the
glaze. The Japanese, although they obtained from their neighbour almost
everything of value she had to give them, did not know this wonderful
ware, and their ignorance is in itself sufficient to prove their ceramic
inferiority. There remains, too, a wide domain in which the Chinese
developed high skill, whereas the Japanese can scarcely be said to have
entered it at all; namely, the domain of monochromes and polychromes,
striking every note of colour from the richest to the most delicate; the
domain of _truité_ and _flambé_ glazes, of _yo-pien-yao_ (transmutation
ware), and of egg-shell with incised or translucid decoration. In all
that region of achievement the Chinese potters stood alone and seemingly
unapproachable. The Japanese, on the contrary, made a specialty of
faience, and in that particular line they reached a high standard of
excellence. No faience produced either in China or any other Oriental
country can dispute the palm with really representative specimens of
Satsuma ware. Not without full reason have Western connoisseurs lavished
panegyrics upon that exquisite production. The faience of the Kioto
artists never reached quite to the level of the Satsuma in quality of
_pâte_ and glowing mellowness of decoration; their materials were
slightly inferior. But their skill as decorators was as great as its
range was wide, and they produced a multitude of masterpieces on which
alone Japan's ceramic fame might safely be rested.

Change of Style after the Restoration.

When the mediatization of the fiefs, in 1871, terminated the local
patronage hitherto extended so munificently to artists, the Japanese
ceramists gradually learned that they must thenceforth depend chiefly
upon the markets of Europe and America. They had to appeal, in short, to
an entirely new public, and how to secure its approval was to them a
perplexing problem. Having little to guide them, they often interpreted
Western taste incorrectly, and impaired their own reputation in a
corresponding degree. Thus, in the early years of the Meiji era, there
was a period of complete prostitution. No new skill was developed, and
what remained of the old was expended chiefly upon the manufacture of
meretricious objects, disfigured by excess of decoration and not
relieved by any excellence of technique. In spite of their artistic
defects, these specimens were exported in considerable numbers by
merchants in the foreign settlements, and their first cost being very
low, they found a not unremunerative market. But as European and
American collectors became better acquainted with the capacities of the
pre-Meiji potters, the great inferiority of these new specimens was
recognized, and the prices commanded by the old wares gradually
appreciated. What then happened was very natural: imitations of the old
wares were produced, and having been sufficiently disfigured by staining
and other processes calculated to lend an air of rust and age, they were
sold to ignorant persons, who laboured under the singular yet common
hallucination that the points to be looked for in specimens from early
kilns were, not technical excellence, decorative tastefulness and
richness of colour, but dinginess, imperfections and dirt; persons who
imagined, in short, that defects which they would condemn at once in new
porcelains ought to be regarded as merits in old. Of course a trade of
that kind, based on deception, could not have permanent success. One of
the imitators of "old Satsuma" was among the first to perceive that a
new line must be struck out. Yet the earliest results of his awakened
perception helped to demonstrate still further the depraved spirit that
had come over Japanese art. For he applied himself to manufacture wares
having a close affinity with the shocking monstrosities used for
sepulchral purposes in ancient Apulia, where fragments of dissected
satyrs, busts of nymphs or halves of horses were considered graceful
excrescences for the adornment of an amphora or a pithos. This _Makuzu_
faience, produced by the now justly celebrated Miyagawa Shozan of Ota
(near Yokohama), survives in the form of vases and pots having birds,
reptiles, flowers, crustacea and so forth plastered over the
surface--specimens that disgrace the period of their manufacture, and
represent probably the worst aberration of Japanese ceramic conception.

Adoption of Chinese Models.

A production so degraded as the early Makuzu faience could not possibly
have a lengthy vogue. Miyagawa soon began to cast about for a better
inspiration, and found it in the monochromes and polychromes of the
Chinese _Kang-hsi_ and _Yung-cheng kilns_. The extraordinary value
attaching to the incomparable red glazes of China, not only in the
country of their origin but also in the United States, where collectors
showed a fine instinct in this matter, seems to have suggested to
Miyagawa the idea of imitation. He took for model the rich and delicate
"liquid-dawn" monochrome, and succeeded in producing some specimens of
considerable merit. Thenceforth his example was largely followed, and it
may now be said that the tendency of many of the best Japanese ceramists
is to copy Chinese _chefs-d'oeuvre_. To find them thus renewing their
reputation by reverting to Chinese models, is not only another tribute
to the perennial supremacy of Chinese porcelains, but also a fresh
illustration of the eclectic genius of Japanese art. All the products of
this new effort are porcelains proper. Seven kilns are devoted, wholly
or in part, to the new wares: belonging to Miyagawa Shozan of Ota, Seifu
Yohei of Kioto, Takemoto Hayata and Kato Tomojiro of Tokyo, Higuchi
Haruzane of Hirado, Shida Yasukyo of Kaga and Kato Masukichi of Seto.

Seifu of Kioto.

Among the seven ceramists here enumerated, Seifu of Kioto probably
enjoys the highest reputation. If we except the ware of Satsuma, it
may be said that nearly all the fine faience of Japan was manufactured
formerly in Kioto. Nomura Ninsei, in the middle of the 17th century,
inaugurated a long era of beautiful productions with his cream-like
"fish-roe" _craquelé_ glazes, carrying rich decoration of clear and
brilliant vitrifiable enamels. It was he who gave their first really
artistic impulse to the kilns of Awata, Mizoro and Iwakura, whence so
many delightful specimens of faience issued almost without
interruption until the middle of the 19th century and continue to
issue to-day. The three Kenzan, of whom the third died in 1820;
Ebisei; the four Dohachi, of whom the fourth was still alive in 1909;
the Kagiya family, manufacturers of the celebrated Kinkozan ware;
Hozan, whose imitations of Delft faience and his _pâte-sur-pâte_
pieces with fern-scroll decoration remain incomparable; Taizan Yohei,
whose ninth descendant of the same name now produces fine specimens of
Awata ware for foreign markets; Tanzan Yoshitaro and his son Rokuro,
to whose credit stands a new departure in the form of faience having
_pâte-sur-pâte_ decoration of lace patterns, diapers and archaic
designs executed in low relief with admirable skill and minuteness;
the two Bizan, renowned for their representations of richly apparelled
figures as decorative motives; Rokubei, who studied painting under
Maruyama Okyo and followed the naturalistic style of that great
artist; Mokubei, the first really expert manufacturer of translucid
porcelain in Kioto; Shuhei, Kintei, and above all, Zengoro Hozen, the
celebrated potter of Eiraku wares--these names and many others give to
Kioto ceramics an eminence as well as an individuality which few other
wares of Japan can boast. Nor is it to be supposed that the ancient
capital now lacks great potters. Okamura Yasutaro, commonly called
Shozan, produces specimens which only a very acute connoisseur can
distinguish from the work of Nomura Ninsei; Tanzan Rokuro's half-tint
enamels and soft creamy glazes would have stood high in any epoch;
Taizan Yohei produces Awata faience not inferior to that of former
days; Kagiya Sobei worthily supports the reputation of the Kinkozan
ware; Kawamoto Eijiro has made to the order of a well-known Kioto firm
many specimens now figuring in foreign collections as old
masterpieces; and Ito Tozan succeeds in decorating faience with seven
colours _sous couverte_ (black, green, blue, russet-red, tea-brown,
purple and peach), a feat never before accomplished. It is therefore
an error to assert that Kioto has no longer a title to be called a
great ceramic centre. Seifu Yohei, however, has the special faculty of
manufacturing monochromatic and jewelled porcelain and faience, which
differ essentially from the traditional Kioto types, their models
being taken directly from China. But a sharp distinction has to be
drawn between the method of Seifu and that of the other six ceramists
mentioned above as following Chinese fashions. It is this, that
whereas the latter produce their chromatic effects by mixing the
colouring matter with the glaze, Seifu paints the biscuit with a
pigment over which he runs a translucid colourless glaze. The Kioto
artist's process is much easier than that of his rivals, and although
his monochromes are often of most pleasing delicacy and fine tone,
they do not belong to the same category of technical excellence as the
wares they imitate. From this judgment must be excepted, however, his
ivory-white and _céladon_ wares, as well as his porcelains decorated
with blue, or blue and red _sous couverte_, and with vitrifiable
enamels over the glaze. In these five varieties he is emphatically
great. It cannot be said, indeed, that his _céladon_ shows the velvety
richness of surface and tenderness of colour that distinguished the
old _Kuang-yao_ and _Lungchuan-yao_ of China, or that he has ever
essayed the moss-edged crackle of the beautiful _Ko-yao_. But his
_céladon_ certainly equals the more modern Chinese examples from the
_Kang-hsi_ and _Yung-cheng_ kilns. As for his ivory-white, it
distinctly surpasses the Chinese Ming _Chen-yao_ in every quality
except an indescribable intimacy of glaze and _pâte_ which probably
can never be obtained by either Japanese or European methods.

Miyagawa Shozan.

Miyagawa Shozan, or Makuzu, as he is generally called, has never
followed Seifu's example in descending from the difficult manipulation
of coloured glazes to the comparatively simple process of painted
biscuit. This comment does not refer to the use of blue and red _sous
couverte_. In that class of beautiful ware the application of pigment
to the unglazed _pâte_ is inevitable, and both Seifu and Miyagawa,
working on the same lines as their Chinese predecessors, produce
porcelains that almost rank with choice Kang-hsi specimens, though
they have not yet mastered the processes sufficiently to employ them
in the manufacture of large imposing pieces or wares of moderate
price. But in the matter of true monochromatic and polychromatic
glazes, to Shozan belongs the credit of having inaugurated Chinese
fashions, and if he has never fully succeeded in achieving _lang-yao_
(sang-de-boeuf), _chi-hung_ (liquid-dawn red), _chiang-tou-hung_
(bean-blossom red, the "peach-blow" of American collectors), or above
all _pin-kwo-tsing_ (apple-green with red bloom), his efforts to
imitate them have resulted in some very interesting pieces.

Tokyo Ceramists.

Takemoto and Kato of Tokyo entered the field subsequently to Shozan,
but followed the same models approximately. Takemoto, however, has
made a speciality of black glazes, his aim being to rival the _Sung
Chien-yao_, with its glaze of mirror-black or raven's-wing green, and
its leveret fur streaking or russet-moss dappling, the prince of all
wares in the estimation of the Japanese tea-clubs. Like Shozan, he is
still very far from his original, but, also like Shozan, he produces
highly meritorious pieces in his efforts to reach an ideal that will
probably continue to elude him for ever. Of Kato there is not much to
be said. He has not succeeded in winning great distinction, but he
manufactures some very delicate monochromes, fully deserving to be
classed among prominent evidences of the new departure. Tokyo was
never a centre of ceramic production. Even during the 300 years of its
conspicuous prosperity as the administrative capital of the Tokugawa
shoguns, it had no noted factories, doubtless owing to the absence of
any suitable potter's clay in the immediate vicinity. Its only notable
production of a ceramic character was the work of Miura Kenya
(1830-1843), who followed the methods of the celebrated Haritsu
(1688-1704) of Kioto in decorating plain or lacquered wood with
mosaics of raku faience having coloured glazes. Kenya was also a
skilled modeller of figures, and his factory in the Imado suburb
obtained a considerable reputation for work of that nature. He was
succeeded by Tozawa Benshi, an old man of over seventy in 1909, who,
using clay from Owari or Hizen, has turned out many porcelain
statuettes of great beauty. But although the capital of Japan formerly
played only an insignificant part in Japanese ceramics, modern Tokyo
has an important school of artist-artisans. Every year large
quantities of porcelain and faience are sent from the provinces to the
capital to receive surface decoration, and in wealth of design as well
as carefulness of execution the results are praiseworthy. But of the
pigments employed nothing very laudatory could be said until very
recent times. They were generally crude, of impure tone, and without
depth or brilliancy. Now, however, they have lost these defects and
entered a period of considerable excellence. Figure-subjects
constitute the chief feature of the designs. A majority of the artists
are content to copy old pictures of Buddha's sixteen disciples, the
seven gods of happiness, and other similar assemblages of mythical or
historical personages, not only because such work offers large
opportunity for the use of striking colours and the production of
meretricious effects, dear to the eye of the average Western
householder and tourist, but also because a complicated design, as
compared with a simple one, has the advantage of hiding the technical
imperfections of the ware. Of late there have happily appeared some
decorators who prefer to choose their subjects from the natural field
in which their great predecessors excelled, and there is reason to
hope that this more congenial and more pleasing style will supplant
its modern usurper. The best known factory in Tokyo for decorative
purposes is the Hyochi-en. It was established in the Fukagawa suburb
in 1875, with the immediate object of preparing specimens for the
first Tokyo exhibition held at that time. Its founders obtained a
measure of official aid, and were able to secure the services of some
good artists, among whom may be mentioned Obanawa and Shimauchi. The
porcelains of Owari and Arita naturally received most attention at the
hands of the Hyochi-en decorators, but there was scarcely one of the
principal wares of Japan upon which they did not try their skill, and
if a piece of monochromatic Minton or Sèvres came in their way, they
undertook to improve it by the addition of designs copied from old
masters or suggested by modern taste. The cachet of the Fukagawa
atelier was indiscriminately applied to all such pieces, and has
probably proved a source of confusion to collectors. Many other
factories for decoration were established from time to time in Tokyo.
Of these some still exist; others, ceasing to be profitable, have been
abandoned. On the whole, the industry may now be said to have assumed
a domestic character. In a house, presenting no distinctive features
whatsoever, one finds the decorator with a cupboard full of bowls and
vases of glazed biscuit, which he adorns, piece by piece, using the
simplest conceivable apparatus and a meagre supply of pigments.
Sometimes he fixes the decoration himself, employing for that purpose
a small kiln which stands in his back garden; sometimes he entrusts
this part of the work to a factory. As in the case of everything
Japanese, there is no pretence, no useless expenditure about the
process. Yet it is plain that this school of Tokyo decorators, though
often choosing their subjects badly, have contributed much to the
progress of the ceramic art during the past few years. Little by
little there has been developed a degree of skill which compares not
unfavourably with the work of the old masters. Table services of Owari
porcelain--the ware itself excellently manipulated and of almost
egg-shell fineness--are now decorated with floral scrolls, landscapes,
insects, birds, figure-subjects and all sorts of designs, chaste,
elaborate or quaint; and these services, representing so much artistic
labour and originality, are sold for prices that bear no due ratio to
the skill required in their manufacture.

There is only one reservation to be made in speaking of the modern
decorative industry of Japan under its better aspects. In Tokyo,
Kioto, Yokohama and Kobe--in all of which places decorating ateliers
(_etsuke-dokoro_), similar to those of Tokyo, have been established in
modern times--the artists use chiefly pigments, seldom venturing to
employ vitrifiable enamels. That the results achieved with these
different materials are not comparable is a fact which every
connoisseur must admit. The glossy surface of a porcelain glaze is ill
fitted for rendering artistic effects with ordinary colours. The
proper field for the application of these is the biscuit, in which
position the covering glaze serves at once to soften and to preserve
the pigment. It can scarcely be doubted that the true instincts of the
ceramist will ultimately counsel him to confine his decoration over
the glaze to vitrifiable enamels, with which the Chinese and Japanese
potters of former times obtained such brilliant results. But to employ
enamels successfully is an achievement demanding special training and
materials not easy to procure or to prepare. The Tokyo decorators are
not likely, therefore, to change their present methods immediately.

An impetus was given to ceramic decoration by the efforts of a new
school, which owed its origin to Dr G. Wagener, an eminent German
expert formerly in the service of the Japanese government. Dr Wagener
conceived the idea of developing the art of decoration under the
glaze, as applied to faience. Faience thus decorated has always been
exceptional in Japan. Rare specimens were produced in Satsuma and
Kioto, the colour employed being chiefly blue, though brown and black
were used in very exceptional instances. The difficulty of obtaining
clear, rich tints was nearly prohibitive, and though success, when
achieved, seemed to justify the effort, this class of ware never
received much attention in Japan. By careful selection and preparation
of _pâte_, glaze and pigments, Dr Wagener proved not only that the
manufacture was reasonably feasible, but also that decoration thus
applied to pottery possesses unique delicacy and softness. Ware
manufactured by his direction at the Tokyo school of technique
(_shokkô gakkô_), under the name of _asahi-yaki_, ranks among the
interesting productions of modern Japan. The decorative colour chiefly
employed is chocolate brown, which harmonizes excellently with the
glaze. But the ware has never found favour in Japanese eyes, an
element of unpleasant garishness being imparted to it by the vitreous
appearance of the glaze, which is manufactured according to European
methods. The modern faience of Ito Tozan of Kioto, decorated with
colour under the glaze, is incomparably more artistic than the Tokyo
_asahi-yaki_, from which, nevertheless, the Kioto master doubtless
borrowed some ideas. The decorative industry in Tokyo owed much also
to the kosho-kaisha, an institution started by Wakai and Matsuo in
1873, with official assistance. Owing to the intelligent patronage of
this company, and the impetus given to the ceramic trade by its
enterprise, the style of the Tokyo _etsuke_ was much improved and the
field of their industry extended. It must be acknowledged, however,
that the Tokyo artists often devote their skill to purposes of
forgery, and that their imitations, especially of old Satsuma-yaki,
are sometimes franked by dealers whose standing should forbid such
frauds. In this context it may be mentioned that, of late years,
decoration of a remarkably microscopic character has been successfully
practised in Kioto, Osaka and Kobe, its originator being Meisan of
Osaka. Before dismissing the subject of modern Tokyo ceramics, it may
be added that Kato Tomataro, mentioned above in connexion with the
manufacture of special glazes, has also been very successful in
producing porcelains decorated with blue _sous couverte_ at his
factory in the Koishikawa suburb.

Modern Wares of Hirado.

Higuchi of Hirado is to be classed with ceramists of the new school on
account of one ware only, namely, porcelain having translucid
decoration, the so-called "grains of rice" of American collectors,
designated _hotaru-de_ (firefly style) in Japan. That, however, is an
achievement of no small consequence, especially since it had never
previously been essayed outside China. The Hirado expert has not yet
attained technical skill equal to that of the Chinese. He cannot, like
them, cover the greater part of a specimen's surface with a lacework
of transparent decoration, exciting wonder that _pâte_ deprived so
greatly of continuity could have been manipulated without accident.
But his artistic instincts are higher than those of the Chinese, and
there is reasonable hope that in time he may excel their best works.
In other respects the Hirado factories do not produce wares nearly so
beautiful as those manufactured there between 1759 and 1840, when the
_Hirado-yaki_ stood at the head of all Japanese porcelain on account
of its pure, close-grained _pâte_, its lustrous milk-white glaze, and
the soft clear blue of its carefully executed decoration.

Ware of Owari.

The Owari potters were slow to follow the lead of Miyagawa Shozan and
Seifu Yohei. At the industrial exhibition in Kioto (1895) the first
results of their efforts were shown, attracting attention at once. In
medieval times Owari was celebrated for faience glazes of various
colours, much affected by the tea-clubs, but its staple manufacture
from the beginning of the 19th century was porcelain decorated with
blue under the glaze, the best specimens of which did not approach
their Chinese prototypes in fineness of _pâte_, purity of glaze or
richness of colour. During the first twenty-five years of the Meiji
era the Owari potters sought to compensate the technical and artistic
defects of their pieces by giving them magnificent dimensions; but at
the Tokyo industrial exhibition (1891) they were able to contribute
some specimens showing decorative, plastic and graving skill of no
mean order. Previously to that time, one of the Seto experts, Kato
Gosuke, had developed remarkable ability in the manufacture of
_céladon_, though in that field he was subsequently distanced by Seifu
of Kioto. Only lately did Owari feel the influence of the new movement
towards Chinese types. Its potters took _flambé_ glazes for models,
and their pieces possessed an air of novelty that attracted
connoisseurs. But the style was not calculated to win general
popularity, and the manufacturing processes were too easy to occupy
the attention of great potters. On a far higher level stood egg-shell
porcelain, remarkable examples of which were sent from Seto to the
Kioto industrial exhibition of 1895. Chinese potters of the Yung-lo
era (1403-1414) enriched their country with a quantity of ware to
which the name of _totai-ki_ (bodiless utensil) was given on account
of its wonderfully attenuated _pâte_. The finest specimens of this
porcelain had incised decoration, sparingly employed but adding much
to the beauty of the piece. In subsequent eras the potters of
King-te-chen did not fail to continue this remarkable manufacture, but
its only Japanese representative was a porcelain distinctly inferior
in more than one respect, namely, the egg-shell utensils of Hizen and
Hirado, some of which had finely woven basket-cases to protect their
extreme fragility. The Seto experts, however, are now making bowls,
cups and vases that rank nearly as high as the celebrated Yung-lo
totai-ki. In purity of tone and velvet-like gloss of surface there is
distinct inferiority on the side of the Japanese ware, but in thinness
of _pâte_ it supports comparison, and in profusion and beauty of
incised decoration it excels its Chinese original.

Ware of Kaga.

Latest of all to acknowledge the impulse of the new departure have
been the potters of Kaga. For many years their ware enjoyed the
credit, or discredit, of being the most lavishly decorated porcelain
in Japan. It is known to Western collectors as a product blazing with
red and gold, a very degenerate offspring of the Chinese Ming type,
which Hozen of Kioto reproduced so beautifully at the beginning of the
19th century under the name of _eiraku-yaki_. Undoubtedly the best
specimens of this _kinran-de_ (brocade) porcelain of Kaga merit praise
and admiration; but, on the whole, ware so gaudy could not long hold a
high place in public esteem. The Kaga potters ultimately appreciated
that defect. They still manufacture quantities of tea and coffee sets,
and dinner or dessert services of red-and-gold porcelain for foreign
markets; but about 1885 some of them made zealous and patient efforts
to revert to the processes that won so much fame for the old
Kutani-yaki, with its grand combinations of rich, lustrous, soft-toned
glazes. The attempt was never entirely successful, but its results
restored something of the Kaga kilns' reputation. Since 1895, again, a
totally new departure has been made by Morishita Hachizaemon, a
ceramic expert, in conjunction with Shida Yasukyo, president of the
Kaga products joint stock company (_Kaga bussan kabushiki kaisha_) and
teacher in the Kaga industrial school. The line chosen by these
ceramists is purely Chinese. Their great aim seems to be the
production of the exquisite Chinese monochromes known as
_u-kwo-tien-tsing_ (blue of the sky after rain) and _yueh-peh_
(_clair-de-lune_). But they also devote much attention to porcelains
decorated with blue or red _sous couverte_. Their work shows much
promise, but like all fine specimens of the Sino-Japanese school, the
prices are too high to attract wide custom.

Summary.

The sum of the matter is that the modern Japanese ceramist, after many
efforts to cater for the taste of the Occident, evidently concludes that
his best hope consists in devoting all his technical and artistic
resources to reproducing the celebrated wares of China. In explanation
of the fact that he did not essay this route in former times, it may be
noted, first, that he had only a limited acquaintance with the wares in
question; secondly, that Japanese connoisseurs never attached any value
to their countrymen's imitation of Chinese porcelains so long as the
originals were obtainable; thirdly, that the ceramic art of China not
having fallen into its present state of decadence, the idea of competing
with it did not occur to outsiders; and fourthly, that Europe and
America had not developed their present keen appreciation of Chinese
masterpieces. Yet it is remarkable that China, at the close of the 19th
century, should have again furnished models to Japanese eclecticism.

_Lacquer._--Japan derived the art of lacquering from China (probably
about the beginning of the 6th century), but she ultimately carried it
far beyond Chinese conception. At first her experts confined themselves
to plain black lacquer. From the early part of the 8th century they
began to ornament it with dust of gold or mother-of-pearl, and
throughout the Heian epoch (9th to 12th century) they added pictorial
designs, though of a formal character, the chief motives being floral
subjects, arabesques and scrolls. All this work was in the style known
as _hira-makie_ (flat decoration); that is to say, having the decorative
design in the same plane as the ground. In the days of the great
dilettante Yoshimasa (1449-1490), lacquer experts devised a new style,
_taka-makie_, or decoration in relief, which immensely augmented the
beauty of the ware, and constituted a feature altogether special to
Japan. Thus when, at the close of the 16th century, the Taiko
inaugurated the fashion of lavishing all the resources of applied art on
the interior decoration of castles and temples, the services of the
lacquerer were employed to an extent hitherto unknown, and there
resulted some magnificent work on friezes, coffered ceilings, door
panels, altar-pieces and cenotaphs. This new departure reached its
climax in the Tokugawa mausolea of Yedo and Nikko, which are enriched by
the possession of the most splendid applications of lacquer decoration
the world has ever seen, nor is it likely that anything of comparable
beauty and grandeur will be again produced in the same line. Japanese
connoisseurs indicate the end of the 17th century as the golden period
of the art, and so deeply rooted is this belief that whenever a date has
to be assigned to any specimen of exceptionally fine quality, it is
unhesitatingly referred to the time of Joken-in (Tsunayoshi).

Among the many skilled artists who have practised this beautiful craft
since the first on record, Kiyohara Norisuye (c. 1169), may be
mentioned Koyetsu (1558-1637) and his pupils, who are especially noted
for their inro (medicine-cases worn as part of the costume); Kajikawa
Kinjiro (c. 1680), the founder of the great Kajikawa family, which
continued up to the 19th century; and Koma Kyuhaku (d. 1715), whose
pupils and descendants maintained his traditions for a period of equal
length. Of individual artists, perhaps the most notable is Ogata Korin
(d. 1716), whose skill was equally great in the arts of painting and
pottery. He was the eldest son of an artist named Ogato Soken, and
studied the styles of the Kano and Tosa schools successively. Among
the artists who influenced him were Kano Tsunenobu, Nomura Sotatsu and
Koyetsu. His lacquer-ware is distinguished for a bold and at times
almost eccentric impressionism, and his use of inlay is strongly
characteristic. Ritsuo (1663-1747), a pupil and contemporary of Korin,
and like him a potter and painter also, was another lacquerer of great
skill. Then followed Hanzan, the two Shiome, Yamamoto Shunsho and his
pupils, Yamada Joka and Kwanshosai Toyo (late 18th century). In the
beginning of the 19th century worked Shokwasai, who frequently
collaborated with the metal-worker Shibayama, encrusting his lacquer
with small decorations in metal by the latter.

Modern Work.

No important new developments have taken place during modern times in
Japan's lacquer manufacture. Her artists follow the old ways
faithfully; and indeed it is not easy to see how they could do better.
On the other hand, there has not been any deterioration; all the skill
of former days is still active. The contrary has been repeatedly
affirmed by foreign critics, but no one really familiar with modern
productions can entertain such a view. Lacquer-making, however, being
essentially an art and not a mere handicraft, has its eras of great
masters and its seasons of inferior execution. Men of the calibre of
Koyetsu Korin, Ritsuo, Kajikawa and Mitsutoshi must be rare in any
age, and the epoch when they flourished is justly remembered with
enthusiasm. But the Meiji era has had its Zeshin, and it had in 1909
Shirayama Fukumatsu, Kawanabe Itcho, Ogawa Shomin, Uematsu Homin,
Shibayama Soichi, Morishita Morihachi and other lesser experts, all
masters in designing and execution. Zeshin, shortly before he died,
indicated Shirayama Fukumatsu as the man upon whom his mantle should
descend, and that the judgment of this really great craftsman was
correct cannot be denied by any one who has seen the works of
Shirayama. He excels in his representations of landscapes and
waterscapes, and has succeeded in transferring to gold-lacquer panels
tender and delicate pictures of nature's softest moods--pictures that
show balance, richness, harmony and a fine sense of decorative
proportion. Kawanabe Itcho is celebrated for his representations of
flowers and foliage, and Morishita Morihachi and Asano Saburo (of
Kaga) are admirable in all styles, but especially, perhaps, in the
charming variety called _togi-dashi_ (ground down), which is
pre-eminent for its satin-like texture and for the atmosphere of
dreamy softness that pervades the decoration. The togi-dashi design,
when finely executed, seems to hang suspended in the velvety lacquer
or to float under its silky surface. The magnificent sheen and
richness of the pure _kin-makie_ (gold lacquer) are wanting, but in
their place we have inimitable tenderness and delicacy.

New Development.

The only branch of the lacquerer's art that can be said to have shown
any marked development in the Meiji era is that in which parts of the
decorative scheme consist of objects in gold, silver, shakudo,
shibuichi, iron, or, above all, ivory or mother-of-pearl. It might
indeed be inferred, from some of the essays published in Europe on the
subject of Japan's ornamental arts, that this application of ivory and
mother-of-pearl holds a place of paramount importance. Such is not the
case. Cabinets, fire-screens, plaques and boxes resplendent with gold
lacquer grounds carrying elaborate and profuse decoration of ivory and
mother-of-pearl[4] are not objects that appeal to Japanese taste. They
belong essentially to the catalogue of articles called into existence
to meet the demand of the foreign market, being, in fact, an attempt
to adapt the lacquerer's art to decorative furniture for European
houses. On the whole it is a successful attempt. The plumage of
gorgeously-hued birds, the blossoms of flowers (especially the
hydrangea), the folds of thick brocade, microscopic diapers and
arabesques, are built up with tiny fragments of iridescent shell, in
combination with silver-foil, gold-lacquer and coloured bone, the
whole producing a rich and sparkling effect. In fine specimens the
workmanship is extraordinarily minute, and every fragment of metal,
shell, ivory or bone, used to construct the decorative scheme, is
imbedded firmly in its place. But in a majority of cases the work of
building is done by means of paste and glue only, so that the result
lacks durability. The employment of mother-of-pearl to ornament
lacquer grounds dates from a period as remote as the 8th century, but
its use as a material for constructing decorative designs began in the
17th century, and was due to an expert called Shibayama, whose
descendant, Shibayama Soichi, has in recent years been associated with
the same work in Tokyo.

Processes.

In the manufacture of Japanese lacquer there are three processes. The
first is the extraction and preparation of the lac; the second, its
application; and the third, the decoration of the lacquered surface.
The lac, when taken from an incision in the trunk of the _Rhus
vernicifera_ (_urushi-no-ki_), contains approximately 70% of lac acid,
4% of gum arabic, 2% of albumen, and 24% of water. It is strained,
deprived of its moisture, and receives an admixture of gamboge,
cinnabar, acetous protoxide or some other colouring matter. The object
to be lacquered, which is generally made of thin white pine, is
subjected to singularly thorough and painstaking treatment, one of the
processes being to cover it with a layer of Japanese paper or thin
hempen cloth, which is fixed by means of a pulp of rice-paste and
lacquer. In this way the danger of warping is averted, and exudations
from the wooden surface are prevented from reaching the overlaid coats
of lacquer. Numerous operations of luting, sizing, lacquering,
polishing, drying, rubbing down, and so on, are performed by the
_nurimono-shi_, until, after many days' treatment, the object emerges
with a smooth, lustre-like dark-grey or coloured surface, and is ready
to pass into the hands of the makie-shi, or decorator. The latter is
an artist; those who have performed the preliminary operations are
merely skilled artisans. The _makie-shi_ may be said to paint a
picture on the surface of the already lacquered object. He takes for
subject a landscape, a seascape, a battle-scene, flowers, foliage,
birds, fishes, insects--in short, anything. This he sketches in
outline with a paste of white lead, and then, having filled in the
details with gold and colours, he superposes a coat of translucid
lacquer, which is finally subjected to careful polishing. If parts of
the design are to be in relief, they are built up with a putty of
black lacquer, white lead, camphor and lamp-black. In all fine
lacquers gold predominates so largely that the general impression
conveyed by the object is one of glow and richness. It is also an
inviolable rule that every part must show beautiful and highly
finished work, whether it be an external or an internal part. The
makie-shi ranks almost as high as the pictorial artist in Japanese
esteem. He frequently signs his works, and a great number of names
have been thus handed down during the past two centuries.

_Cloisonné Enamel._--Cloisonné enamel is essentially of modern
development in Japan. The process was known at an early period, and was
employed for the purpose of subsidiary decoration from the close of the
16th century, but not until the 19th century did Japanese experts begin
to manufacture the objects known in Europe as "enamels;" that is to say,
vases, plaques, censers, bowls, and so forth, having their surface
covered with vitrified pastes applied either in the _champlevé_ or the
_cloisonné_ style. It is necessary to insist upon this fact, because it
has been stated with apparent authority that numerous specimens which
began to be exported from 1865 were the outcome of industry commencing
in the 16th century and reaching its point of culmination at the
beginning of the 18th. There is not the slenderest ground for such a
theory. The work began in 1838, and Kaji Tsunekichi of Owari was its
originator. During 20 years previously to the reopening of the country
in 1858, cloisonné enamelling was practised in the manner now
understood by the term; when foreign merchants began to settle in
Yokohama, several experts were working skilfully in Owari after the
methods of Kaji Tsunekichi. Up to that time there had been little demand
for enamels of large dimensions, but when the foreign market called for
vases, censers, plaques and such things, no difficulty was found in
supplying them. Thus, about the year 1865, there commenced an export of
enamels which had no prototypes in Japan, being destined frankly for
European and American collectors. From a technical point of view these
specimens had much to recommend them. The base, usually of copper, was
as thin as cardboard; the cloisons, exceedingly fine and delicate, were
laid on with care and accuracy; the colours were even, and the designs
showed artistic judgment. Two faults, however, marred the work--first,
the shapes were clumsy and unpleasing, being copied from bronzes whose
solidity justified forms unsuited to thin enamelled vessels; secondly,
the colours, sombre and somewhat impure, lacked the glow and mellowness
that give decorative superiority to the technically inferior Chinese
enamels of the later Ming and early Tsing eras. Very soon, however, the
artisans of Nagoya (Owari), Yokohama and Tokyo--where the art had been
taken up--found that faithful and fine workmanship did not pay. The
foreign merchant desired many and cheap specimens for export, rather
than few and costly. There followed then a period of gradual decline,
and the enamels exported to Europe showed so much inferiority that they
were supposed to be the products of a widely different era and of
different makers. The industry was threatened with extinction, and would
certainly have dwindled to insignificant dimensions had not a few
earnest artists, working in the face of many difficulties and
discouragements, succeeded in striking out new lines and establishing
new standards for excellence.

New Schools.

Three clearly differentiated schools now (1875) came into existence.
One, headed by Namikawa Yasuyuki of Kioto, took for its objects the
utmost delicacy and perfection of technique, richness of decoration,
purity of design and harmony of colour. The thin clumsily-shaped vases
of the Kaji school, with their uniformly distributed decoration of
diapers, scrolls and arabesques in comparatively dull colours, ceased
altogether to be produced, their place being taken by graceful
specimens, technically flawless, and carrying designs not only free
from stiffness, but also executed in colours at once rich and soft.
This school may be subdivided, Kioto representing one branch, Nagoya,
Tokyo and Yokohama the other. In the products of the Kioto branch the
decoration generally covered the whole surface of the piece; in the
products of the other branch the artist aimed rather at pictorial
effect, placing the design in a monochromatic field of low tone. It is
plain that such a method as the latter implies great command of
coloured pastes, and, indeed, no feature of the manufacture is more
conspicuous than the progress made during the period 1880-1900 in
compounding and firing vitrifiable enamels. Many excellent examples of
cloisonné enamel have been produced by each branch of this school.
There has been nothing like them in any other country, and they stand
at an immeasurable distance above the works of the early Owari school
represented by Kaji Tsunekichi and his pupils and colleagues.

Cloisonless Enamels.

The second of the modern schools is headed by Namikawa Sosuke of
Tokyo. It is an easily traced outgrowth of the second branch of the
first school just described, for one can readily understand that from
placing the decorative design in a monochromatic field of low tone,
which is essentially a pictorial method, development would proceed in
the direction of concealing the mechanics of the art in order to
enhance the pictorial effect. Thus arose the so-called "cloisonless
enamels" (_musenjippo_). They are not always without cloisons. The
design is generally framed at the outset with a ribbon of thin metal,
precisely after the manner of ordinary cloisonné ware. But as the work
proceeds the cloisons are hidden--unless their presence is necessary
to give emphasis to the design--and the final result is a picture in
vitrified enamels.

Monochromatic Enamels.

The characteristic productions of the third among the modern schools
are monochromatic and translucid enamels. All students of the ceramic
art know that the monochrome porcelains of China owe their beauty to
the fact that the colour is in the glaze, not under it. The ceramist
finds no difficulty in applying a uniform coat of pigment to porcelain
biscuit, and covering the whole with a diaphanous glaze. The colour is
fixed and the glaze set by secondary firing at a lower temperature
than that necessary for hardening the _pâte_. Such porcelains,
however, lack the velvet-like softness and depth of tone so justly
prized in the genuine monochrome, where the glaze itself contains the
colouring matter, _pâte_ and glaze being fired simultaneously at the
same high temperature. It is apparent that a vitrified enamel may be
made to perform, in part at any rate, the function of a porcelain
glaze. Acting upon that theory, the experts of Tokyo and Nagoya have
produced many very beautiful specimens of monochrome enamel--yellow
(canary or straw), _rose du Barry_, liquid-dawn, red, aubergine
purple, green (grass or leaf), dove-grey and lapis lazuli blue. The
pieces do not quite reach the level of Chinese monochrome porcelains,
but their inferiority is not marked. The artist's great difficulty is
to hide the metal base completely. A monochrome loses much of its
attractiveness when the colour merges into a metal rim, or when the
interior of a vase is covered with crude unpolished paste. But to
spread and fix the enamel so that neither at the rim nor in the
interior shall there be any break of continuity, or any indication
that the base is copper, not porcelain, demands quite exceptional
skill.

Translucid Enamel.

The translucid enamels of the modern school are generally associated
with decorative bases. In other words, a suitable design is chiselled
in the metal base so as to be visible through the diaphanous enamel.
Very beautiful effects of broken and softened lights, combined with
depth and delicacy of colour, are thus obtained. But the decorative
designs which lend themselves to such a purpose are not numerous. A
gold base deeply chiselled in wave-diaper and overrun with a paste of
aubergine purple is the most pleasing. A still higher achievement is
to apply to the chiselled base designs executed in coloured enamels,
finally covering the whole with translucid paste. Admirable results
are thus produced; as when, through a medium of cerulean blue, bright
goldfish and blue-backed carp appear swimming in silvery waves, or
brilliantly plumaged birds seem to soar among fleecy clouds. The
artists of this school show also much skill in using enamels for the
purposes of subordinate decoration--suspending enamelled butterflies,
birds or floral sprays, among the reticulations of a silver vase
chiselled à jour; or filling with translucid enamels parts of a
decorative scheme sculptured in iron, silver, gold or shakudo.

V.--ECONOMIC CONDITIONS

Roads and Posts in Early Times.

_Communications._--From the conditions actually existing in the 8th
century after the Christian era the first compilers of Japanese history
inferred the conditions which might have existed in the 7th century
before that era. One of their inferences was that, in the early days,
communication was by water only, and that not until 549 B.C. did the
most populous region of the empire--the west coast--come into possession
of public roads. Six hundred years later, the local satraps are
represented as having received instructions to build regular highways,
and in the 3rd century the massing of troops for an over-sea expedition
invested roads with new value. Nothing is yet heard, however, about
posts. These evidences of civilization did not make their appearance
until the first great era of Japanese reform, the Taika period
(645-650), when stations were established along the principal highways,
provision was made of post-horses, and a system of bells and checks was
devised for distinguishing official carriers. In those days ordinary
travellers were required to carry passports, nor had they any share in
the benefits of the official organization, which was entirely under the
control of the minister of war. Great difficulties attended the
movements of private persons. Even the task of transmitting to the
central government provincial taxes paid in kind had to be discharged by
specially organized parties, and this journey from the north-eastern
districts to the capital generally occupied three months. At the close
of the 7th century the emperor Mommu is said to have enacted a law that
wealthy persons living near the highways must supply rice to travellers,
and in 745 an empress (Koken) directed that a stock of medical
necessaries must be kept at the postal stations. Among the benevolent
acts attributed to renowned Buddhist priests posterity specially
remembers their efforts to encourage the building of roads and bridges.
The great emperor Kwammu (782-806) was constrained to devote a space of
five years to the reorganization of the whole system of post-stations.
Owing to the anarchy which prevailed during the 10th, 11th and 12th
centuries, facilities of communication disappeared almost entirely, even
for men of rank a long journey involved danger of starvation or fatal
exposure, and the pains and perils of travel became a household word
among the people.

Yoritomo, the founder of feudalism at the close of the 12th century,
was too great a statesman to underestimate the value of roads and
posts. The highway between his stronghold, Kamakura, and the imperial
city, Kioto, began in his time to develop features which ultimately
entitled it to be called one of the finest roads in the world. But
after Yoritomo's death the land became once more an armed camp, in
which the rival barons discouraged travel beyond the limits of their
own domains. Not until the Tokugawa family obtained military control
of the whole empire (1603), and, fixing its capital at Yedo, required
the feudal chiefs to reside there every second year, did the problem
of roads and post-stations force itself once more on official
attention. Regulations were now strictly enforced, fixing the number
of horses and carriers available at each station, the loads to be
carried by them and their charges, as well as the transport services
that each feudal chief was entitled to demand and the fees he had to
pay in return. Tolerable hostelries now came into existence, but they
furnished only shelter, fuel and the coarsest kind of food. By
degrees, however, the progresses of the feudal chiefs to and from
Yedo, which at first were simple and economical, developed features of
competitive magnificence, and the importance of good roads and
suitable accommodation received increased attention. This found
expression in practice in 1663. A system more elaborate than anything
antecedent was then introduced under the name of "flying transport."
Three kinds of couriers operated. The first class were in the direct
employment of the shogunate. They carried official messages between
Yedo and Osaka--a distance of 348 miles--in four days by means of a
well organized system of relays. The second class maintained
communications between the fiefs and the Tokugawa court as well as
their own families in Yedo, for in the alternate years of a
feudatory's compulsory residence in that city his family had to live
there. The third class were maintained by a syndicate of 13 merchants
as a private enterprise for transmitting letters between the three
great cities of Kioto, Osaka and Yedo and intervening places. This
syndicate did not undertake to deliver a letter direct to an
addressee. The method pursued was to expose letters and parcels at
fixed places in the vicinity of their destination, leaving the
addressees to discover for themselves that such things had arrived.
Imperfect as this system was, it represented a great advance from the
conditions in medieval times.

The Tokaido.

The Nakasendoo.

The Oshukaido.

The nation does not seem to have appreciated the deficiencies of the
syndicate's service, supplemented as it was by a network of waterways
which greatly increased the facilities for transport. After the
cessation of civil wars under the sway of the Tokugawa, the building
and improvement of roads went on steadily. It is not too much to say,
indeed, that when Japan opened her doors to foreigners in the middle
of the 19th century, she possessed a system of roads some of which
bore striking testimony to her medieval greatness. The most remarkable
was the Tokaido (eastern-seaway), so called because it ran eastward
along the coast from Kioto. This great highway, 345 m. long, connected
Osaka and Kioto with Yedo. The date of its construction is not
recorded, but it certainly underwent signal improvement in the 12th
and 13th centuries, and during the two and a half centuries of
Tokugawa sway in Yedo. A wide, well-made and well-kept avenue, it was
lined throughout the greater part of its length by giant pine-trees,
rendering it the most picturesque highway in the world. Iyeyasu, the
founder of the Tokugawa dynasty of shoguns, directed that his body
should be interred at Nikko, a place of exceptional beauty,
consecrated eight hundred years previously. This meant an extension of
the Tokaido (under a different name) nearly a hundred miles northward,
for the magnificent shrines erected then at Nikko and the periodical
ceremonies thenceforth performed there demanded a correspondingly fine
avenue of approach. The original Tokaido was taken for model, and Yedo
and Nikko were joined by a highway flanked by rows of cryptomeria.
Second only to the Tokaido is the Nakasendo (mid-mountain road), which
also was constructed to join Kioto with Yedo, but follows an inland
course through the provinces of Yamashiro, Omi, Mino, Shinshu, Kotzuke
and Musashi. Its length is 340 m., and though not flanked by trees or
possessing so good a bed as the Tokaido, it is nevertheless a
sufficiently remarkable highway. A third road, the Oshukaido runs
northward from Yedo (now Tokyo) to Aomori on the extreme north of the
main island, a distance of 445 m., and several lesser highways give
access to other regions.

Modern Superintendence of Roads.

The question of road superintendence received early attention from the
government of the restoration. At a general assembly of local prefects
held at Tokyo in June 1875 it was decided to classify the different
roads throughout the empire, and to determine the several sources from
which the sums necessary for their maintenance and repair should be
drawn. After several days' discussion all roads were eventually ranged
under one or other of the following heads:--

I. National roads, consisting of--

Class 1. Roads leading from Tokyo to the various treaty ports.

Class 2. Roads leading from Tokyo to the ancestral shrines in the
province of Ise, and also to the cities or to military stations.

Class 3. Roads leading from Tokyo to the prefectural offices, and
those forming the lines of connexion between cities and military
stations.

II. Prefectural roads, consisting of--

Class 1. Roads connecting different prefectures, or leading from
military stations to their outposts.

Class 2. Roads connecting the head offices of cities and prefectures
with their branch offices.

Class 3. Roads connecting noted localities with the chief town of
such neighbourhoods, or leading to seaports convenient of access.

III. Village roads, consisting of--

Class 1. Roads passing through several localities in succession, or
merely leading from one locality to another.

Class 2. Roads specially constructed for the convenience of
irrigation, pasturage, mines, factories, &c., in accordance with
measures determined by the people of the locality.

Class 3. Roads constructed for the benefit of Shinto shrines,
Buddhist temples, or to facilitate the cultivation of rice-fields
and arable land.

Of the above three headings, it was decided that all national roads
should be maintained at the national expense, the regulations for their
up-keep being entrusted to the care of the prefectures along the line of
route, and the cost incurred being paid from the Imperial treasury.
Prefectural roads are maintained by a joint contribution from the
government and from the particular prefecture, each paying one-half of
the sum needed. Village roads, being for the convenience of local
districts alone, are maintained at the expense of such districts under
the general supervision of the corresponding prefecture. The width of
national roads was determined at 42 ft. for class 1, 36 ft. for class 2,
and 30 ft. for class 3; the prefectural roads were to be from 24 to 30
ft., and the dimensions of the village roads were optional, according to
the necessity of the case.

Vehicles.

The Jinrikisha.

The vehicles chiefly employed in ante-Meiji days were ox-carriages,
_norimono_, _kago_ and carts drawn by hand. Ox-carriages were used
only by people of the highest rank. They were often constructed of
rich lacquer; the curtains suspended in front were of the finest
bamboo workmanship, with thick cords and tassels of plaited silk, and
the draught animal, an ox of handsome proportions, was brilliantly
caparisoned. The care and expense lavished upon these highly ornate
structures would have been deemed extravagant even in medieval Europe.
They have passed entirely out of use, and are now to be seen in
museums only, but the type still exists in China. The norimono
resembled a miniature house slung by its roof-ridge from a massive
pole which projected at either end sufficiently to admit the shoulders
of a carrier. It, too, was frequently of very ornamental nature and
served to carry aristocrats or officials of high position. The kago
was the humblest of all conveyances recognized as usable by the upper
classes. It was an open palanquin, V-shaped in cross section, slung
from a pole which rested on the shoulders of two bearers.
Extraordinary skill and endurance were shown by the men who carried
the norimono and the kago, but none the less these vehicles were both
profoundly uncomfortable. They have now been relegated to the
warehouses of undertakers, where they serve as bearers for folks too
poor to employ catafalques, their place on the roads and in the
streets having been completely taken by the _jinrikisha_, a
two-wheeled vehicle pulled by one or two men who think nothing of
running 20 m. at the rate of 6 m. an hour. The jinrikisha was devised
by a Japanese in 1870, and since then it has come into use throughout
the whole of Asia eastward of the Suez Canal. Luggage, of course,
could not be carried by norimono or kago. It was necessary to have
recourse to packmen, pack-horses or baggage-carts drawn by men or
horses. All these still exist and are as useful as ever within certain
limits. In the cities and towns horses used as beasts of burden are
now shod with iron, but in rural or mountainous districts straw shoes
are substituted, a device which enables the animals to traverse rocky
or precipitous roads with safety.

_Railways._--It is easy to understand that an enterprise like railway
construction, requiring a great outlay of capital with returns long
delayed, did not at first commend itself to the Japanese, who were
almost entirely ignorant of co-operation as a factor of business
organization. Moreover, long habituated to snail-like modes of travel,
the people did not rapidly appreciate the celerity of the locomotive.
Neither the ox-cart, the norimono, nor the kago covered a daily distance
of over 20 m. on the average, and the packhorse was even slower. Amid
such conditions the idea of railways would have been slow to germinate
had not a catastrophe furnished some impetus. In 1869 a rice-famine
occurred in the southern island, Kiushiu, and while the cereal was
procurable abundantly in the northern provinces, people in the south
perished of hunger owing to lack of transport facilities. Sir Harry
Parkes, British representative in Tokyo, seized this occasion to urge
the construction of railways. Ito and Okuma, then influential members of
the government, at once recognized the wisdom of his advice.
Arrangements were made for a loan of a million sterling in London on the
security of the customs revenue, and English engineers were engaged to
lay a line between Tokyo and Yokohama (18 m.). Vehement voices of
opposition were at once raised in private and official circles alike,
all persons engaged in transport business imagined themselves threatened
with ruin, and conservative patriots detected loss of national
independence in a foreign loan. So fierce was the antagonism that the
military authorities refused to permit operations of survey in the
southern suburb of Tokyo, and the road had to be laid on an embankment
constructed in the sea. Ito and Okuma, however, never flinched, and they
were ably supported by Marquis M. Inouye and M. Mayejima. The latter
published, in 1870, the first Japanese work on railways, advocating the
building of lines from Tokyo to Kioto and Osaka; the former, appointed
superintendent of the lines, held that post for 30 years, and is justly
spoken of as "the father of Japanese railways."

September 1872 saw the first official opening of a railway (the
Tokyo-Yokohama line) in Japan, the ceremony being performed by the
emperor himself, a measure which effectually silenced all further
opposition. Eight years from the time of turning the first sod saw 71
m. of road open to traffic, the northern section being that between
Tokyo and Yokohama, and the southern that between Kioto and Kobe. A
period of interruption now ensued, owing to domestic troubles and
foreign complications, and when, in 1878, the government was able to
devote attention once again to railway problems, it found the treasury
empty. Then for the first time a public works loan was floated in the
home market, and about £300,000 of the total thus obtained passed into
the hands of the railway bureau, which at once undertook the building
of a road from Kioto to the shore of Lake Biwa, a work memorable as
the first line built in Japan without foreign assistance.[5] During
all this time private enterprise had remained wholly inactive in the
matter of railways, and it became a matter of importance to rouse the
people from this apathetic attitude. For the ordinary process of
organizing a joint-stock company and raising share-capital the nation
was not yet prepared. But shortly after the abolition of feudalism
there had come into the possession of the former feudatories state
loan-bonds amounting to some 18 millions sterling, which represented
the sum granted by the treasury in commutation of the revenues
formerly accruing to these men from their fiefs. Already events had
shown that the feudatories, quite devoid of business experience, were
not unlikely to dispose of these bonds and devote the proceeds to
unsound enterprises. Prince Iwakura, one of the leaders of the Meiji
statesmen, persuaded the feudatories to employ a part of the bonds as
capital for railway construction, and thus the first private railway
company was formed in Japan under the name _Nippon tetsudo kaisha_
(Japan railway company), the treasury guaranteeing 8% on the paid-up
capital for a period of 15 years. Some time elapsed before this
example found followers, but ultimately a programme was elaborated and
carried out having for its basis a grand trunk line extending the
whole length of the main island from Aomori on the north to
Shimonoseki on the south, a distance of 1153 m.; and a continuation of
the same line throughout the length of the southern island of Kiushiu,
from Moji on the north--which lies on the opposite side of the strait
from Shimonoseki--to Kagoshima on the south, a distance of 232¾ m.; as
well as a line from Moji to Nagasaki, a distance of 163½ m. Of this
main road the state undertook to build the central section (376 m.),
between Tokyo and Kobe (via Kioto); the Japan railway company
undertook the portion (457 m.) northward of Tokyo to Aomori; the Sanyo
railway company undertook the portion (320 m.) southward of Tokyo to
Shimonoseki; and the Kiushiu railway company undertook the lines in
Kiushiu. The whole line is now in operation. The first project was to
carry the Tokyo-Kioto line through the interior of the island so as to
secure it against enterprises on the part of a maritime enemy. Such
engineering difficulties presented themselves, however, that the coast
route was ultimately chosen, and though the line through the interior
was subsequently constructed, strategical considerations were not
allowed completely to govern its direction.

When this building of railways began in Japan, much discussion was
taking place in England and India as to the relative advantages of the
wide and narrow gauges, and so strongly did the arguments in favour of
the latter appeal to the English advisers of the Japanese government
that the metre gauge was chosen. Some fitful efforts made in later
years to change the system proved unsuccessful. The lines are single,
for the most part; and as the embankments, the cuttings, the culverts
and the bridge-piers have not been constructed for a double line, any
change now would be very costly. The average speed of passenger trains
in Japan is 18 m. an hour, the corresponding figure over the
metre-gauge roads in India being 16 m., and the figure for English
parliamentary trains from 19 to 28 m. British engineers surveyed the
routes for the first lines and superintended the work of construction,
but within a few years the Japanese were able to dispense with foreign
aid altogether, both in building and operating their railways. They
also construct carriages, wagons and locomotives, and they may
therefore be said to have become entirely independent in the matter of
railways, for a government iron-foundry at Wakamatsu in Kiushiu is
able to manufacture steel rails.

The total length of lines open for traffic at the end of March 1906
was 4746 m., 1470 m. having been built by the state and 3276 by
private companies; the former at a cost of 16 millions sterling for
construction and equipment, and the latter at a cost of 25 millions.
Thus the expenditure by the state averaged £10,884 per mile, and that
by private companies, £7631. This difference is explained by the facts
that the state lines having been the pioneers, portions of them were
built before experience had indicated cheap methods; that a very large
and costly foreign staff was employed on these roads in the early
days, whereas no such item appeared in the accounts of private lines;
that extensive works for the building of locomotives and rolling stock
are connected with the government's roads, and that it fell to the lot
of the state to undertake lines in districts presenting exceptional
engineering difficulties, such districts being naturally avoided by
private companies. The gross earnings of all the lines during the
fiscal year 1905-1906 were 7 millions sterling, approximately, and the
gross expenses (including the payment of interest on loans and
debentures) were under 3½ millions, so that there remained a net
profit of 3½ millions, being at the rate of a little over 8½% on the
invested capital. The facts that the outlays averaged less than 47% of
the gross income, and that accidents and irregularities are not
numerous, prove that Japanese management in this kind of enterprise is
efficient.

Nationalization of Private Railways.

When the fiscal year 1906-1907 opened, the number of private companies
was no less than 36, owning and operating 3276 m. of railway. To say
that this represented an average of 91 m. per company is to convey an
over-favourable idea, for, as a matter of fact, 15 of the companies
averaged less than 24 m. Anything like efficient co-operation was
impossible in such circumstances, and constant complaints were heard
about delays in transit and undue expense. The defects of divided
ownership had long suggested the expediency of nationalization, but
not until 1906 could the diet be induced to give its consent. On March
31 of that year, a railway nationalization law was promulgated. It
enacted that, within a period of 10 years from 1906 to 1915, the state
should purchase the 17 principal private roads, which had a length of
2812 m., and whose cost of construction and equipment had been 23½
millions sterling. The original scheme included 15 other railways,
with an aggregate mileage of only 353 m.; but these were eliminated as
being lines of local interest only. The actual purchase price of the
17 lines was calculated at 43 millions sterling (about double their
cost price), on the following basis: (a) An amount equal to 20 times
the sum obtained by multiplying the cost of construction at the date
of purchase by the average ratio of the profit to the cost of
construction during the six business terms of the company from the
second half-year of 1902 to the first half-year of 1905. (b) The
amount of the actual cost of stored articles converted according to
current prices thereof into public loan-bonds at face value, except in
the case of articles which had been purchased with borrowed money. The
government agreed to hand over the purchase money within 5 years from
the date of the acquisition of the lines, in public loan-bonds bearing
5% interest calculated at their face value; the bonds to be redeemed
out of the net profits accruing from the purchased railways. It was
calculated that this redemption would be effected in a period of 32
years, after which the annual profit accruing to the state from the
lines would be 5½ millions sterling. But the nationalization scheme,
though apparently the only effective method of linking together and
co-ordinating an excessively subdivided system of lines, has proved a
source of considerable financial embarrassment. For when the state
constituted itself virtually the sole owner of railways, it
necessarily assumed responsibility for extending them so that they
should suffice to meet the wants of a nation numbering some 50
millions. Such extension could be effected only by borrowing money.
Now the government was pledged by the diet in 1907 to an expenditure
of 11½ millions (spread over 8 years) for extending the old state
system of roads, and an expenditure of 6¼ millions (spread over 12
years) for improving them. But from the beginning of that year, a
period of extreme commercial and financial depression set in, and the
treasury had to postpone all recourse to loans for whatever purpose,
so that railway progress was completely checked in the field alike of
the original and the acquired state lines. Moreover, all securities
underwent such sharp depreciation that, on the one hand, the
government hesitated to hand over the bonds representing the
purchase-price of the railways, lest such an addition to the volume of
stocks should cause further depreciation, and, on the other, the
former owners of the nationalized lines found the character of their
bargain greatly changed. In these circumstances the government decided
to take a strong step, namely, to place the whole of the railways
owned by it--the original state lines as well as those
nationalized--in an account independent of the regular budget, and to
devote their entire profits to works of extension and improvement,
supplementing the amount with loans from the treasury when necessary.

South Manchuria Railway.

In the sequel of the war of 1904-5 Japan, with China's consent,
acquired from Russia the lease of the portion of the South-Manchuria
railway (see MANCHURIA) between Kwang-cheng-tsze (Chang-chun) on the
north and Tairen (Dalny), Port Arthur and Niuchwang on the south--a
total length of 470 m. At the close of 1906 this road was handed over
to a joint-stock company with a capital of 20 millions sterling, the
government contributing 10 millions in the form of the road and its
associated properties; the public subscribing 2 millions, and the
company being entitled to issue debentures to the extent of 8
millions, the principal and interest of these debentures being
officially guaranteed. Four millions' worth of debentures were issued
in London in 1907 and 4 millions in 1908. This company's programme is
not limited to operating the railway. It also works coal-fields at
Yentai and Fushun; has a line of steamers plying between Tairen and
Shanghai; and engages in enterprises of electricity, warehousing and
the management of houses and lands within zones 50 _li_ (17 m.) wide
on either side of the line. The government guarantees 6% interest on
the capital paid up by the general public.

Electric Railways.

Not until 1905 did Japan come into possession of an electric railway.
It was a short line of 8 m., built in Kioto for the purposes of a
domestic exhibition held in that city. Thenceforth this class of
enterprise grew steadily in favour, so that, in 1907, there were 16
companies with an aggregate capital of 8 millions sterling, having 165
m. open to traffic and 77 m. under construction. Fifteen other
companies with an aggregate capital of 3 millions had also obtained
charters. The principal of these is the Tokyo railway company, with a
subscribed capital of 6 millions (3½ paid up), 90½ m. of line open and
149 m. under construction. In 1907 it carried 153 million passengers,
and its net earnings were £300,000.

Maritime Communications.

The traditional story of prehistoric Japan indicates that the first
recorded emperor was an over-sea invader, whose followers must therefore
have possessed some knowledge of ship-building and navigation. But in
what kind of craft they sailed and how they handled them, there is
nothing to show clearly. Nine centuries later, but still 500 years
before the era of surviving written annals, an empress is said to have
invaded Korea, embarking her forces at Kobe (then called Takekura) in
500 vessels. In the middle of the 6th century we read of a general named
Abe-no-hirafu who led a flotilla up the Amur river to the invasion of
Manchuria (then called Shukushin). All these things show that the
Japanese of the earliest era navigated the high sea with some skill, and
at later dates down to medieval times they are found occasionally
sending forces to Korea and constantly visiting China in vessels which
seem to have experienced no difficulty in making the voyage. The 16th
century was a period of maritime activity so marked that, had not
artificial checks been applied, the Japanese, in all probability, would
have obtained partial command of Far-Eastern waters. They invaded Korea;
their corsairs harried the coasts of China; two hundred of their
vessels, sailing under authority of the Taiko's vermilion seal, visited
Siam, Luzon, Cochin China and Annam, and they built ships in European
style which crossed the Pacific to Acapulco. But this spirit of
adventure was chilled at the close of the 16th century and early in the
17th, when events connected with the propagation of Christianity taught
the Japanese to believe that national safety could not be secured
without international isolation. In 1638 the ports were closed to all
foreign ships except those flying the flag of Holland or of China, and a
strictly enforced edict forbade the building of any vessel having a
capacity of more than 500 _koku_ (150 tons) or constructed for purposes
of ocean navigation. Thenceforth, with rare exceptions, Japanese craft
confined themselves to the coastwise trade. Ocean-going enterprise
ceased altogether.

Things remained thus until the middle of the 19th century, when a
growing knowledge of the conditions existing in the West warned the
Tokugawa administration that continued isolation would be suicidal. In
1853 the law prohibiting the construction of sea-going ships was revoked
and the Yedo government built at Uraga a sailing vessel of European type
aptly called the "Phoenix" ("Howo Maru"). Just 243 years had elapsed
since the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty constructed Japan's first ship
after a foreign model, with the aid of an English pilot, Will Adams. In
1853 Commodore M. C. Perry made his appearance, and thenceforth
everything conspired to push Japan along the new path. The Dutch, who
had been proximately responsible for the adoption of the seclusion
policy in the 17th century, now took a prominent part in promoting a
liberal view. They sent to the Tokugawa a present of a man-of-war and
urged the vital necessity of equipping the country with a navy. Then
followed the establishment of a naval college at Tsukiji in Yedo, the
building of iron-works at Nagasaki, and the construction at Yokosuka of
a dockyard destined to become one of the greatest enterprises of its
kind in the East. This last undertaking bore witness to the patriotism
of the Tokugawa rulers, for they resolutely carried it to completion
during the throes of a revolution which involved the downfall of their
dynasty. Their encouragement of maritime enterprise had borne fruit, for
when, in 1867, they restored the administration to the Imperial court,
44 ocean-going ships were found among their possessions and 94 were in
the hands of the feudatories, a steamer and 20 sailing vessels having
been constructed in Japan and the rest purchased abroad.

If the Tokugawa had been energetic in this respect, the new government
was still more so. It caused the various maritime carriers to amalgamate
into one association called the _Nippon-koku yubin jokisen kaisha_ (Mail
SS. Company of Japan), to which were transferred, free of charge, the
steamers, previously the property of the Tokugawa or the feudatories,
and a substantial subsidy was granted by the state. This, the first
steamship company ever organized in Japan, remained in existence only
four years. Defective management and incapacity to compete with
foreign-owned vessels plying between the open ports caused its downfall
(1875). Already, however, an independent company had appeared upon the
scene. Organized and controlled by a man (Iwasaki Yataro) of exceptional
enterprise and business faculty, this _mitsubishi kaisha_ (three lozenge
company, so called from the design on its flag), working with steamers
chartered from the former feudatory of Tosa, to which clan Iwasaki
belonged, proved a success from the outset, and grew with each
vicissitude of the state. For when (1874) the Meiji government's first
complications with a foreign country necessitated the despatch of a
military expedition to Formosa, the administration had to purchase 63
foreign steamers for transport purposes, and these were subsequently
transferred to the mitsubishi company together with all the vessels (17)
hitherto in the possession of the Mail SS. Company, the Treasury further
granting to the mitsubishi a subsidy of £50,000 annually. Shortly
afterwards it was decided to purchase a service maintained by the
Pacific Mail SS. Company with 4 steamers between Yokohama and Shanghai,
and money for the purpose having been lent by the state to the
mitsubishi, Japan's first line of steamers to a foreign country was
firmly established, just 20 years after the law interdicting the
construction of ocean-going vessels had been rescinded.

The next memorable event in this chapter of history occurred in 1877,
when the Satsuma clan, eminently the most powerful and most warlike
among all the former feudatories, took the field in open rebellion.
For a time the fate of the government hung in the balance, and only by
a flanking movement over-sea was the rebellion crushed. This strategy
compelled the purchase of 10 foreign steamers, and these too were
subsequently handed over to the mitsubishi company, which, in 1880,
found itself possessed of 32 ships aggregating 25,600 tons, whereas
all the other vessels of foreign type in the country totalled only 27
with a tonnage of 6500. It had now become apparent that the country
could not hope to meet emergencies which might at any moment arise,
especially in connexion with Korean affairs, unless the development of
the mercantile marine proceeded more rapidly. Therefore in 1881 the
formation of a new company was officially promoted. It had the name of
the _kyodo unyu kaisha_ (Union Transport Company); its capital was
about a million sterling; it received a large subsidy from the state,
and its chief purpose was to provide vessels for military uses and as
commerce-carriers. Japan had now definitely embraced the policy of
entrusting to private companies rather than to the state the duty of
acquiring a fleet of vessels capable of serving as transports or
auxiliary cruisers in time of war. But there was now seen the curious
spectacle of two companies (the Mitsubishi and the Union Transport)
competing in the same waters and both subsidized by the treasury.
After this had gone on for four years, the two companies were
amalgamated (1885) into the _Nippon yusen kaisha_ (Japan Mail SS.
Company) with a capital of £1,100,000 and an annual subsidy of
£88,000, fixed on the basis of 8% of the capital. Another company had
come into existence a few months earlier. Its fleet consisted of 100
small steamers, totalling 10,000 tons, which had hitherto been
competing in the Inland Sea.

Japan now possessed a substantial mercantile marine, the rate of whose
development is indicated by the following figures:--

Year. Steamers. Sailing Vessels. Totals.
Number. Tons. Number. Tons. Number. Tons.

1870 35 15,498 11 2,454 46 17,952
1892 642 122,300 780 46,065 1,422 168,365

Nevertheless, only 23% of the exports and imports was transported in
Japanese bottoms in 1892, whereas foreign steamers took 77%. This
discrepancy was one of the subjects discussed in the first session of
the diet, but a bill presented by the government for encouraging
navigation failed to obtain parliamentary consent, and in 1893 the
Japan Mail SS. Company, without waiting for state assistance, opened a
regular service to Bombay mainly for the purpose of carrying raw
cotton from India to supply the spinning industry which had now
assumed great importance in Japan. Thus the rising sun flag flew for
the first time outside Far-Eastern waters. Almost immediately after
the establishment of this line, Japan had to engage in war with China,
which entailed the despatch of some two hundred thousand men to the
neighbouring continent and their maintenance there for more than a
year. All the country's available shipping resources did not suffice
for this task. Additional vessels had to be purchased or chartered,
and thus, by the beginning of 1896, the mercantile marine of Japan had
grown to 899 steamers of 373,588 tons, while the sailing vessels had
diminished to 644 of 44,000 tons.

In 1897 there occurred an event destined to exercise a potent
influence on the fortunes not only of Japan herself but also of her
mercantile marine. No sooner had she exchanged with China
ratifications of a treaty of peace which seemed to prelude a long
period of tranquillity, than Russia, Germany and France ordered her to
restore all the continental territory ceded to her by China. Japan
then recognized that her hope of peace was delusive, and that she must
be prepared to engage in a struggle incomparably more serious than the
one from which she had just emerged. Determined that when the crucial
moment came she should not be found without ample means for
transporting her armies, the government, under the leadership of
Prince Ito and with the consent of the diet, enacted, in March 1896
laws liberally encouraging ship-building and navigation. Under the
navigation law "any Japanese subject or any commercial company whose
partners or shareholders were all Japanese subjects, engaged in
carrying passengers and cargo between Japan and foreign countries or
between foreign ports, in their own vessels, which must be of at least
1000 tons and registered in the shipping list of the Empire, became
entitled to subsidies proportionate to the distance run and the
tonnage of the vessels"; and under the ship-building law, bounties
were granted for the construction of iron or steel vessels of not less
than 700 tons gross by any Japanese subject or any commercial company
whose partners and shareholders were all Japanese. The effect of this
legislation was marked. In the period of six years ended 1902, no less
than 835 vessels of 455,000 tons were added to the mercantile marine,
and the treasury found itself paying encouragement money which
totalled six hundred thousand pounds annually. Ship-building underwent
remarkable development. Thus, while in 1870 only 2 steamers
aggregating 57 tons had been constructed in Japanese yards, 53
steamers totalling 5380 tons and 193 sailing vessels of 17,873 tons
were launched in 1900. By the year 1907 Japan had 216 private ship
yards and 42 private docks,[6] and while the government yards were
able to build first-class line-of-battle ships of the largest size,
the private docks were turning out steamers of 9000 tons burden. When
war broke out with Russia in 1904, Japan had 567,000 tons of steam
shipping, but that stupendous struggle obliged her to materially
augment even this great total. In operations connected with the war
she lost 71,000 tons, but on the other hand, she built 27,000 tons at
home and bought 177,000 abroad, so that the net increase to her
mercantile fleet of steamers was 133,000 tons. The following table
shows the growth of her marine during the ten years ending 1907:--

Steamers. Sailing Vessels. Totals.

Gross Gross Gross
Year. Number. Tonnage. Number. Tonnage. Number. Tonnage.

1898 1130 477,430 1914 170,194 3044 648,324
1899 1221 510,007 3322 286,923 4543 467,930
1900 1329 543,365 3850 320,572 5179 863,937
1901 1395 583,532 4026 336,528 5471 920,060
1902 1441 610,445 3907 336,154 5348 946,600
1903 1570 663,220 3934 328,953 5504 992,173
1904 1815 798,240 3940 329,125 5755 1,127,365
1905 1988 939,749 4132 336,571 6170 1,276,320
1906 2103 1,041,569 4547 353,356 6700 1,395,925
1907 2139 1,115,880 4728 365,559 6867 1,481,439

With regard to the development of ship-building in Japanese yards the
following figures convey information:--

NUMBERS OF VESSELS BUILT IN JAPAN AND NUMBERS PURCHASED ABROAD

Built in Japan. Purchased abroad.

Year. Steamers. Sailing Vessels. Steamers. Sailing Vessels.
1898 479 1301 194 9
1899 554 2771 199 12
1900 653 3302 206 7
1901 754 3559 215 6
1902 813 3585 220 6
1903 855 5304 233 8
1904 947 3324 277 8
1905 1028 3508 357 11
1906 1100 3859 387 11
1907 1150 4033 419 12

In the building of iron and steel ships the Japanese are obliged to
import much of the material used, but a large steel-foundry has been
established under government auspices at Wakamatsu in Kiushiu, that
position having been chosen on account of comparative proximity to the
Taiya iron mine in China, where the greater part of the iron ore used
for the foundry is procured.

Seamen.

Simultaneously with the growth of the mercantile marine there has been
a marked development in the number of licensed mariners; that is to
say, seamen registered by the government as having passed the
examination prescribed by law. In 1876 there were only 4 Japanese
subjects who satisfied that definition as against 74 duly qualified
foreigners holding responsible positions. In 1895 the numbers were
4135 Japanese and 835 foreigners, and ten years later the
corresponding figures were 16,886 and 349 respectively. In 1904 the
ordinary seamen of the mercantile marine totalled 202,710.

Education of Mariners.

There are in Japan various institutions where the theory and practice
of navigation are taught. The principal of these is the _Tokyo shosen
gakko_ (Tokyo mercantile marine college, established in 1875), where
some 600 of the men now serving as officers arid engineers have
graduated. Well equipped colleges exist also in seven other places,
all having been established with official co-operation. Mention must
be made of a mariners' assistance association (_kaiin ekizai-kai_,
established in 1800) which acts as a kind of agency for supplying
mariners to shipowners, and of a distressed mariners' relief
association (_suinan kyusai-kai_) which has succoured about a hundred
thousand seamen since its establishment in 1899.

Maritime Administration.

The duty of overseeing all matters relating to the maritime carrying
trade devolves on the department of state for communications, and is
delegated by the latter to one of its bureaus (the _Kwansen-kyoku_, or
ships superintendence bureau), which, again, is divided into three
sections: one for inspecting vessels, one for examining mariners, and
one for the general control of all shipping in Japanese waters. For
the better discharge of its duties this bureau parcels out the empire
into 4 districts, having their headquarters at Tokyo, Osaka, Nagasaki
and Hakodate; and these four districts are in turn subdivided into 18
sections, each having an office of marine affairs (_kwaiji-kyoku_).

Competition between Japanese and Foreign Ships.

Competition between Japanese and foreign ships in the carriage of the
country's over-sea trade soon began to assume appreciable dimensions.
Thus, whereas in 1891 the portion carried in Japanese bottoms was only
1½ millions sterling against 12½ millions carried by foreign vessels,
the corresponding figures in 1902 were 20½ millions against 32¼
millions. In other words, Japanese steamers carried only 11% of the
total trade in 1891, but their share rose to 39% in 1902. The prospect
suggested by this record caused some uneasiness, which was not allayed
by observing that while the tonnage of Japanese vessels in Chinese
ports was only 2% in 1896 as compared with foreign vessels, the
former figure grew to 16% in 1902; while in Korean ports Japanese
steamers almost monopolized the carrying trade, leaving only 18% to
their foreign rivals, and even in Hong-Kong the tonnage of Japanese
ships increased from 3% in 1896 to 13% in 1900. In 1898 Japan stood
eleventh on the list of the thirteen principal maritime countries of
the world, but in 1907 she rose to the fifth place. Her principal
company, the Nippon yusen kaisha, though established as lately as
1885, now ranks ninth in point of tonnage among the 21 leading
maritime companies of the world. This company was able to supply 55
out of a total fleet of 207 transports furnished by all the steamship
companies of Japan for military and naval purposes during the war with
Russia in 1904-5. It may be noted in conclusion that the development
of Japan's steam-shipping during the five decades ended 1907 was as
follows:--

Tons.

At the end of 1868 17,952
At the end of 1878 63,468
At the end of 1888 197,365
At the end of 1898 648,324
At the end of 1907 1,115,880

Open Ports.

There are 33 ports in Japan open as places of call for foreign
steamers. Their names with the dates of their opening are as follow:--

Name. Date of Opening. Situation.

Yokohama 1859 Main Island.
Kobe 1868 "
Niigata 1867 "
Osaka 1899 "
Yokkaichi " "
Shimonoseki " "
Itozaki " "
Taketoyo " "
Shimizu " "
Tsuruga " "
Nanao " "
Fushiki " "
Sakai " "
Hamada " "
Miyazu " "
Aomori 1906 "
Nagasaki 1859 Kiushiu.
Moji 1899 "
Hakata " "
Karatsu " "
Kuchinotsu " "
Misumi " "
Suminoye 1906 "
Izuhara 1899 Tsushima.
Sasuna " "
Shikami " "
Nafa " Riukiu.
Otaru " Yezo.
Kushiro " "
Mororan " "
Hakodate 1865 "
Kelung 1899 Formosa.
Tamsui " "
Takow " "
Anping " "

_Emigration._--Characteristic of the Japanese is a spirit of adventure:
they readily emigrate to foreign countries if any inducement offers. A
strong disposition to exclude them has displayed itself in the United
States of America, in Australasia and in British Columbia, and it is
evident that, since one nation cannot force its society on another at
the point of the sword, this anti-Asiatic prejudice will have to be
respected, though it has its origin in nothing more respectable than the
jealousy of the labouring classes. One result is an increase in the
number of Japanese emigrating to Korea, Manchuria and S. America. The
following table shows the numbers residing at various places outside
Japan in 1904 and 1906 respectively:--

Number in Number in
Place. 1904. 1906.

China 9,417 27,126
Korea 31,093 100,000
Manchuria -- 43,823
Hong-Kong 600 756
Singapore 1,292 1,428
British India 413 530
Europe 183 697
United States of America 33,849 130,228
Canada 3,838 5,088
Mexico 456 1,294
S. America 1,496 2,500
Philippines 2,652 2,185
Hawaii 65,008 64,319
Australasia 71,129 3,274

_Foreign Residents._--The number of foreigners residing in Japan and
their nationalities in 1889, 1899 and 1906, respectively, were as
follow:--

1889. 1899. 1906.

Americans 899 1,296 1,650
British 1,701 2,013 2,155
Russians 63 134 211
French 335 463 540
Portuguese 108 158 165
Germans 550 532 670
Chinese 4,975 6,372 12,425
Koreans 8 188 254

There are also small numbers of Dutch, Peruvians, Belgians, Swiss,
Italians, Danes, Swedes, Austrians, Hungarians, &c. This slow growth of
the foreign residents is remarkable when contrasted with the fact that
the volume of the country's foreign trade, which constitutes their main
business, grew in the same period from 13½ millions sterling to 92
millions.

_Posts and Telegraphs._--The government of the Restoration did not wait
for the complete abolition of feudalism before organizing a new system
of posts in accordance with modern needs. At first, letters only were
carried, but before the close of 1871 the service was extended so as to
include newspapers, printed matter, books and commercial samples, while
the area was extended so as to embrace all important towns between
Hakodate in the northern island of Yezo and Nagasaki in the southern
island of Kiushiu. Two years later this field was closed to private
enterprise, the state assuming sole charge of the business. A few years
later saw Japan in possession of an organization comparable in every
respect with the systems existing in Europe. In 1892 a foreign service
was added. Whereas in 1871 the number of post-offices throughout the
empire was only 179, it had grown to 6449 in 1907, while the mail matter
sent during the latter year totalled 1254 millions (including 15
millions of parcels), and 67,000 persons were engaged in handling it.
Japan labours under special difficulties for postal purposes, owing to
the great number of islands included in the empire, the exceptionally
mountainous nature of the country, and the wide areas covered by the
cities in proportion to the number of their inhabitants. It is not
surprising to find, therefore, that the means of distribution are
varied. The state derives a net revenue of 5 million _yen_ approximately
from its postal service. It need scarcely be added that the system of
postal money-orders was developed _pari passu_ with that of ordinary
correspondence, but in this context one interesting fact may be noted,
namely, that while Japan sends abroad only some £25,000 annually to
foreign countries through the post, she receives over £450,000 from her
over-sea emigrants.

Postal Savings Bank.

Japan at the time of the Restoration (1867) was not entirely without
experience which prepared her for the postal money-order system. Some
600 years ago the idea of the bill of exchange was born in the little
town of Totsugawa (Yamato province), though it did not obtain much
development before the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate in the
17th century. The feudal chiefs, having then to transmit large sums to
Yedo for the purposes of their compulsory residence there, availed
themselves of bills of exchange, and the shogun's government, which
received considerable amounts in Osaka, selected ten brokers to whom
the duty of effecting the transfer of these funds was entrusted.
Subsequently the 10 chosen brokers were permitted to extend their
services to the general public, and a recent Japanese historian notes
that Osaka thus became the birthplace of banking business in Japan.
Postal money-orders were therefore easily appreciated at the time of
their introduction in 1875. This was not true of the postal savings
bank, however, an institution which came into existence in the same
year. It was altogether a novel idea that the public at large,
especially the lower sections of it, should entrust their savings to
the government for safe keeping, especially as the minimum and maximum
deposited at one time were fixed at such petty sums as 10 _sen_ (2¼d.)
and 50 _sen_ (1s.), respectively. Indeed, in the circumstances, the
fact that £1500 was deposited in the first year must be regarded as
notable. Subsequently deposits were taken in postage stamps, and
arrangements were effected for enabling depositors to pay money to
distant creditors through the bank by merely stating the destination
and the amount of the nearest post office. In 1908 the number of
depositors in the post office savings bank was 8217, and their
deposits exceeded 10 millions sterling. Thirty per cent. of the
depositors belonged to the agricultural classes, 13 to the commercial
and only 6 to the industrial.

Telegraphs.

Rapid communication by means of beacons was not unknown in ancient
Japan, but code-signalling by the aid of flags was not introduced
until the 17th century and was probably suggested by observing the
practice of foreign merchantmen. Its use, however, was peculiar. The
central office stood at Osaka, between which city and many of the
principal provincial towns rudely constructed towers were placed at
long distances, and from one to another of these intelligence as to
the market price of rice was flashed by flag-shaking, the signals
being read with telescopes. The Japanese saw a telegraph for the first
time in 1854, when Commodore Perry presented a set of apparatus to the
shogun, and four years later the feudal chief of Satsuma (Shimazu
Nariakira) caused wires to be erected within the enclosure of his
castle. The true value of electric telegraphy was first demonstrated
to the Japanese in connexion with an insurrection in 1877, under the
leadership of Saigo, the favourite of this same Shimazu Nariakira.
Before that time, however, a line of telegraph had been put up between
Tokyo and Yokohama (18 m.) and a code of regulations had been enacted.
Sudden introduction to such a mysterious product of foreign science
created superstitious dread in the minds of a few of the lower orders,
and occasional attempts were made at the outset to wreck the wires. In
1886 the postal and telegraph offices were amalgamated and both
systems underwent large development. Whereas the length of wires at
the end of the fourth year after the introduction of the system was
only 53 m., and the number of messages 20,000, these figures had grown
in 1907 to 95,623 and 25 millions, respectively. Several cables are
included in these latter figures, the longest being that to Formosa
(1229 m.). Wireless telegraphy began to come into general use in 1908,
when several vessels belonging to the principal steamship companies
were equipped with the apparatus. It had already been employed for
some years by the army and navy, especially during the war with
Russia, when the latter service installed a new system, the joint
invention of Captain Tonami of the navy, Professor S. Kimura of the
naval college and Mr M. Matsushiro of the department of
communications. The telegraph service in Japan barely pays the cost of
operating and maintenance.

Telephones.

The introduction of the telephone into Japan took place in 1877, but
it served official purposes solely during 13 years, and even when
(1890) it was placed at the disposal of the general public its
utilities found at first few appreciators. But this apathy soon
yielded to a mood of eager employment, and the resources of the
government (which monopolized the enterprise) proved inadequate to
satisfy public demand. Automatic telephones were ultimately set up at
many places in the principal towns and along the most frequented
highways. The longest distance covered was from Tokyo to Osaka (348
m.). In 1907 Japan had 140,440 m. of telephone wires, 262 exchanges,
159 automatic telephones, and the approximate number of messages sent
was 160 millions. The telephone service pays a net revenue of about
£100,000 annually.

_Agriculture._--The gross area of land in Japan--excluding Formosa and
Sakhalin--is 89,167,880 acres, of which 53,487,022 acres represent the
property of the crown, the state and the communes, the rest (35,680,868
acres) being owned by private persons. Of the grand total the arable
lands represent 15,301,297 acres. With regard to the immense expanse
remaining unproductive, experts calculate that if all lands inclined at
less than 15° be considered cultivable, an area of 10,684,517 acres
remains to be reclaimed, though whether the result would repay the cost
is a question hitherto unanswered. The cultivated lands are thus
classified, namely, wet fields (called also paddy fields or rice lands),
6,871,437 acres; dry fields (or upland farms), 5,741,745 acres, and
others, 2,688,115 acres.

Rice.

Paddy fields are to be seen in every valley or dell where farming is
practicable; they are divided into square, oblong or triangular plots
by grass-grown ridges a few inches in height and on an average a foot
in breadth--the rice being planted in the soft mud thus enclosed.
Narrow pathways intersect these rice-valleys at intervals, and
rivulets (generally flowing between low banks covered with clumps of
bamboo) feed ditches cut for purposes of irrigation. The fields are
generally kept under water to a depth of a few inches while the crops
are young, but are drained immediately before harvesting. They are
then dug up, and again flooded before the second crop is planted out.
The rising grounds which skirt the rice-land are tilled by the hoe,
and produce Indian corn, millet and edible roots. The well-wooded
slopes supply the peasants with timber and firewood. Thirty-six per
cent. of the rice-fields yield two crops yearly. The seed is sown in
small beds, and the seedlings are planted out in the fields after
attaining the height of about 4 in. The finest rice is produced in the
fertile plains watered by the Tone-gawa in the province of Shimosa,
but the grain of Kaga and of the two central provinces of Settsu and
Harima is also very good.

Sake.

Not only does rice form the chief food of the Japanese but also the
national beverage, called sake, is brewed from it. In colour the best
sake resembles very pale sherry; the taste is rather acid. None but
the finest grain is used in its manufacture. Of sake there are many
varieties, from the best quality down to _shiro-zake_ or "white sake,"
and the turbid sort, drunk only in the poorer districts, known as
_nigori-zake_; there is also a sweet sort, called _mirin_.

The various cereal and other crops cultivated in Japan, the areas
devoted to them and the annual production are shown in the following
table:--

1898. 1902. 1906.
Acres. Acres. Acres.

Rice 7,044,060 7,117,990 7,246,982
Barley 1,649,240 1,613,270 1,674,595
Rye 1,703,410 1,688,635 1,752,095
Wheat 1,164,020 1,210,435 1,107,967
Millet 693,812 652,492 594,280
Beans 1,503,395 1,488,600 1,478,345
Buckwheat 450,100 414,375 402,575
Rape-seed 377,070 392,612 352,807
Potatoes 92,297 105,350 140,197
Sweet Potatoes 668,130 693,427 717,620
Cotton 100,720 51,750 24,165
Hemp 62,970 42,227 34,845
Indigo (leaf) 122,180 92,982 40,910

1903. 1905. 1906.

Sugar Cane 41,750 43,308 45,087

It is observable that no marked increase is taking place in the area
under cultivation, and that the business of growing cotton, hemp and
indigo is gradually diminishing, these staples being supplied from
abroad. In Germany and Italy the annual additions made to the arable
area average 8% whereas in Japan the figure is only 5%. Moreover, of
the latter amount the rate for paddy fields is only 3.3% against 7.9%
in the case of upland farms. This means that the population is rapidly
outgrowing its supply of home-produced rice, the great food-stuff of
the nation, and the price of that cereal consequently shows a steady
tendency to appreciate. Thus whereas the market value was 5s. 5d. per
bushel in 1901, it rose to 6s. 9d. in 1906.

Silk and Tea.

Scarcely less important to Japan than the cereals she raises are her
silk and tea, both of which find markets abroad. Her production of the
latter staple does not show any sign of marked development, for though
tea is almost as essential an article of diet in Japan as rice, its
foreign consumers are practically limited to the United States and
their demand does not increase. The figures for the 10-year period
ended 1906 are as follow:--

Area under cultivation Tea produced
(acres). (lb. av.).

1897 147,230 70,063,076
1901 122,120 57,975,486
1906 126,125 58,279,286

Sericulture, on the contrary, shows steady development year by year.
The demand of European and American markets has very elastic limits,
and if Japanese growers are content with moderate, but still
substantial, gains they can find an almost unrestricted sale in the
West. The development from 1886 to 1906 was as follows:--

Raw silk produced
yearly (lb.).

Average from 1886 to 1889 8,739,273
1895 19,087,310
1900 20,705,644
1905 21,630,829
1906 24,215,324

The chief silk-producing prefectures in Japan, according to the order
of production, are Nagano, Gumma, Yamanashi, Fukushima, Aichi and
Saitama. At the close of 1906 there were 3843 filatures throughout the
country, and the number of families engaged in sericulture was
397,885.

Lacquer, vegetable wax and tobacco are also important staples of
production. The figures for the ten-year period, 1897 to 1906, are as
follow:--

Lacquer Vegetable Tobacco
(lb.). wax (lb.). (lb.).

1897 344,267 25,850,790 110,572,925
1906 668,266 39,714,661 101,718,592

While the quantity of certain products increases, the number of
filatures and factories diminishes, the inference being that
industries are coming to be conducted on a larger scale than was
formerly the case. Thus in sericulture the filatures diminished from
4723 in 1897 to 3843 in 1906; the number of lacquer factories from
1637 to 1123 at the same dates, and the number of wax factories from
2619 to 1929.

Agricultural Improvements.

It is generally said that whereas more than 60% of Japan's entire
population is engaged in agriculture, she remains far behind the
progressive nations of Europe in the application of scientific
principles to farming. Nevertheless if we take for unit the average
value of the yield per hectare in Italy, we obtain the following
figures:--

Yield per hectare

Italy 100
India 51
Germany 121
France 122
Egypt 153
Japan 213

In the realm of agriculture, as in all departments of modern Japan's
material development, abundant traces are found of official activity.
Thus, in the year 1900, the government enacted laws designed to
correct the excessive subdivision of farmers' holdings; to utilize
unproductive areas lying between cultivated fields; to straighten
roads; to facilitate irrigation; to promote the use of machinery; to
make known the value of artificial fertilizers; to conserve streams
and to prevent inundations. Further, in order to furnish capital for
the purposes of farming, 46 agricultural and commercial banks--one in
each prefecture--were established with a central institution called
the hypothec bank which assists them to collect funds. A Hokkaido
colonial bank and subsequently a bank of Formosa were also organized,
and a law was framed to encourage the formation of co-operative
societies which should develop a system of credit, assist the business
of sale and purchase and concentrate small capitals. Experimental
stations were another official creation. Their functions were to carry
on investigations relating to seeds, diseases of cereals, insect
pests, stock-breeding, the use of implements, the manufacture of
agricultural products and cognate matters. Encouragement by grants in
aid was also given to the establishment of similar experimental farms
by private persons in the various prefectures, and such farms are now
to be found everywhere. This official initiative, with equally
successful results, extended to the domain of sericulture and
tea-growing. There are two state sericultural training institutions
where not only the rearing of silk-worms and the management of
filatures are taught, but also experiments are made; and these
institutions, like the state agricultural stations, have served as
models for institutes on the same lines under private auspices. A
silk-conditioning house at Yokohama; experimental tea-farms; laws to
prevent and remove diseases of plants, cereals, silk-worms and cattle,
and regulations to check dishonesty in the matter of fertilizers,
complete the record of official efforts in the realm of agriculture
during the Meiji era.

Stockbreeding.

One of the problems of modern Japan is the supply of cattle. With a
rapidly growing taste for beef--which, in former days, was not an
article of diet--there is a slow but steady diminution in the stock of
cattle. Thus while the number of the latter in 1897 was 1,214,163, out
of which total 158,504 were slaughtered, the corresponding figures in
1906 were 1,190,373 and 167,458, respectively. The stock of sheep
(3500 in 1906) increases slowly, and the stocks of goats (58,694 in
1897 and 74,750 in 1906) and swine (206,217 in 1897 and 284,708 in
1906) grow with somewhat greater rapidity, but mutton and pork do not
suit Japanese taste, and goats are kept mainly for the sake of their
milk. The government has done much towards the improvement of cattle
and horses by importing bulls and sires, but, on the whole, the mixed
breed is not a success, and the war with Russia in 1904-5 having
clearly disclosed a pressing need of heavier horses for artillery and
cavalry purposes, large importations of Australian, American and
European cattle are now made, and the organization of race-clubs has
been encouraged throughout the country.

_Forests._--Forests occupy an area of 55 millions of acres, or 60% of
the total superficies of Japan, and one-third of that expanse, namely,
18 million acres, approximately, is the property of the state. It
cannot be said that any very practical attempt has yet been made to
develop this source of wealth. The receipts from forests stood at only
13 million _yen_ in the budget for 1907-1908, and even that figure
compares favourably with the revenue of only 3 millions derived from
the same source in the fiscal year 1904-1905. This failure to utilize
a valuable asset is chiefly due to defective communications, but the
demand for timber has already begun to increase. In 1907 a revised
forestry law was promulgated, according to which the administration is
competent to prevent the destruction of forests and to cause the
planting of plains and waste-lands, or the re-planting of denuded
areas. A plan was also elaborated for systematically turning the state
forests to valuable account, while, at the same time, providing for
their conservation.

_Fisheries._--From ancient times the Japanese have been great
fishermen. The seas that encircle their many-coasted islands teem with
fish and aquatic products, which have always constituted an essential
article of diet. Early in the 18th century, the Tokugawa
administration, in pursuance of a policy of isolation, interdicted the
construction of ocean-going ships, and the people's enterprise in the
matter of deep-sea fishing suffered a severe check. But shortly after
the Restoration in 1867, not only was this veto rescinded, but also
the government, organizing a marine bureau and a marine products
examination office, took vigorous measures to promote pelagic
industry. Then followed the formation of the marine products
association under the presidency of an imperial prince. Fishery
training schools were the next step; then periodical exhibitions of
fishery and marine products; then the introduction and improvement of
fishing implements; and then by rapid strides the area of operations
widened until Japanese fishing boats of improved types came to be seen
in Australasia, in Canada, in the seas of Sakhalin, the Maritime
Province, Korea and China; in the waters of Kamchatka and in the Sea
of Okhotsk. No less than 9000 fishermen with 2000 boats capture yearly
about £300,000 worth of fish in Korean waters; at least 8000 find a
plentiful livelihood off the coasts of Sakhalin and Siberia, and 200
Japanese boats engage in the salmon-fishing of the Fraser River. In
1893, the total value of Japanese marine products and fish captured
did not exceed 1¼ millions sterling, whereas in 1906 the figure had
grown to 5½ millions, to which must be added 3{1/8} millions of
manufactured marine products. Fourteen kinds of fish represent more
than 50% of the whole catch, namely, (in the order of their
importance) bonito (_katsuo_), sardines (_iwashi_), pagrus (_toi_),
cuttle-fish and squid (_tako_ and _ika_), mackerel (_saba_), yellow
tail (_buri_), tunny-fish (_maguro_), prawns (_ebi_), sole (_karei_),
grey mullet (_bora_), eels (_unagi_), salmon (_shake_), sea-ear
(_awabi_) and carp (_koi_). Altogether 700 kinds of aquatic products
are known in Japan, and 400 of them constitute articles of diet. Among
manufactured aquatic products the chief are (in the order of their
importance) dried bonito, fish guano, dried cuttle-fish, dried and
boiled sardines, dried herring and dried prawns. The export of marine
products amounted to £900,000 in 1906 against £400,000 ten years
previously; China is the chief market. As for imports, they were
insignificant at the beginning of the Meiji era, but by degrees a
demand was created for salted fish, dried sardines (for fertilizing),
edible sea-weed, canned fish and turtle-shell, so that whereas the
total imports were only £1600 in 1868, they grew to over £400,000 in
1906.

_Minerals._--Crystalline schists form the axis of Japan. They run in a
general direction from south-west to north-east, with chains starting
east and west from Shikoku. On these schists rocks of every age are
superimposed, and amid these somewhat complicated geological
conditions numerous minerals occur. Precious stones, however, are not
found, though crystals of quartz and antimony as well as good
specimens of topaz and agate are not infrequent.

Gold.

Gold occurs in quartz veins among schists, paleozoic or volcanic rocks
and in placers. The quantity obtained is not large, but it shows
tolerably steady development, and may possibly be much increased by
more generous use of capital and larger recourse to modern methods.

Silver.

The value of the silver mined is approximately equal to that of the
gold. It is found chiefly in volcanic rocks (especially tuff), in the
form of sulphide, and it is usually associated with gold, copper, lead
or zinc.

Copper.

Much more important in Japan's economics than either of the precious
metals is copper. Veins often showing a thickness of from 70 to 80
ft., though of poor quality (2 to 8%), are found bedded in crystalline
schists or paleozoic sedimentary rocks, but the richest (10 to 30%)
occur in tuff and other volcanic rocks.

Iron.

There have not yet been found any evidences that Japan is rich in iron
ores. Her largest known deposit (magnetite) occurs at Kamaishi in
Iwate prefecture, but the quantity of pig-iron produced from the ore
mined there does not exceed 37,000 tons annually, and Japan is obliged
to import from the neighbouring continent the greater part of the iron
needed by her for ship-building and armaments.

Coal.

Considerable deposits of coal exist, both anthracite and bituminous.
The former, found chiefly at Amakusa, is not greatly inferior to the
Cardiff mineral; and the latter--obtained in abundance in Kiuushiu and
Yezo--is a brown coal of good medium quality. Altogether there are 29
coal-fields now actually worked in Japan, and she obtained an
important addition to her sources of supply in the sequel to the war
with Russia, when the Fushun mines near Mukden, Manchuria, were
transferred to her. During the 10 years ending in 1906, the market
value of the coal mined in Japan grew from less than 2 millions
sterling to over 6 millions.

Petroleum.

Petroleum also has of late sprung into prominence on the list of her
mineral products. The oil-bearing strata--which occur mainly in
tertiary rocks--extend from Yezo to Formosa, but the principal are in
Echigo, which yields the greater part of the petroleum now obtained,
the Yezo and Formosa wells being still little exploited, the quantity
of petroleum obtained in Japan in 1897 was 9 million gallons, whereas
the quantity obtained in 1906 was 55 millions.

Japanese mining enterprise was more than trebled during the decade
1897 to 1906, for the value of the minerals taken out in the former
year was only 3½ millions sterling, whereas the corresponding figure
for 1906 was 11 millions. The earliest mention of gold-mining in Japan
takes us back to the year A.D. 696, and by the 16th century the
country had acquired the reputation of being rich in gold. During the
days of her medieval intercourse with the outer world, her stores of
the precious metals were largely reduced, for between the years 1602
and 1766, Holland, Spain, Portugal and China took from her 313,800 lb.
(troy) of gold and 11,230,000 lb. of silver.

Copper occupied a scarcely less important place in Old Japan. From a
period long anterior to historic times this metal was employed to
manufacture mirrors and swords, and the introduction of Buddhism in
the 6th century was quickly followed by the casting of sacred images,
many of which still survive. Finding in the 18th century that her
foreign intercourse not only had largely denuded her of gold and
silver, but also threatened to denude her of copper, Japan set a limit
(3415 tons) to the yearly export of the latter metal. After the
resumption of administrative power by the emperor in 1867, attention
was quickly directed to the question of mineral resources; several
Western experts were employed to conduct surveys and introduce
Occidental mining methods, and ten of the most important mines were
worked under the direct auspices of the state in order to serve as
object lessons. Subsequently these mines were all transferred to
private hands, and the government now retains possession of only a few
iron and coal mines whose products are needed for dockyard and arsenal
purposes. The following table shows the recent progress and present
condition of mining industry in Japan:--

Gold Silver Copper Lead

Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value. Quantity Value.
oz. £ oz. £ Tons. £ Tons. £

1897 34,553 136,834 1,809,805 208,200 19,722 869,266 746 10,343
1901 82,517 330,076 1,824,842 211,682 26,495 1,625,244 1,744 24,640
1906 90,842 363,715 2,623,212 243,914 37,254 3,007,992 2,721 49,690

Iron Coal Petroleum Sulphur

Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value.
Tons. £ Tons. £ Gallons. £ Tons. £

1897 35,178 103,559 5,229,662 1,899,592 9,248,800 44,389 13,138 33,588
1901 46,456 123,701 9,025,325 3,060,931 39,351,960 227,841 16,007 38,612
1906 85,203 268,911 12,980,103 6,314,400 55,135,880 314,550 27,406 61,386

Antimony Manganese Others

Quantity. Value. Quantity. Value. Value. Total Values.
Tons. £ Tons. £ £ £

1897 1,133 27,362 13,175 8,758 3,863 3,345,662
1901 529 13,481 15,738 10,846 3,450 5,670,508
1906 293 22,862 12,322 51,365 41,338 10,839,783

The number of mine employees in 1907 was 190,000, in round numbers;
the number of mining companies, 189; and the aggregate paid-up
capital, 10 millions sterling.

_Industries._--In the beginning of the Meiji era Japan was practically
without any manufacturing industries, as the term is understood in the
Occident, and she had not so much as one joint-stock company. At the end
of 1906, her joint-stock companies and partnerships totalled 9329, their
paid up capital exceeded 100 millions sterling, and their reserves
totalled 26 millions. It is not to be inferred, however, from the
absence of manufacturing organizations 50 years ago that such pursuits
were deliberately eschewed or despised in Japan. On the contrary, at the
very dawn of the historical epoch we find that sections of the people
took their names from the work carried on by them, and that specimens of
expert industry were preserved in the sovereign's palace side by side
with the imperial insignia. Further, skilled artisans from the
neighbouring continent always found a welcome in Japan, and when Korea
was successfully invaded in early times, one of the uses which the
victors made of their conquest was to import Korean weavers and dyers.
Subsequently the advent of Buddhism, with its demand for images,
temples, gorgeous vestments and rich paraphernalia, gave a marked
impulse to the development of artistic industry, which at the outset
took its models from China, India and Greece, but gradually, while
assimilating many of the best features of the continental schools,
subjected them to such great modifications in accordance with Japanese
genius that they ceased to retain more than a trace of their originals.
From the 9th century luxurious habits prevailed in Kioto under the sway
of the Fujiwara regents, and the imperial city's munificent patronage
drew to its precincts a crowd of artisans. But these were not
industrials, in the Western sense of the term, and, further, their
organization was essentially domestic, each family selecting its own
pursuit and following it from generation to generation without
co-operation or partnership with any outsider. The establishment of
military feudalism in the 12th century brought a reaction from the
effeminate luxury of the metropolis, and during nearly 300 years no
industry enjoyed large popularity except that of the armourer and the
sword-smith. No sooner, however, did the prowess of Oda Nobunaga and,
above all, of Hideyoshi, the taiko, bring within sight a cessation of
civil war and the unification of the country, than the taste for
beautiful objects and artistic utensils recovered vitality. By degrees
there grew up among the feudal barons a keen rivalry in art industry,
and the shogun's court in Yedo set a standard which the feudatories
constantly strove to attain. Ultimately, in the days immediately
antecedent to its fall, the shogun's administration sought to induce a
more logical system by encouraging local manufacturers to supply local
needs only, leaving to Kioto and Yedo the duty of catering to general
wants.

But before this reform had approached maturity, the second advent of
Western nations introduced to Japan the products of an industrial
civilization centuries in advance of her own from the point of view of
utility, though nowise superior in the application of art. Immediately
the nation became alive to the necessity of correcting its own
inferiority in this respect. But the people being entirely without
models for organization, without financial machinery and without the
idea of joint stock enterprise, the government had to choose between
entering the field as an instructor, and leaving the nation to struggle
along an arduous and expensive way to tardy development. There could be
no question as to which course would conduce more to the general
advantage, and thus, in days immediately subsequent to the resumption of
administrative power by the emperor, the spectacle was seen of official
excursions into the domains of silk-reeling, cement-making, cotton and
silk spinning, brick-burning, printing and book-binding, soap-boiling,
type-casting and ceramic decoration, to say nothing of their
establishing colleges and schools where all branches of applied science
were taught. Domestic exhibitions also were organized, and specimens cf
the country's products and manufactures were sent under government
auspices to exhibitions abroad. On the other hand, the effect of this
new departure along Western lines could not but be injurious to the old
domestic industries of the country, especially to those which owed their
existence to tastes and traditions now regarded as obsolete. Here again
the government came to the rescue by establishing a firm whose functions
were to familiarize foreign markets with the products of Japanese
artisans, and to instruct the latter in adaptations likely to appeal to
Occidental taste. Steps were also taken for training women as artisans,
and the government printing bureau set the example of employing female
labour, an innovation which soon developed large dimensions. In short,
the authorities applied themselves to educate an industrial disposition
throughout the country, and as soon as success seemed to be in sight,
they gradually transferred from official to private direction the
various model enterprises, retaining only such as were required to
supply the needs of the state.

The result of all this effort was that whereas, in the beginning of
the Meiji era, Japan had virtually no industries worthy of the name,
she possessed in 1896--that is to say, after an interval of 25 years
of effort--no less than 4595 industrial and commercial companies,
joint stock or partnership, with a paid-up capital of 40 millions
sterling. Her development during the decade ending in 1906 is shown in
the following table:--

Reserves
Number of Paid-up capital (millions
companies. (millions sterling). sterling).

1897 6,113 53 6
1901 8,602 83 12
1906 9,329 107 26

What effect this development exercised upon the country's over-sea
trade may be inferred from the fact that, whereas the manufactured
goods exported in 1870 were nil, their value in 1901 was 8 millions
sterling, and in 1906 the figure rose to over 20 millions. In the
following table are given some facts relating to the principal
industries in which foreign markets are interested:--

COTTON YARNS

+------+----------+---------------+-------------+-------------------------+
| | | Operatives. | Quantity | |
| | Spindles.+-------+-------+ produced. | Remarks. |
| | | Male. |Female.| | |
+------+----------+-------+-------+-------------+-------------------------+
| | | | | lb. | This is a wholly new |
| 1897 | 768,328 | 9,933 |35,059 | 216,913,196 | had industry in Japan. |
| 1901 |1,181,762 |13,481 |49,540 | 274,861,380 | It no existence before |
| 1906 |1,425,406 |13,032 |59,281 | 383,359,113 | the Meiji era. |
+------+----------+-------+-------+-------------+-------------------------+

WOVEN GOODS

+------+--------+----------------+------------+--------------------------+
| | | Operatives. | Market | |
| | Looms. +----------------+ value of | Remarks. |
| | | Male. |Female. | products. | |
+------+--------+-------+--------+------------+--------------------------+
| | | | | Millions | It is observable that a |
| | | | | sterling. | decrease in the number of|
| 1897 |947,134 |54,119 |987,110 | 19 | operatives is concurrent |
| 1901 |719,550 |43,172 |747,946 | 24 | with an increase of |
| 1906 |736,828 |40,886 |751,605 | 36 | production. |
+------+--------+-------+--------+------------+--------------------------+

MATCHES

+------+--------+---------------+-----------+----------+-----------------------+
| |Families| Operatives. | Quantity | Value. | |
| |engaged.+-------+-------+ produced. | | Remarks. |
| | | Male. |Female.| | | |
+------+--------+-------+-------+-----------+----------+-----------------------+
| | | | | Gross. | £ | This is an altogether |
| 1897 | 269 |21,447 |26,277 |24,038,960 | 654,849 | new industry. Japanese|
| 1901 | 261 | 5,656 |16,504 |32,901,319 | 926,689 | matches now hold the |
| 1906 | 250 | 5,468 |18,721 |54,802,293 |1,551,698 | leading place in all |
| | | | | | | Far-Eastern markets. |
+------+--------+-------+-------+-----------+----------+-----------------------+

FOREIGN PAPER (as distinguished from Japanese)

+------+----------+-------+-------+------------+----------+--------------------+
| | | Operatives. | Quantity | | |
| |Factories.+-------+-------+ produced. | Value. | Remarks. |
| | | Male. |Female.| | | |
+------+----------+-------+-------+------------+----------+--------------------+
| | | | | lb. | £ | Had not Japanese |
| 1897 | 9 | 164 | 109 | 46,256,649 | 300,662 | factories been |
| 1901 | 13 | 2,635 | 1,397 |113,348,340 | 714,094 | established all |
| 1906 | 22 | 3,774 | 1,778 |218,022,434 |1,415,778 | this paper must |
| | | | | | | have been imported.| |
+------+----------+-------+-------+------------+----------+--------------------+

In the field of what may be called minor manufactures--as ceramic
wares, lacquers, straw-plaits, &c.--there has been corresponding
growth, for the value of these productions increased from 1¼ millions
sterling in 1897 to 3½ millions in 1906. But as these manufactures do
not enter into competition with foreign goods in either Eastern or
Western markets, they are interesting only as showing the development
of Japan's producing power. They contribute nothing to the solution of
the problem whether Japanese industries are destined ultimately to
drive their foreign rivals from the markets of Asia, if not to compete
injuriously with them even in Europe and America. Japan seems to have
one great advantage over Occidental countries: she possesses an
abundance of dexterous and exceptionally cheap labour. It has been
said, indeed, that this latter advantage is not likely to be
permanent, since the wages of labour and the cost of living are fast
increasing. The average cost of labour doubled in the interval between
1895 and 1906, but, on the other hand, the number of manufacturing
organizations doubled in the same time, while the amount of their
paid-up capital nearly trebled. As to the necessaries of life, if
those specially affected by government monopolies be excluded, the
rate of appreciation between 1900 and 1906 averaged about 30%, and it
thus appears that the cost of living is not increasing with the same
rapidity as the remuneration earned by labour. The manufacturing
progress of the nation seems, therefore, to have a bright future, the
only serious impediment being deficient capital. There is abundance of
coal, and steps have been taken on a large scale to utilize the many
excellent opportunities which the country offers for developing
electricity by water-power.

Silk-weaving

The fact that Japan's exports of raw silk amount to more than 12
millions sterling, while she sends over-sea only 3½ millions' worth of
silk fabrics, suggests some marked inferiority on the part of her
weavers. But the true explanation seems to be that her distance from
the Occident handicaps her in catering for the changing fashions of
the West. There cannot be any doubt that the skill of Japanese weavers
was at one time eminent. The sun goddess herself, the predominant
figure in the Japanese pantheon, is said to have practised weaving;
the names of four varieties of woven fabrics were known in prehistoric
times; the 3rd century of the Christian era saw the arrival of a
Korean maker of cloth; after him came an influx of Chinese who were
distributed throughout the country to improve the arts of sericulture
and silk-weaving; a sovereign (Yuriaku) of the 5th century employed 92
groups of naturalized Chinese for similar purposes; in 421 the same
emperor issued a decree encouraging the culture of mulberry trees and
calling for taxes on silk and cotton; the manufacture of textiles was
directly supervised by the consort of this sovereign; in 645 a bureau
of weaving was established; many other evidences are conclusive as to
the great antiquity of the art of silk and cotton weaving in Japan.

The coming of Buddhism in the 6th century contributed not a little to
the development of the art, since not only did the priests require for
their own vestments and for the decoration of temples silken fabrics
of more and more gorgeous description, but also these holy men
themselves, careful always to keep touch with the continental
developments of their faith, made frequent voyages to China, whence
they brought back to Japan a knowledge of whatever technical or
artistic improvements the Middle Kingdom could show. When Kioto became
the permanent metropolis of the empire, at the close of the 8th
century, a bureau was established for weaving brocades and rich silk
stuffs to be used in the palace. This preluded an era of some three
centuries of steadily developing luxury in Kioto; an era when an
essential part of every aristocratic mansion's furniture was a
collection of magnificent silk robes for use in the sumptuous _No_.
Then, in the 15th century came the "Tea Ceremonial," when the brocade
mountings of a picture or the wrapper of a tiny tea-jar possessed an
almost incredible value, and such skill was attained by weavers and
dyers that even fragments of the fabrics produced by them command
extravagant prices to-day. Kioto always remained, and still remains,
the chief producing centre, and to such a degree has the science of
colour been developed there that no less than 4000 varieties of tint
are distinguished. The sense of colour, indeed, seems to have been a
special endowment of the Japanese people from the earliest times, and
some of the combinations handed down from medieval times are treasured
as incomparable examples. During the long era of peace under the
Tokugawa administration the costumes of men and women showed an
increasing tendency to richness and beauty. This culminated in the
Genroku epoch (1688-1700), and the aristocracy of the present day
delight in viewing histrionic performances where the costumes of that
age and of its rival, the Momoyama (end of the 16th century) are
reproduced.

It would be possible to draw up a formidable catalogue of the various
kinds of silk fabrics manufactured in Japan before the opening of the
Meiji era, and the signal ability of her weavers has derived a new
impulse from contact with the Occident. Machinery has been largely
introduced, and though the products of hand-looms still enjoy the
reputation of greater durability, there has unquestionably been a
marked development of producing power. Japanese looms now turn out
about 17 millions sterling of silk textiles, of which less than 4
millions go abroad. Nor is increased quantity alone to be noted, for
at the factory of Kawashima in Kioto Gobelins are produced such as
have never been rivalled elsewhere.

_Commerce in Tokugawa Times._--The conditions existing in Japan during
the two hundred and fifty years prefatory to the modern opening of the
country were unfavourable to the development alike of national and of
international trade. As to the former, the system of feudal government
exercised a crippling influence, for each feudal chief endeavoured to
check the exit of any kind of property from his fief, and free
interchange of commodities was thus prevented so effectually that cases
are recorded of one feudatory's subjects dying of starvation while those
of an adjoining fief enjoyed abundance. International commerce, on the
other hand, lay under the veto of the central government, which punished
with death anyone attempting to hold intercourse with foreigners. Thus
the fiefs practised a policy of mutual seclusion at home, and united to
maintain a policy of general seclusion abroad. Yet it was under the
feudal system that the most signal development of Japanese trade took
place, and since the processes of that development have much historical
interest they invite close attention.

As the bulk of a feudal chief's income was paid in rice, arrangements
had to be made for sending the grain to market and transmitting its
proceeds. This was effected originally by establishing in Osaka stores
(_kura-yashiki_), under the charge of samurai, who received the rice,
sold it to merchants in that city and remitted the proceeds by
official carriers. But from the middle of the 17th century these
stores were placed in the charge of tradesmen to whom was given the
name of _kake-ya_ (agent). They disposed of the products entrusted to
them by a fief and held the money, sending it by monthly instalments
to an appointed place, rendering yearly accounts and receiving
commission at the rate of from 2 to 4%. They had no special licence,
but they were honourably regarded and often distinguished by an
official title or an hereditary pension. In fact a kake-ya, of such
standing as the Mitsui and the Konoike families, was, in effect, a
banker charged with the finances of several fiefs. In Osaka the method
of sale was uniform. Tenders were invited, and these having been
opened in the presence of all the store officials and kake-ya, the
successful tenderers had to deposit bargain-money, paying the
remainder within ten days, and thereafter becoming entitled to take
delivery of the rice in whole or by instalments within a certain time,
no fee being charged for storage. A similar system existed in Yedo,
the shogun's capital. Out of the custom of deferred delivery developed
the establishment of exchanges where advances were made against sale
certificates, and purely speculative transactions came into vogue.
There followed an experience common enough in the West at one time:
public opinion rebelled against these transactions in margins on the
ground that they tended to enhance the price of rice. Several of the
brokers were arrested and brought to trial; marginal dealings were
thenceforth forbidden, and a system of licences was inaugurated in
Yedo, the number of licensed dealers[7] being restricted to 108.

The system of organized trading companies had its origin in the 12th
century, when, the number of merchants admitted within the confines of
Yedo being restricted, it became necessary for those not obtaining
that privilege to establish some mode of co-operation, and there
resulted the formation of companies with representatives stationed in
the feudal capital and share-holding members in the provinces. The
Ashikaga shoguns developed this restriction by selling to the highest
bidder the exclusive right of engaging in a particular trade, and the
Tokugawa administration had recourse to the same practice. But whereas
the monopolies instituted by the Ashikaga had for sole object the
enrichment of the exchequer, the Tokugawa regarded it chiefly as a
means of obtaining worthy representatives in each branch of trade. The
first licences were issued in Yedo to keepers of bath-houses in the
middle of the 17th century. As the city grew in dimensions these
licences increased in value, so that pawnbrokers willingly accepted
them in pledge for loans. Subsequently almanack-sellers were obliged
to take out licences, and the system was afterwards extended to
money-changers.

It was to the fishmongers, however, that the advantages of commercial
organization first presented themselves vividly. The greatest
fish-market in Japan is at Nihon-bashi in Tokyo (formerly Yedo). It
had its origin in the needs of the Tokugawa court. When Iyeyasu
(founder of the Tokugawa dynasty) entered Yedo in 1590, his train was
followed by some fishermen of Settsu, to whom he granted the privilege
of plying their trade in the adjacent seas, on condition that they
furnished a supply of their best fish for the use of the garrison. The
remainder they offered for sale at Nihon-bashi. Early in the 17th
century one Sukegoro of Yamato province (hence called Yamato-ya) went
to Yedo and organized the fishmongers into a great gild. Nothing is
recorded about this man's antecedents, though his mercantile genius
entitles him to historical notice. He contracted for the sale of all
the fish obtained in the neighbouring seas, advanced money to the
fishermen on the security of their catch, constructed preserves for
keeping the fish alive until they were exposed in the market, and
enrolled all the dealers in a confederation which ultimately consisted
of 391 wholesale merchants and 246 brokers. The main purpose of
Sukegoro's system was to prevent the consumer from dealing direct with
the producer. Thus in return for the pecuniary accommodation granted
to fishermen to buy boats and nets they were required to give every
fish they caught to the wholesale merchant from whom they had received
the advance; and the latter, on his side, had to sell in the open
market at prices fixed by the confederation. A somewhat similar system
applied to vegetables, though in this case the monopoly was never so
close.

It will be observed that this federation of fishmongers approximated
closely to a trust, as the term is now understood; that is to say, an
association of merchants engaged in the same branch of trade and
pledged to observe certain rules in the conduct of their business as
well as to adhere to fixed rates. The idea was extended to nearly
every trade, 10 monster confederations being organized in Yedo and 24
in Osaka. These received official recognition, and contributed a sum
to the exchequer under the euphonious name of "benefit money,"
amounting to nearly £20,000 annually. They attained a high state of
prosperity, the whole of the cities' supplies passing through their
hands.[8] No member of a confederation was permitted to dispose of his
licence except to a near relative, and if anyone not on the roll of a
confederation engaged in the same business he became liable to
punishment at the hands of the officials. In spite of the limits thus
imposed on the transfer of licences, one of these documents commanded
from £80 to £6,400, and in the beginning of the 19th century the
confederations, or gilds, had increased to 68 in Yedo, comprising 1195
merchants. The gild system extended to maritime enterprise also. In
the beginning of the 17th century a merchant of Sakai (near Osaka)
established a junk service between Osaka and Yedo, but this kind of
business did not attain any considerable development until the close
of that century, when 10 gilds of Yedo and 24 of Osaka combined to
organize a marine-transport company for the purpose of conveying their
own merchandise. Here also the principle of monopoly was strictly
observed, no goods being shipped for unaffiliated merchants. This
carrying trade rapidly assumed large dimensions. The number of junks
entering Yedo rose to over 1500 yearly. They raced from port to port,
just as tea-clippers from China to Europe used to race in recent
times, and troubles incidental to their rivalry became so serious that
it was found necessary to enact stringent rules. Each junk-master had
to subscribe a written oath that he would comply strictly with the
regulations and observe the sequence of sailing as determined by lot.
The junks had to call _en route_ at Uraga for the purpose of
undergoing official examination. The order of their arrival there was
duly registered, and the master making the best record throughout the
year received a present in money as well as a complimentary garment,
and became the shippers' favourite next season.

Operations relating to the currency also were brought under the
control of gilds. The business of money-changing seems to have been
taken up as a profession from the beginning of the 15th century, but
it was then in the hands of pedlars who carried strings of copper cash
which they exchanged for gold or silver coins, then in rare
circulation, or for parcels of gold dust. From the early part of the
17th century exchanges were opened in Yedo, and in 1718 the men
engaged in this business formed a gild after the fashion of the time.
Six hundred of these received licences, and no unlicensed person was
permitted to purchase the avocation. Four representatives of the chief
exchange met daily and fixed the ratio between gold and silver, the
figure being then communicated to the various exchanges and to the
shogun's officials. As for the prices of gold or silver in terms of
copper or bank-notes, 24 representatives of the exchanges met every
evening, and, in the presence of an official censor, settled the
figure for the following day and recorded the amount of transactions
during the past 24 hours, full information on these points being at
once sent to the city governors and the street elders.

The exchanges in their ultimate form approximated very closely to the
Occidental idea of banks. They not only bought gold, silver and copper
coins, but they also received money on deposit, made loans and issued
vouchers which played a very important part in commercial
transactions. The voucher seems to have come into existence in Japan
in the 14th century. It originated in the Yoshino market of Yamato
province, where the hilly nature of the district rendered the carriage
of copper money so arduous that rich merchants began to substitute
written receipts and engagements which quickly became current. Among
these documents there was a "joint voucher" (_kumiai-fuda_), signed by
several persons, any one of whom might be held responsible for its
redemption. This had large vogue, but it did not obtain official
recognition until 1636, when the third Tokugawa shogun selected 30
substantial merchants and divided them into 3 gilds, each authorized
to issue vouchers, provided that a certain sum was deposited by way of
security. Such vouchers were obviously a form of bank-note. Their
circulation by the exchange came about in a similar manner. During
many years the treasure of the shogun and of the feudal chiefs was
carried to Yedo by pack-horses and coolies of the regular postal
service. But the costliness of such a method led to the selection in
1691 of 10 exchange agents who were appointed bankers to the Tokugawa
government and were required to furnish money within 30 days of the
date of an order drawn on them. These agents went by the name of the
"ten-men gild." Subsequently the firm of Mitsui was added, but it
enjoyed the special privilege of being allowed 150 days to collect a
specified amount. The gild received moneys on account of the Tokugawa
or the feudal chiefs at provincial centres, and then made its own
arrangements for cashing the cheques drawn upon it by the shogun or
the daimyo in Yedo. If coin happened to be immediately available, it
was employed to cash the cheques; otherwise the vouchers of the gild
served instead. It was in Osaka, however, that the functions of the
exchanges acquired fullest development. That city has exhibited, in
all eras, a remarkable aptitude for trade. Its merchants, as already
shown, were not only entrusted with the duty of selling the rice and
other products of the surrounding fiefs, but also they became
depositories of the proceeds, which they paid out on account of the
owners in whatever sums the latter desired. Such an evidence of
official confidence greatly strengthened their credit, and they
received further encouragement from the second Tokugawa shogun
(1605-1623)and from Ishimaru Sadatsugu, governor of the city in 1661.
He fostered wholesale transactions, sought to introduce a large
element of credit into commerce by instituting a system of credit
sales; took measures to promote the circulation of cheques;
inaugurated market sales of gold and silver and appointed ten chiefs
of exchange who were empowered to oversee the business of
money-exchanging in general. These ten received exemption from
municipal taxation and were permitted to wear swords. Under them were
22 exchanges forming a gild, whose members agreed to honour one
another's vouchers and mutually to facilitate business. Gradually they
elaborated a regular system of banking, so that, in the middle of the
18th century, they issued various descriptions of paper-orders for
fixed sums payable at certain places within fixed periods; deposit
notes redeemable on the demand of an indicated person or his order;
bills of exchange drawn by _A_ upon _B_ in favour of _C_ (a common
form for use in monthly or annual settlements); promissory notes to be
paid at a future time, or cheques payable at sight, for goods
purchased; and storage orders engaging to deliver goods on account of
which earnest money had been paid. These last, much employed in
transactions relating to rice and sugar, were generally valid for a
period of 3 years and 3 months, were signed by a confederation of
exchanges or merchants on joint responsibility, and guaranteed the
delivery of the indicated merchandise independently of all accidents.
They passed current as readily as coin, and advances could always be
obtained against them from pawnbrokers.

All these documents, indicating a well-developed system of credit,
were duly protected by law, severe penalties being inflicted for any
failure to implement the pledges they embodied. The merchants of Yedo
and Osaka, working on the system of trusts here described, gradually
acquired great wealth and fell into habits of marked luxury. It is
recorded that they did not hesitate to pay £5 for the first bonito of
the season and £11 for the first egg-fruit. Naturally the spectacle of
such extravagance excited popular discontent. Men began to grumble
against the so-called "official merchants" who, under government
auspices, monopolized every branch of trade; and this feeling grew
almost uncontrollable in 1836, when rice rose to an unprecedented
price owing to crop failure. Men loudly ascribed that state of affairs
to regrating on the part of the wholesale companies, and murmurs
similar to those raised at the close of the 19th century in America
against the trust system began to reach the ears of the authorities
perpetually. The celebrated Fujita Toko of Mito took up the question.
He argued that the monopoly system, since it included Osaka, exposed
the Yedo market to all the vicissitudes of the former city, which had
then lost much of its old prosperity.

Finally, in 1841, the shogun's chief minister, Mizuno Echizen-no-Kami,
withdrew all trading licences, dissolved the gilds and proclaimed that
every person should thenceforth be free to engage in any commerce
without let or hindrance. This recklessly drastic measure, vividly
illustrating the arbitrariness of feudal officialdom, not only
included the commercial gilds, the shipping gilds, the exchange gilds
and the land transport gilds, but was also carried to the length of
forbidding any company to confine itself to wholesale dealings. The
authorities further declared that in times of scarcity wholesale
transactions must be abandoned altogether and retail business alone
carried on, their purpose being to bring retail and wholesale prices
to the same level. The custom of advancing money to fishermen or to
producers in the provincial districts was interdicted; even the
fuda-sashi might no longer ply their calling, and neither bath-house
keepers nor hairdressers were allowed to combine for the purpose of
adopting uniform rates of charges. But this ill-judged interference
produced evils greater than those it was intended to remedy. The gilds
had not really been exacting. Their organization had reduced the cost
of distribution, and they had provided facilities of transport which
brought produce within quick and cheap reach of central markets.

Ten years' experience showed that a modified form of the old system
would conduce to public interests. The gilds were re-established,
licence fees, however, being abolished, and no limit set to the
number of firms in a gild. Things remained thus until the beginning of
the Meiji era (1867), when the gilds shared the cataclysm that
overtook all the country's old institutions.

Japanese commercial and industrial life presents another feature which
seems to suggest special aptitude for combination. In mercantile or
manufacturing families, while the eldest son always succeeded to his
father's business, not only the younger sons but also the apprentices
and employees, after they had served faithfully for a number of years,
expected to be set up as branch houses under the auspices of the
principal family, receiving a place of business, a certain amount of
capital and the privilege of using the original house-name. Many an
old-established firm thus came to have a plexus of branches all
serving to extend its business and strengthen its credit, so that the
group held a commanding position in the business world. It will be
apparent from the above that commercial transactions on a large scale
in pre-Meiji days were practically limited to the two great cities of
Yedo and Osaka, the people in the provincial fiefs having no direct
association with the gild system, confining themselves, for the most
part, to domestic industries on a small scale, and not being allowed
to extend their business beyond the boundaries of the fief to which
they belonged.

_Foreign Commerce during the Meiji Era._--If Japan's industrial
development in modern times has been remarkable, the same may be said
even more emphatically about the development of her over-sea commerce.
This was checked at first not only by the unpopularity attaching to all
intercourse with outside nations, but also by embarrassments resulting
from the difference between the silver price of gold in Japan and its
silver price in Europe, the precious metals being connected in Japan by
a ratio of 1 to 8, and in Europe by a ratio of 1 to 15. This latter fact
was the cause of a sudden and violent appreciation of values; for the
government, seeing the country threatened with loss of all its gold,
tried to avert the catastrophe by altering and reducing the weights of
the silver coins without altering their denominations, and a
corresponding difference exhibited itself, as a matter of course, in the
silver quotations of commodities. Another difficulty was the attitude of
officialdom. During several centuries Japan's over-sea trade had been
under the control of officialdom, to whose coffers it contributed a
substantial revenue. But when the foreign exporter entered the field
under the conditions created by the new system, he diverted to his own
pocket the handsome profit previously accruing to the government; and
since the latter could not easily become reconciled to this loss of
revenue, or wean itself from its traditional habit of interference in
affairs of foreign commerce, and since the foreigner, on his side, not
only desired secrecy in order to prevent competition, but was also
tormented by inveterate suspicions of Oriental espionage, not a little
friction occurred from time to time. Thus the scanty records of that
early epoch suggest that trade was beset with great difficulties, and
that the foreigner had to contend against most adverse circumstances,
though in truth his gains amounted to 40 or 50%.

Tea and Silk.

The chief staples of the early trade were tea and silk. It happened that
just before Japan's raw silk became available for export, the production
of that article in France and Tea and Italy had been largely curtailed
owing to a novel disease of the silkworm. Thus, when the first bales of
Japanese silk appeared in London, and when it was found to possess
qualities entitling it to the highest rank, a keen demand sprang up.
Japanese green tea also, differing radically in flavour and bouquet from
the black tea of China, appealed quickly to American taste, so that by
the year 1907 Japan found herself selling to foreign countries tea to
the extent of 1¼ millions sterling, and raw silk to the extent of 12¼
millions. This remarkable development is typical of the general history
of Japan's foreign trade in modern times. Omitting the first decade and
a half, the statistics for which are imperfect, the volume of the trade
grew from 5 millions sterling in 1873--3 shillings per head of the
population--to 93 millions in 1907--or 38 shillings per head. It was not
a uniform growth. The period of 35 years divides itself conspicuously
into two eras: the first, of 15 years (1873-1887), during which the
development was from 5 millions to 9.7 millions, a ratio of 1 to 2,
approximately; the second, of 20 years (1887-1907), during which the
development was from 9.7 millions to 93 millions, a ratio of 1 to 10.

That a commerce which scarcely doubled itself in the first fifteen years
should have grown nearly tenfold in the next twenty is a fact inviting
attention. There are two principal causes: one general, the other
special. The general cause was that several years necessarily elapsed
before the nation's material condition began to respond perceptibly to
the improvements effected by the Meiji government in matters of
administration, taxation and transport facilities. Fiscal burdens had
been reduced and security of life and property obtained, but railway
building and road-making, harbour construction, the growth of posts,
telegraphs, exchanges and banks, and the development of a mercantile
marine did not exercise a sensible influence on the nation's prosperity
until 1884 or 1885. From that time the country entered a period of
steadily growing prosperity, and from that time private enterprise may
be said to have finally started upon a career of independent activity.
The special cause which, from 1885, contributed to a marked growth of
trade was the resumption of specie payments. Up to that time the
treasury's fiat notes had suffered such marked fluctuations of specie
value that sound or successful commerce became very difficult. Against
the importing merchant the currency trouble worked with double potency.
Not only did the gold with which he purchased goods appreciate
constantly in terms of the silver for which he sold them, but the silver
itself appreciated sharply and rapidly in terms of the fiat notes paid
by Japanese consumers. Cursory reflection may suggest that these factors
should have stimulated exports as much as they depressed imports. But
such was not altogether the case in practice. For the exporter's
transactions were hampered by the possibility that a delay of a week or
even a day might increase the purchasing power of his silver in Japanese
markets by bringing about a further depreciation of paper, so that he
worked timidly and hesitatingly, dividing his operations as minutely as
possible in order to take advantage of the downward tendency of the fiat
notes. Not till this element of pernicious disturbance was removed did
the trade recover a healthy tone and grow so lustily as to tread closely
on the heels of the foreign commerce of China, with her 300 million
inhabitants and long-established international relations.

The Foreign Middleman.

Japan's trade with the outer world was built up chiefly by the energy
and enterprise of the foreign middleman. He acted the part of an almost
ideal agent. As an exporter, his command of cheap capital, his
experience, his knowledge of foreign markets, and his connexions enabled
him to secure sales such as must have been beyond reach of the Japanese
working independently. Moreover, he paid to native consumers ready cash
for their staples, taking upon his own shoulders all the risks of
finding markets abroad. As an importer, he enjoyed, in centres of
supply, credit which the Japanese lacked, and he offered to native
consumers foreign produce brought to their doors with a minimum of
responsibility on their part. Finally, whether as exporters or
importers, foreign middlemen always competed with each other so keenly
that their Japanese clients obtained the best possible terms from them.
Yet the ambition of the Japanese to oust them cannot be regarded as
unnatural. Every nation must desire to carry on its own commerce
independently of alien assistance; and moreover, the foreign middleman's
residence during many years within Japanese territory, but without the
pale of Japanese sovereignty, invested him with an aggressive character
which the anti-Oriental exclusiveness of certain Occidental nations
helped to accentuate. Thus from the point of view of the average
Japanese there are several reasons for wishing to dispense with alien
middlemen, and it is plain that these reasons are operative; for
whereas, in 1888, native merchants carried on only 12% of the country's
over-sea trade without the intervention of the foreign middlemen, their
share rose to 35% in 1899 and has since been slowly increasing.

Balance of Trade.

Analysis of Japan's foreign trade during the Meiji era shows that
during the 35-year period ending in 1907, imports exceeded exports in
21 years and exports exceeded imports in 14 years. This does not
suggest a very badly balanced trade. But closer examination
accentuates the difference, for when the figures are added, it is
found that the excesses of exports aggregated only 11 millions
sterling, whereas the excesses of imports totalled 71 millions, there
being thus a so-called "unfavourable balance" of 60 millions over all.
The movements of specie do not throw much light upon this subject, for
they are complicated by large imports of gold resulting from war
indemnities and foreign loans. Undoubtedly the balance is materially
redressed by the expenditures of the foreign communities in the former
settlements, of foreign tourists visiting Japan and of foreign vessels
engaged in the carrying trade, as well as by the earnings of Japanese
vessels and the interest on investments made by foreigners.
Nevertheless there remains an appreciable margin against Japan, and it
is probably to be accounted for by the consideration that she is still
engaged equipping herself for the industrial career evidently lying
before her.

Trade with Various Countries.

The manner in which Japan's over-sea trade was divided in 1907 among
the seven foreign countries principally engaged in it may be seen from
the following table:--

Exports to Imports from Total
£ (millions). £ (millions). £ (millions).

United States 13½ 8½ 22
China 8¾ 6¼ 15
Great Britain 2¼ 11¾ 14
British India 1{1/3} 7(2/3) 9
Germany 1{1/8} 4(7/8) 6
France 4{1/3} (2/3) 5
Korea 3{1/3} 1(2/3) 5

Among the 33 open ports of Japan, the first place belongs to Yokohama
in the matter of foreign trade, and Kobe ranks second. The former far
outstrips the latter in exports, but the case is reversed when imports
are considered. As to the percentages of the whole trade standing to
the credit of the five principal ports, the following figures may be
consulted:--Yokohama, 40%; Kobe, 35.6; Osaka, 10; Moji, 5; and
Nagasaki, 2.

VI.--GOVERNMENT, ADMINISTRATION, &C.

_Emperor and Princes._--At the head of the Japanese State stands the
emperor, generally spoken of by foreigners as the _mikado_ (honourable
gate[9]), a title comparable with sublime porte and by his own subjects
as _tenshi_ (son of heaven) or _tenno_ (heavenly king). The emperor
Mutou Hito (q.v.) was the 121st of his line, according to Japanese
history, which reckons from 660 B.C., when Jimmu ascended the throne.
But as written records do not carry us back farther than A.D. 712, the
reigns and periods of the very early monarchs are more or less
apocryphal. Still the fact remains that Japan has been ruled by an
unbroken dynasty ever since the dawn of her history, in which respect
she is unique among all the nations in the world. There are four
families of princes of the blood, from any one of which a successor to
the throne may be taken in default of a direct heir: Princes Arisugawa,
Fushimi, Kanin and Higashi Fushimi. These families are all direct
descendants of emperors, and their heads have the title of _shinno_
(prince of the blood), whereas the other imperial princes, of whom there
are ten, have only the second syllable of _shinno_ (pronounced _wo_ when
separated from _shin_). Second and younger sons of a _shinno_ are all
_wo_, and eldest sons lose the title _shin_ and become _wo_ from the
fifth generation.

_The Peerage._--In former times there were no Japanese titles of
nobility, as the term is understood in the Occident. Nobles there were,
however, namely, _kuge_, or court nobles, descendants of younger sons of
emperors, and _daimyo_ (great name), some of whom could trace their
lineage to mikados; but all owed their exalted position as feudal chiefs
to military prowess. The Meiji restoration of 1867 led to the abolition
of the _daimyos_ as feudal chiefs, and they, together with the kuge,
were merged into one class called _kwazoku_ (flower families), a term
corresponding to aristocracy, all inferior persons being _heimin_
(ordinary folk). In 1884, however, the five Chinese titles of _ki_
(prince), _ko_ (marquis), _haku_ (count), _shi_ (viscount) and _dan_
(baron) were introduced, and patents were not only granted to the
ancient nobility but also conferred on men who had rendered conspicuous
public service. The titles are all hereditary, but they descend to the
firstborn only, younger children having no distinguishing appellation.
The first list in 1884 showed 11 princes, 24 marquises, 76 counts, 324
viscounts and 74 barons. After the war with China (1894-95) the total
grew to 716, and the war with Russia (1904-5) increased the number to
912, namely, 15 princes, 39 marquises, 100 counts, 376 viscounts and 382
barons.

_Household Department._--The Imperial household department is
completely differentiated from the administration of state affairs. It
includes bureaux of treasury, forests, peerage and hunting, as well as
boards of ceremonies and chamberlains, officials of the empress's
household and officials of the crown prince's household. The annual
allowance made to the throne is £300,000, and the Imperial estate
comprises some 12,000 acres of building land, 3,850,000 acres of
forests, and 300,000 acres of miscellaneous lands, the whole valued at
some 19 millions sterling, but probably not yielding an income of more
than £200,000 yearly. Further, the household owns about 3 millions
sterling (face value) of bonds and shares, from which a revenue of
some £250,000 is derived, so that the whole income amounts to
three-quarters of a million sterling, approximately. Out of this the
households of the crown prince and all the Imperial princes are
supported; allowances are granted at the time of conferring titles of
nobility; a long list of charities receive liberal contributions, and
considerable sums are paid to encourage art and education. The emperor
himself is probably one of the most frugal sovereigns that ever
occupied a throne.

_Departments of State._--There are nine departments of state presided
over by ministers--foreign affairs, home affairs, finance, war, navy,
justice, education, agriculture and commerce, communications. These
ministers form the cabinet, which is presided over by the minister
president of state, so that its members number ten in all. Ministers of
state are appointed by the emperor and are responsible to him alone. But
between the cabinet and the crown stand a small body of men, the
survivors of those by whose genius modern Japan was raised to her
present high position among the nations. They are known as "elder
statesmen" (_genro_). Their proved ability constitutes an invaluable
asset, and in the solution of serious problems their voice may be said
to be final. At the end of 1909 four of these renowned statesmen
remained--Prince Yamagata, Marquises Inouye and Matsukata and Count
Okuma. There is also a privy council, which consists of a variable
number of distinguished men--in 1909 there were 29, the president being
Field-Marshal Prince Yamagata. Their duty is to debate and advise upon
all matters referred to them by the emperor, who sometimes attends their
meetings in person.

_Civil Officials._--The total number of civil officials was 137,819 in
1906. It had been only 68,876 in 1898, from which time it grew
regularly year by year. The salaries and allowances paid out of the
treasury every year on account of the civil service are 4 millions
sterling, approximately, and the annual emoluments of the principal
officials are as follow:--Prime minister, £960; minister of a
department, £600; ambassador, £500, with allowances varying from £2200
to £3000; president of privy council, £500; resident-general in Seoul,
£600; governor-general of Formosa, £600; vice-minister, £400; minister
plenipotentiary, £400, with allowances from £1000 to £1700; governor
of prefecture, £300 to £360; judge of the court of cassation, £200 to
£500; other judges, £60 to £400; professor of imperial university,
from £80 to £160, with allowances from £40 to £120; privy councillor,
£400; director of a bureau, £300; &c.

_Legislature._--The first Japanese Diet was convoked the 29th of
November, 1890. There are two chambers, a house of peers (_kizoku-in_)
and a house of representatives (_shugi-in_). Each is invested with the
same legislative power.

The upper chamber consists of four classes of members. They are, first,
hereditary members, namely, princes and marquises, who are entitled to
sit when they reach the age of 25; secondly, counts, viscounts and
barons, elected--after they have attained their 25th year--by their
respective orders in the maximum ratio of one member to every five
peers; thirdly, men of education or distinguished service who are
nominated by the emperor; and, fourthly, representatives of the highest
tax-payers, elected, one for each prefecture, by their own class. The
minimum age limit for non-titled members is 30, and it is provided that
their total number must not exceed that of the titled members. The house
was composed in 1909 of 14 princes of the blood, 15 princes, 39
marquises, 17 counts, 69 viscounts, 56 barons, 124 Imperial nominees,
and 45 representatives of the highest tax-payers--that is to say, 210
titled members and 169 non-titled.

The lower house consists of elected members only. Originally the
property qualification was fixed at a minimum annual payment of 30s. in
direct taxes (i.e. taxes imposed by the central government), but in
1900 the law of election was amended, and the property qualification for
electors is now a payment of £1 in direct taxes, while for candidates no
qualification is required either as to property or as to locality.
Members are of two kinds, namely, those returned by incorporated cities
and those returned by prefectures. In each case the ratio is one member
for every 130,000 electors, and the electoral district is the city or
prefecture.

Voting is by ballot, one man one vote, and a general election must take
place once in 4 years for the house of representatives, and once in 7
years for the house of peers. The house of representatives, however, is
liable to be dissolved by order of the sovereign as a disciplinary
measure, in which event a general election must be held within 5 months
from the date of dissolution, whereas the house of peers is not liable
to any such treatment. Otherwise the two houses enjoy equal rights and
privileges, except that the budget must first be submitted to the
representatives. Each member receives a salary of £200; the president
receives £500, and the vice-president £300. The presidents are nominated
by the sovereign from three names submitted by each house, but the
appointment of a vice-president is within the independent right of each
chamber. The lower house consists of 379 members, of whom 75 are
returned by the urban population and 304 by the rural. Under the
original property qualification the number of franchise-holders was only
453,474, or 11.5 to every 1000 of the nation, but it is now 1,676,007,
or 15.77 to every 1000. By the constitution which created the diet
freedom of conscience, of speech and of public meeting, inviolability of
domicile and correspondence, security from arrest or punishment except
by due process of law, permanence of judicial appointments and all the
other essential elements of civil liberty were granted. In the diet full
legislative authority is vested: without its consent no tax can be
imposed, increased or remitted; nor can any public money be paid out
except the salaries of officials, which the sovereign reserves the right
to fix at will. In the emperor are vested the prerogatives of declaring
war and making peace, of concluding treaties, of appointing and
dismissing officials, of approving and promulgating laws, of issuing
urgent ordinances to take the temporary place of laws, and of conferring
titles of nobility.

_Procedure of the Diet._--It could scarcely have been expected that
neither tumult nor intemperance would disfigure the proceedings of a
diet whose members were entirely without parliamentary experience, but
not without grievances to ventilate, wrongs (real or fancied) to
avenge, and abuses to redress. On the whole, however, there has been a
remarkable absence of anything like disgraceful licence. The
politeness, the good temper, and the sense of dignity which
characterize the Japanese, generally saved the situation when it
threatened to degenerate into a "scene." Foreigners entering the house
of representatives in Tokyo for the first time might easily
misinterpret some of its habits. A number distinguishes each member.
It is painted in white on a wooden indicator, the latter being
fastened by a hinge to the face of the member's desk. When present he
sets the indicator standing upright, and lowers it when leaving the
house. Permission to speak is not obtained by catching the president's
eye, but by calling out the aspirant's number, and as members often
emphasize their calls by hammering their desks with the indicators,
there are moments of decided din. But, for the rest, orderliness and
decorum habitually prevail. Speeches have to be made from a rostrum.
There are few displays of oratory or eloquence. The Japanese
formulates his views with remarkable facility. He is absolutely free
from _gaucherie_ or self-consciousness when speaking in public: he can
think on his feet. But his mind does not usually busy itself with
abstract ideas and subtleties of philosophical or religious thought.
Flights of fancy, impassioned bursts of sentiment, appeals to the
heart rather than to the reason of an audience, are devices strange to
his mental habit. He can be rhetorical, but not eloquent. Among all
the speeches hitherto delivered in the Japanese diet it would be
difficult to find a passage deserving the latter epithet.

From the first the debates were recorded verbatim. Years before the
date fixed for the promulgation of the constitution, a little band of
students elaborated a system of stenography and adapted it to the
Japanese syllabary. Their labours remained almost without recognition
or remuneration until the diet was on the eve of meeting, when it was
discovered that a competent staff of shorthand reporters could be
organized at an hour's notice. Japan can thus boast that, alone among
the countries of the world, she possesses an exact record of the
proceedings of her Diet from the moment when the first word was spoken
within its walls.

A special feature of the Diet's procedure helps to discourage
oratorical displays. Each measure of importance has to be submitted to
a committee, and not until the latter's report has been received does
serious debate take place. But in ninety-nine cases out of every
hundred the committee's report determines the attitude of the house,
and speeches are felt to be more or less superfluous. One result of
this system is that business is done with a degree of celerity
scarcely known in Occidental legislatures. For example, the meetings
of the house of representatives during the session 1896-1897 were 32,
and the number of hours occupied by the sittings aggregated 116. Yet
the result was 55 bills debated and passed, several of them measures
of prime importance, such as the gold standard bill, the budget and a
statutory tariff law. It must be remembered that although actual
sittings of the houses are comparatively few and brief, the committees
remain almost constantly at work from morning to evening throughout
the twelve weeks of the session's duration.

_Divisions of the Empire._--The earliest traditional divisions of
Japan into provinces was made by the emperor Seimu (131-190), in whose
time the sway of the throne did not extend farther north than a line
curving from Sendai Bay, on the north-east coast of the main island,
to the vicinity of Niigata (one of the treaty ports), on the
north-west coast. The region northward of this line was then occupied
by barbarous tribes, of whom the Ainu (still to be found in Yezo) are
probably the remaining descendants. The whole country was then divided
into thirty-two provinces. In the 3rd century the empress Jingo, on
her return from her victorious expedition against Korea, portioned out
the empire into five home provinces and seven circuits, in imitation
of the Korean system. By the emperor Mommu (696-707) some of the
provinces were subdivided so as to increase the whole number to
sixty-six, and the boundaries then fixed by him were re-surveyed in
the reign of the emperor Shomu (723-756). The old division is as
follows[10]:--

I. The _Go-kinai_ or "five home provinces" i.e. those lying
immediately around Kyoto, the capital, viz.:--

_Yamashiro_, also called Joshu | Izumi, also called _Senshu_
_Yamato_ " Washu | _Settsu_ " Sesshu
_Kawachi_ " Kashu |

II. The seven circuits, as follow:--

1. The _Tokaido_, or "eastern-sea circuit," which comprised
fifteen provinces, viz.:--

2. The _Tozando_, or "eastern-mountain circuit," which comprised
eight provinces, viz.:--

Omi or _Goshu_ | Kozuke or _Joshu_
_Mino_ " Noshu | Shimotsuke " _Yashu_
_Hida_ " Hishu | Mutsu " _Oshu_
Shinano " _Shinshu_ | _Dewa_ " Ushu

3. The _Hokurikudo_, or "northern-land circuit," which comprised
seven provinces, viz.:--

Wakasa or _Jakushu_ | _Etchiu_ or Esshu
_Echizen_ " Esshu | _Echigo_ " Esshu
_Kaga_ " _Kashu_ | _Sado_ (island) " Sashu
_Noto_ " Noshu |

4. The _Sanindo_, or "mountain-back circuit," which comprised
eight provinces, viz.:--

_Tamba_ or Tanshu | _Hoki_ or Hakushu
_Tango_ " Tanshu | Izumo " _Unshu
_Tajima_ " Tanshu | Iwami " _Sekishu_
Inaba " _Inshu_ | _Oki_ (group of islands)

5. The _Sanyodo_, or "mountain-front circuit," which comprised
eight provinces, viz.:--

Harima or Banshu | _Bingo or Bishu
Mimasaka " Sakushu | Aki " _Geishu_
_Bizen_ " Bishu | _Suwo_ " Boshu
_Bitchiu_ " Bishu | Nagato " _Choshu_

6. The _Nankaido_, or "southern-sea circuit," which comprised,
six provinces, viz.:--

Kii or _Kishu_ | _Sanuki_ or Sanshu
_Awaji (island)_ " Tanshu | _Iyo_ " Yoshu
Awa " _Ashu_ | _Tosa_ " _Toshu_

7. The _Saikaido_, or "western-sea circuit," which comprised
nine provinces, viz:--

III. The two islands, viz.:--

1. Tsushima or _Taishu_ | 2. _Iki_ or Ishu

Upon comparing the above list with a map of Japan, it will be seen
that the main island contains the Go-kinai, Tokaido, Tozando,
Hokurikudo, Sanindo, Sanyodo, and one province (Kishu) of the
Nankaido. Omitting also the island of Awaji, the remaining provinces
of the Nankaido give the name Shikoku (the "four provinces") to the
island in which they lie; while Saikaido coincides exactly with the
large island Kiushiu (the "nine provinces").

In 1868, when the rebellious nobles of Oshu and Dewa, in the Tozando,
had submitted to the emperor, those two provinces were subdivided,
Dewa into Uzen and Ugo, and Oshu into Iwaki, Iwashiro, Rikuzen,
Rikuchu and Michinoku (usually called Mutsu). This increased the old
number of provinces from sixty-six to seventy-one. At the same time
there was created a new circuit, called the _Hokkaido_, or
"northern-sea circuit," which comprised the eleven provinces into
which the large island of Yezo was then divided (viz. Oshima,
Shiribeshi, Ishikari, Teshibo, Kitami, Iburi, Hiaka, Tokachi, Kushiro,
and Nemuro) and the Kurile Islands (Chishima).

Another division of the old sixty-six provinces was made by taking as
a central point the ancient barrier of Osaka on the frontier of Omi
and Yamashiro,--the region lying on the east, which consisted of
thirty-three provinces, being called _Kwanto_, or "east of the
barrier," the remaining thirty-three provinces on the west being
styled _Kwansei_, or "west of the barrier." At the present time,
however, the term Kwanto is applied to only the eight provinces of
Musashi, Sagami, Kozuke, Shimotsuke, Kazusa, Shimosa, Awa and
Hitachi,--all lying immediately to the east of the old barrier of
Hakone, in Sagami.

_Chu-goku_, or "central provinces," is a name in common use for the
Sanindo and Sanyodo taken together. _Saikoku_, or "western provinces,"
is another name for Kiushiu, which in books again is frequently called
_Chinsei_.

_Local Administrative Divisions._--For purposes of local
administration Japan is divided into 3 urban prefectures (_fu_), 43
rural prefectures (_ken_), and 3 special dominions (_cho_), namely
Formosa; Hokkaido and South Sakhalin. Formosa and Sakhalin not having
been included in Japan's territories until 1895 and 1905,
respectively, are still under the military control of a
governor-general, and belong, therefore, to an administrative system
different from that prevailing throughout the rest of the country. The
prefectures and Hokkaido are divided again into 638 sub-prefectures
(_gun_ or _kori_); 60 towns (_shi_); 125 urban districts (_cho_) and
12,274 rural districts (_son_). The three urban prefectures are Tokyo,
Osaka and Kioto, and the urban and rural districts are distinguished
according to the number of houses they contain. Each prefecture is
named after its chief town, with the exception of Okinawa, which is
the appellation of a group of islands called also Riukiu (Luchu). The
following table shows the names of the prefectures, their areas,
populations, number of sub-prefectures, towns and urban and rural
divisions:--

Prefecture. Area in Population Sub- Towns Urban Rural
sq. m. Prefectures. Districts Districts

Tokyo 749.76 1,795,128* 8 1 20 157
Kanagawa 927.79 776,642 11 1 19 202
Saitama 1,585.30 1,174,094 9 -- 42 343
Chiba 1,943.85 1,273,387 12 -- 69 286
Ibaraki 2,235.67 1,131,556 14 1 45 335
Tochigi 2,854.14 788,324 8 1 30 145
Gumma 2,427.21 774,654 11 2 38 169
Nagano 5,088.41 1,237,584 16 1 22 371
Yamanashi 1,727.50 498,539 9 1 7 235
Shizuoka 3,002.76 1,199,805 13 1 38 306
Aichi 1,864.17 1,591,357 19 1 74 592
Miye 2,196.56 495,389 15 2 19 325
Gifu 4,001.84 996,062 18 1 42 299
Shiga 1,540.30 712,024 12 1 12 190
Fukui 1,621.50 633,840 11 1 9 171
Ishikawa 1,611.59 392,905 8 1 16 259
Toyama 1,587.80 785,554 8 2 31 239

The above 17 prefectures form Central Japan.

Niigata 4,914.55 1,812,289 16 1 47 401
Fukushima 5,042.57 1,057,971 17 1 37 388
Miyagi 3,223.11 835,830 16 1 31 172
Yamagata 3,576.89 829,210 11 2 24 206
Akita 4,493.84 775,077 9 1 42 197

Iwate 5,359.17 726,380 13 1 23 217
Aomori 3,617.89 612,171 8 2 9 159

The above 7 prefectures form Northern Japan.

Kioto 1,767.43 931,576* 18 1 20 260
Osaka 689.69 1,311,909* 9 2 13 289
Nara 1,200.46 538,507 10 1 18 142
Wakayama 1,851.29 681,572 7 1 16 215
Hiogo 3,318.31 1,667,226 25 2 29 403
Okayama 2,509.04 1,132,000 19 1 29 383
Hiroshima 3,103.84 1,436,415 16 3 27 420
Yamaguchi 1,324.34 986,161 11 1 10 215
Shimane 2,597.48 721,448 16 1 14 276
Tottori 1,335.99 418,929 6 1 8 227

The above 10 prefectures form Southern Japan.

Tokushima 1,616.82 699,398 10 1 2 137
Kagawa 976.46 700,462 7 2 12 166
Ehime 2,033.57 997,481 12 1 18 283
Kochi 2,720.13 616,549 6 1 14 183

The above 4 prefectures form the island of Shikoku.

Nagasaki 1,401.49 821,323 9 2 15 288
Saga 984.07 621,011 8 1 7 127
Fukuoka 1,894.14 1,362,743 19 4 38 340
Kumamoto 2,774.20 1,151,401 12 1 33 331
Oita 2,400.27 839,485 12 -- 28 251
Miyazaki 2,904.54 454,707 8 -- 9 91
Kagoshima 3,589.76 1,104,631 12 1 -- 380
Okinawa 935.18 469,203 5 2 -- 52

The above 8 prefectures form Kiushiu.

Hokkaido 36,328.34 610,155 88 3 19 456

* This is not the population of the city proper, but that of the
urban prefecture.

_Local Administrative System._--In the system of local administration
full effect is given to the principle of popular representation. Each
prefecture (urban or rural), each sub-prefecture, each town and each
district (urban or rural) has its local assembly, the number of members
being fixed in proportion to the population. There is no superior limit
of number in the case of a prefectural assembly, but the inferior limit
is 30. For a town assembly, however, the superior limit is 60 and the
inferior 30; for a sub-prefectural assembly the corresponding figures
are 40 and 15, and for a district assembly, 30 and 8. These bodies are
all elective. The property qualification for the franchise in the case
of prefectural and sub-prefectural assemblies is an annual payment of
direct national taxes to the amount of 3 _yen;_ and in the case of town
and district assemblies, 2 _yen_; while to be eligible for election to a
prefectural assembly a yearly payment of 10 _yen_ of direct national
taxes is necessary; to a sub-prefectural assembly, 5 _yen_, and to a
town or district assembly, 2 _yen_. Under these qualifications the
electors aggregate 2,009,745, and those eligible for election total
919,507. In towns and districts franchise-holders are further divided
into classes with regard to their payment of local taxes. Thus for town
electors there are three classes, differentiated by the following
process: On the list of ratepayers the highest are checked off until
their aggregate payments are equal to one-third of the total taxes.
These persons form the first class. Next below them the persons whose
aggregate payments represent one-third of the total amount are checked
off to form the second class, and all the remainder form the third
class. Each class elects one-third of the members of assembly. In the
districts there are only two classes, namely, those whose payments, in
order from the highest, aggregate one-half of the total, the remaining
names on the list being placed in the second class. Each class elects
one-half of the members. This is called the system of _o-jinushi_ (large
landowners) and is found to work satisfactorily as a device for
conferring representative rights in proportion to property. The
franchise is withheld from all salaried local officials, from judicial
officials, from ministers of religion, from persons who, not being
barristers by profession, assist the people in affairs connected with
law courts or official bureaux, and from every individual or member of a
company that contracts for the execution of public works or the supply
of articles to a local administration, as well as from persons unable to
write their own names and the name of the candidate for whom they vote.
Members of assembly are not paid. For prefectural and sub-prefectural
assemblies the term is four years; for town and district assemblies, six
years, with the provision that one-half of the members must be elected
every third year. The prefectural assemblies hold one session of 30 days
yearly; the sub-prefectural assemblies, one session of not more than 14
days. The town and district assemblies have no fixed session; they are
summoned by the mayor or the head-man when their deliberations appear
necessary, and they continue in session till their business is
concluded.

The chief function of the assemblies is to deal with all questions of
local finance. They discuss and vote the yearly budgets; they pass the
settled accounts; they fix the local taxes within a maximum limit
which bears a certain ratio to the national taxes; they make
representations to the minister for home affairs; they deal with the
fixed property of the locality; they raise loans, and so on. It is
necessary, however, that they should obtain the consent of the
minister for home affairs, and sometimes of the minister of finance
also, before disturbing any objects of scientific, artistic or
historical importance; before contracting loans; before imposing
special taxes or passing the normal limits of taxation; before
enacting new local regulations or changing the old; before dealing
with grants in aid made by the central treasury, &c. The governor of a
prefecture, who is appointed by the central administration, is
invested with considerable power. He oversees the carrying out of all
works undertaken at the public expense; he causes bills to be drafted
for discussion by an assembly; he is responsible for the
administration of the funds and property of the prefecture; he orders
payments and receipts; he directs the machinery for collecting taxes
and fees; he summons a prefectural assembly, opens it and closes it,
and has competence to suspend its session should such a course seem
necessary. Many of the functions performed by the governor with regard
to prefectural assemblies are discharged by a head-man (_gun-chô_) in
the case of sub-prefectural assemblies. This head-man is a salaried
official appointed by the central administration. He convenes, opens
and closes the sub-prefectural assembly; he may require it to
reconsider any of its financial decisions that seem improper,
explaining his reasons for doing so, and should the assembly adhere to
its original view, he may refer the matter to the governor of the
prefecture. On the other hand, the assembly is competent to appeal to
the home minister from the governor's decision. The sub-prefectural
head-man may also take upon himself, in case of emergency, any of the
functions falling within the competence of the sub-prefectural
assembly, provided that he reports the fact to the assembly and seeks
its sanction at the earliest possible opportunity. In each district
also there is a head-man, but his post is always elective and
generally non-salaried. He occupies towards a district assembly the
same position that the sub-prefecture head-man holds towards a
sub-prefectural assembly. Over the governors stands the minister for
home affairs, who discharges general duties of superintendence and
sanction, has competence to delete any item of a local budget, and
may, with the emperor's consent, order the dissolution of a local
assembly, provided that steps are taken to elect and convene another
within three months.

The machinery of local administration is completed by councils, of
which the governor of a prefecture, the mayor[11] of a town, or the
head-man of a sub-prefecture or district, is _ex officio_ president,
and the councillors are partly elective, partly nominated by the
central government. The councils may be said to stand in an executive
position towards the local legislatures, namely, the assemblies, for
the former give effect to the measures voted by the latter, take their
place in case of emergency and consider questions submitted by them.
This system of local government has now been in operation since 1885,
and has been found to work well. It constitutes a thorough method of
political education for the people. In feudal days popular
representation had no existence, but a very effective chain of local
responsibility was manufactured by dividing the people--apart from the
samurai--into groups of five families, which were held jointly liable
for any offence committed by one of their members. Thus it cannot be
said that the people were altogether unprepared for this new system.

The Ancient System.

_The Army._--The Japanese--as distinguished from the aboriginal
inhabitants of Japan--having fought their way into the country, are
naturally described in their annals as a nation of soldiers. The
sovereign is said to have been the commander-in-chief and his captains
were known as _o-omi_ and _o-muraji_, while the duty of serving in the
ranks devolved on all subjects alike. This information is indeed
derived from tradition only, since the first written record goes back
no further than 712. We are justified, however, in believing that at the
close of the 7th century of the Christian era, when the empress Jito sat
upon the throne, the social system of the Tang dynasty of China
commended itself for adoption; the distinction of civil and military is
said to have been then established for the first time, though it
probably concerned officials only. Certain officers received definitely
military commissions, as generals, brigadiers, captains and so on; a
military office (_hyobu-sho_) was organized, and each important district
throughout the empire had its military division (_gundan_).
One-third--some say one-fourth--of the nation's able-bodied males
constituted the army. Tactically there was a complete organization, from
the squad of 5 men to the division of 600 horse and 400 foot. Service
was for a defined period, during which taxes were remitted, so that
military duties always found men ready to discharge them. Thus the
hereditary soldier--afterwards known as the _samurai_ or _bushi_--did
not yet exist, nor was there any such thing as an exclusive right to
carry arms. Weapons of war, the property of the state, were served out
when required for fighting or for training purposes.

At the close of the 8th century stubborn insurrections on the part of
the aborigines gave new importance to the soldier. The conscription list
had to be greatly increased, and it came to be a recognized principle
that every stalwart man should bear arms, every weakling become a
bread-winner. Thus, for the first time, the distinction between
"soldier" and "working man"[12] received official recognition, and in
consequence of the circumstances attending the distinction a measure of
contempt attached to the latter. The next stage of development had its
origin in the assumption of high offices of state by great families, who
encroached upon the imperial prerogatives, and appropriated as
hereditary perquisites posts which should have remained in the gift of
the sovereign. The Fujiwara clan, taking all the civil offices, resided
in the capital, whereas the military posts fell to the lot of the Taira
and the Minamoto, who, settling in the provinces and being thus required
to guard and police the outlying districts, found it expedient to
surround themselves with men who made soldiering a profession. These
latter, in their turn, transmitted their functions to their sons, so
that there grew up in the shadow of the great houses a number of
military families devoted to maintaining the power and promoting the
interests of their masters, from whom they derived their own privileges
and emoluments.

From the middle of the 10th century, therefore, the terms _samurai_ and
_bushi_ acquired a special significance, being applied to themselves and
their followers by the local magnates, whose power tended more and more
to eclipse even that of the throne, and finally, in the 12th century,
when the Minamoto brought the whole country under the sway of military
organization, the privilege of bearing arms was restricted to the
samurai. Thenceforth the military class entered upon a period of
administrative and social superiority which lasted, without serious
interruption, until the middle of the 19th century. But it is to be
observed that the distinction between soldier and civilian, samurai and
commoner, was not of ancient existence, nor did it arise from any
question of race or caste, victor or vanquished, as is often supposed
and stated. It was an outcome wholly of ambitious usurpations, which,
relying for success on force of arms, gave practical importance to the
soldier, and invested his profession with factitious honour.

Weapons.

The bow was always the chief weapon of the fighting-man in Japan.
"War" and "bow-and-arrow" were synonymous terms. Tradition tells how
Tametomo shot an arrow through the crest of his brother's helmet, in
order to recall the youth's allegiance without injuring him; how
Nasuno Michitaka discharged a shaft that severed the stem of a fan
swayed by the wind; how Mutsuru, ordered by an emperor to rescue a
fish from the talons of an osprey without killing bird or fish, cut
off the osprey's feet with a crescent-headed arrow so that the fish
dropped into the palace lake and the bird continued its flight; and
there are many similar records of Japanese skill with the weapon.
Still better authenticated were the feats performed at the
"thirty-three-span halls" in Kioto and Yedo, where the archer had to
shoot an arrow through the whole length of a corridor 128 yards long
and only 16 ft. high. Wada Daihachi, in the 17th century, succeeded in
sending 8133 arrows from end to end of the corridor in 24 consecutive
hours, being an average of over 5 shafts per minute; and Masatoki, in
1852, made 5383 successful shots in 20 hours, more than 4 a minute.
The lengths of the bow and arrow were determined with reference to the
capacity of the archer. In the case of the bow, the unit of
measurement was the distance between the tips of the thumb and the
little finger with the hand fully stretched. Fifteen of these units
gave the length of the bow--the maximum being about 7½ ft. The unit
for the arrow was from 12 to 15 hand-breadths, or from 3 ft. to 3¾ ft.
Originally the bow was of unvarnished boxwood or _zelkowa_; but
subsequently bamboo alone came to be employed. Binding with cord or
rattan served to strengthen the bow, and for precision of flight the
arrow had three feathers, an eagle's wing being most esteemed for that
purpose, and after it, in order, that of the copper pheasant, the
crane, the adjutant and the snipe.

Next in importance to the bow came the sword, which is often spoken of
as the samurai's chief weapon, though there can be no doubt that
during long ages it ranked after the bow. It was a single-edged weapon
remarkable for its three exactly similar curves--edge, face-line and
back; its almost imperceptibly convexed blade; its admirable
tempering; its consummately skilled forging; its razor-like sharpness;
its cunning distribution of weight, giving a maximum efficiency of
stroke. The 10th century saw this weapon carried to perfection, and it
has been inferred that only from that epoch did the samurai begin to
esteem his sword as the greatest treasure he possessed, and to rely on
it as his best instrument of attack and defence. But it is evident
that the evolution of such a blade must have been due to an urgent,
long-existing demand, and that the _katana_ came as the sequel of
innumerable efforts on the part of the sword-smith and generous
encouragement on that of the soldier. Many pages of Japanese annals
and household traditions are associated with its use. In every age
numbers of men devoted their whole lives to acquiring novel skill in
swordsmanship. Many of them invented systems of their own, differing
from one another in some subtle details unknown to any save the master
himself and his favourite pupils. Not merely the method of handling
the weapon had to be studied. Associated with sword-play was an art
variously known as _shinobi_, _yawara_, and _jujutsu_, names which
imply the exertion of muscular force in such a manner as to produce a
maximum of effect with a minimum of effort, by directing an
adversary's strength so as to become auxiliary to one's own. It was an
essential element of the expert's art not only that he should be
competent to defend himself with any object that happened to be within
reach, but also that without an orthodox weapon he should be capable
of inflicting fatal or disabling injury on an assailant. In the many
records of great swordsmen instances are related of men seizing a
piece of firewood, a brazier-iron, or a druggist's pestle as a weapon
of offence, while, on the other side, an umbrella, an iron fan or even
a pot-lid served for protection. The samurai had to be prepared for
every emergency. Were he caught weaponless by a number of assailants,
his art of yawara was supposed to supply him with expedients for
emerging unscathed. Nothing counted save the issue. The methods of
gaining victory or the circumstances attending defeat were scarcely
taken into consideration. The true samurai had to rise superior to all
contingencies. Out of this perpetual effort on the part of hundreds of
experts to discover and perfect novel developments of swordsmanship,
there grew a habit which held its vogue down to modern times, namely,
that when a man had mastered one style of sword-play in the school of
a teacher, he set himself to study all others, and for that purpose
undertook a tour throughout the provinces, challenging every expert,
and, in the event of defeat, constituting himself the victor's pupil.
The sword exercised a potent influence on the life of the Japanese
nation. The distinction of wearing it, the rights that it conferred,
the deeds wrought with it, the fame attaching to special skill in its
use, the superstitions connected with it, the incredible value set
upon a fine blade, the honours bestowed on an expert sword-smith, the
traditions that had grown up around celebrated weapons, the profound
study needed to be a competent judge of a sword's qualities--all these
things conspired to give the katana an importance beyond the limits of
ordinary comprehension. A samurai carried at least two swords, a long
and a short. Their scabbards of lacquered wood were thrust into his
girdle, not slung from it, being fastened in their place by cords of
plaited silk. Sometimes he increased the number of swords to three,
four or even five, before going into battle, and this array was
supplemented by a dagger carried in the bosom. The short sword was not
employed in the actual combat. Its use was to cut off an enemy's head
after overthrowing him, and it also served a defeated soldier in his
last resort--suicide. In general the long sword did not measure more
than 3 ft., including the hilt; but some were 5 ft. long, and some 7.
Considering that the scabbard, being fastened to the girdle, had no
play, the feat of drawing one of these very long swords demanded
extraordinary aptitude.

Spear and glaive were also ancient Japanese weapons. The oldest form
of spear was derived from China. Its handle measured about 6 ft. and
its blade 8 in., and it had sickle-shaped horns at the junction of
blade and hilt (somewhat resembling a European _ranseur_). This weapon
served almost exclusively for guarding palisades and gates. In the
14th century a true lance came into use. Its length varied greatly,
and it had a hog-backed blade tempered almost as finely as the sword
itself. This, too, was a Chinese type, as was also the glaive. The
glaive (_naginata_, long sword) was a scimitar-like blade, some 3 ft.
in length, fixed on a slightly longer haft. Originally the warlike
monks alone employed this weapon, but from the 12th century it found
much favour among military men. Ultimately, however, its use may be
said to have been limited to women and priests. The spear, however,
formed a useful adjunct of the sword, for whereas the latter could not
be used except by troops in very loose formation, the former served
for close-order fighting.

Armour.

Japanese armour (_gusoku_) may be broadly described as plate armour,
but the essential difference between it and the European type was
that, whereas the latter took its shape from the body, the former
neither resembled nor was intended to resemble ordinary garments.
Hence the only changes that occurred in Japanese armour from
generation to generation had their origin in improved methods of
construction. In general appearance it differed from the panoply of
all other nations, so that, although to its essential parts we may
apply with propriety the European terms--helmet, corselet,
&c.--individually and in combination these parts were not at all like
the originals of those names. Perhaps the easiest way of describing
the difference is to say that whereas a European knight seemed to be
clad in a suit of metal clothes, a Japanese samurai looked as if he
wore protective curtains. The Japanese armour was, in fact, suspended
from, rather than fitted to, the person. Only one of its elements
found a counterpart in the European suit, namely, a tabard, which, in
the case of men of rank, was made of the richest brocade. Iron and
leather were the chief materials, and as the laminae were strung
together with a vast number of coloured cords--silk or leather--an
appearance of considerable brilliancy was produced. Ornamentation did
not stop there. Plating and inlaying with gold and silver, and finely
wrought decoration in chiselled, inlaid and _repoussé_ work were
freely applied. On the whole, however, despite the highly artistic
character of its ornamentation, the loose, pendulous nature of
Japanese armour detracted greatly from its workmanlike aspect,
especially when the _horo_ was added--a curious appendage in the shape
of a curtain of fine transparent silk, which was either stretched in
front between the horns of the helmet and the tip of the bow, or worn
on the shoulders and back, the purpose in either case being to turn
the point of an arrow. A true samurai observed strict rules of
etiquette with regard even to the garments worn under his armour, and
it was part of his soldierly capacity to be able to bear the great
weight of the whole without loss of activity, a feat impossible to any
untrained man of modern days. Common soldiers were generally content
with a comparatively light helmet and a corselet.

War-horses.

The Japanese never had a war-horse worthy to be so called. The
mis-shapen ponies which carried them to battle showed qualities of
hardiness and endurance, but were so deficient in stature and
massiveness that when mounted by a man in voluminous armour they
looked painfully puny. Nothing is known of the early Japanese saddle,
but at the beginning of historic times it approximated closely to the
Chinese type. Subsequently a purely Japanese shape was designed. It
consisted of a wooden frame so constructed that a padded numnah could
be fastened to it. Galled backs or withers were unknown with such a
saddle: it fitted any horse. The stirrup, originally a simple affair
resembling that of China and Europe, afterwards took the form of a
shoe-sole with upturned toe. Both stirrups and saddle-frame were often
of beautiful workmanship, the former covered with rich gold lacquer,
the latter inlaid with gold or silver. In the latter part of the
military epoch chain-armour was adopted for the horse, and its head
was protected by a monster-faced mask of iron.

Early Strategy and Tactics.

Flags were used in battle as well as on ceremonial occasions. Some were
monochrome, as the red and white flags of the Taira and the Minamoto
clans in their celebrated struggle during the 12th century; and some
were streamers emblazoned with figures of the sun, the moon, a dragon, a
tiger and so forth, or with religious legends. Fans with iron ribs were
carried by commanding officers, and signals to advance or retreat were
given by beating drums and metal gongs and blowing conches. During the
military epoch a campaign was opened or a contest preluded by a human
sacrifice to the god of war, the victim at this rite of blood
(_chi-matsuri_) being generally a prisoner or a condemned criminal.
Although ambuscades and surprises played a large part in all strategy,
pitched battles were the general rule, and it was essential that notice
of an intention to attack should be given by discharging a singing
arrow. Thereafter the assaulting army, taking the word from its
commander, raised a shout of "Ei! Ei!" to which the other side replied,
and the formalities having been thus satisfied, the fight commenced. In
early medieval days tactics were of the crudest description. An army
consisted of a congeries of little bands, each under the order of a
chief who considered himself independent, and instead of subordinating
his movements to a general plan, struck a blow wherever he pleased. From
time immemorial a romantic value has attached in Japan to the first of
anything: the first snow of winter; the first water drawn from the well
on New Year's Day; the first blossom of the spring; the first note of
the nightingale. So in war the first to ride up to the foe or the
wielder of the first spear was held in high honour, and a samurai strove
for that distinction as his principal duty. It necessarily resulted,
too, not only from the nature of the weapons employed, but also from the
immense labour devoted by the true samurai to perfecting himself in
their use, that displays of individual prowess were deemed the chief
object in a battle. Some tactical formations borrowed from China were
familiar in Japan, but their intelligent use and their modification to
suit the circumstances of the time were inaugurated only by the great
captains of the 15th and 16th centuries. Prior to that epoch a battle
resembled a gigantic fencing match. Men fought as individuals, not as
units of a tactical formation, and the engagement consisted of a number
of personal duels, all in simultaneous progress. It was the samurai's
habit to proclaim his name and titles in the presence of the enemy,
sometimes adding from his own record or his father's any details that
might tend to dispirit his hearers. Then some one advancing to cross
weapons with him would perform the same ceremony of self-introduction,
and if either found anything to upbraid in the other's antecedents or
family history, he did not fail to make loud reference to it, such a
device being counted efficacious as a means of disturbing an adversary's
_sang-froid_, though the principle underlying the mutual introduction
was courtesy. The duellists could reckon on finishing their fight
undisturbed, but the victor frequently had to endure the combined
assault of a number of the comrades or retainers of the vanquished. Of
course a skilled swordsman did not necessarily seek a single combat; he
was equally ready to ride into the thick of the fight without
discrimination, and a group of common soldiers never hesitated to make a
united attack upon a mounted officer if they found him disengaged. But
the general feature of a battle was individual contests, and when the
fighting had ceased, each samurai proceeded to the tent[13] of the
commanding officer and submitted for inspection the heads of those whom
he had killed.

Change of Tactics.

The disadvantage of such a mode of fighting was demonstrated for the
first time when the Mongols invaded Japan in 1274. The invaders moved in
phalanx, guarding themselves with pavises, and covering their advance
with a host of archers shooting clouds of poisoned arrows.[14] When a
Japanese samurai advanced singly and challenged one of them to combat,
they opened their ranks, enclosed the challenger and cut him to pieces.
Many Japanese were thus slain, and it was not until they made a
concerted movement of attack that they produced any effect upon the
enemy. But although the advantage of massing strength seems to have been
recognized, the Japanese themselves did not adopt the formation which
the Mongols had shown to be so formidable. Individual prowess continued
to be the prominent factor in battles down to a comparatively recent
period. The great captains Takeda Shingen and Uyesugi Kenshin are
supposed to have been Japan's pioneer tacticians. They certainly
appreciated the value of a formation in which the action of the
individual should be subordinated to the unity of the whole. But when it
is remembered that fire-arms had already been in the hands of the
Japanese for several years, and that they had means of acquainting
themselves with the tactics of Europe through their intercourse with
the Dutch, it is remarkable that the changes attributed to Takeda and
Uyesugi were not more drastic. Speaking broadly, what they did was to
organize a column with the musqueteers and archers in front; the
spearmen and swordsmen in the second line; the cavalry in the third
line; the commanding officer in the rear, and the drums and standards in
the centre. At close quarters the spear proved a highly effective
weapon, and in the days of Hideyoshi (1536-1598) combined flank and
front attacks by bands of spearmen became a favourite device. The
importance of a strong reserve also received recognition, and in theory,
at all events, a tolerably intelligent system of tactics was adopted.
But not until the close of the 17th century did the doctrine of strictly
disciplined action obtain practical vogue. Yamaga Soko is said to have
been the successful inculcator of this principle, and from his time the
most approved tactical formation was known as the _Yamagaryu_ (Yamaga
style), though it showed no other innovation than strict subordination
of each unit to the general plan.

Military Principles.

Although, tactically speaking, the samurai was everything and the system
nothing before the second half of the 17th century, and although
strategy was chiefly a matter of deception, surprises and ambushes, it
must not be supposed that there were no classical principles. The
student of European military history searches in vain for the rules and
maxims of war so often invoked by glib critics, but the student of
Japanese history is more successful. Here, as in virtually every field
of things Japanese, retrospect discovers the ubiquitous Chinaman. The
treatises of Sung and 'Ng (called in Japan Son and Go) Chinese generals
of the third century after Christ, were the classics of Far-Eastern
captains through all generations. (See _The Book of War_, tr. E. F.
Calthrop, 1908.) Yoshitsune, in the 12th century, deceived a loving girl
to obtain a copy of Sung's work which her father had in his possession,
and Yamaga, in the 17th century, when he set himself to compose a book
on tactics, derived his materials almost entirely from the two Chinese
monographs. These treatises came into the hands of the Japanese in the
8th century, when the celebrated Kibi no Mabi went to study civilization
in China, just as his successors of the 19th century went to study a new
civilization in Europe and America. Thenceforth Son and Go became
household words among Japanese soldiers. Their volumes were to the
samurai what the _Mahayana_ was to the Buddhist. They were believed to
have collected whatever of good had preceded them, and to have forecast
whatever of good the future might produce. The character of their
strategic methods, somewhat analogous to those of 18th-century Europe,
may be gathered from the following:--

"An army undertaking an offensive campaign must be twice as numerous
as the enemy. A force investing a fortress should be numerically ten
times the garrison. When the adversary holds high ground, turn his
flank; do not deliver a frontal attack. When he has a mountain or a
river behind him, cut his lines of communication. If he deliberately
assumes a position from which victory is his only escape, hold him
there, but do not molest him. If you can surround him, leave one route
open for his escape, since desperate men fight fiercely. When you have
to cross a river, put your advance-guard and your rear-guard at a
distance from the banks. When the enemy has to cross a river, let him
get well engaged in the operation before you strike at him. In a
march, make celerity your first object. Pass no copse, enter no
ravine, nor approach any thicket until your scouts have explored it
fully."

Such precepts are multiplied; but when these ancient authors discuss
tactical formations, they do not seem to have contemplated anything like
rapid, well-ordered changes of mobile, highly trained masses of men from
one formation to another, or their quick transfer from point to point of
a battlefield. The basis of their tactics is _The Book of Changes_. Here
again is encountered the superstition that underlies nearly all Chinese
and Japanese institutions: the superstition that took captive even the
great mind of Confucius. The positive and the negative principles; the
sympathetic and the antipathetic elements; cosmos growing out of chaos;
chaos re-absorbing cosmos--on such fancies they founded their tactical
system. The result was a phalanx of complicated organization, difficult
to manoeuvre and liable to be easily thrown into confusion. Yet when
Yamaga in the 17th century interpreted these ancient Chinese treatises,
he detected in them suggestions for a very shrewd use of the principle
of échelon, and applied it to devise formations which combined much of
the frontal expansion of the line with the solidity of the column. More
than that cannot be said for Japanese tactical genius. The samurai was
the best fighting unit in the Orient--probably one of the best fighting
units the world ever produced. It was perhaps because of that excellence
that his captains remained indifferent tacticians.

Ethics of the Samurai.

In estimating the military capacity of the Japanese, it is essential to
know something of the ethical code of the samurai, the _bushido_ (way of
the warrior) as it was called. A typical example of the rules of conduct
prescribed by feudal chieftains is furnished in the code of Kato
Kiyomasa, a celebrated general of the 16th century:--

_Regulations for Samurai of every Rank; the Highest and Lowest alike._

1. The routine of service must be strictly observed. From 6 a.m.
military exercises shall be practised. Archery, gunnery and
horsemanship must not be neglected. If any man shows exceptional
proficiency he shall receive extra pay.

2. Those that desire recreation may engage in hawking, deer-hunting or
wrestling.

3. With regard to dress, garments of cotton or pongee shall be worn.
Any man incurring debts owing to extravagance of costume or living
shall be considered a law-breaker. If, however, being zealous in the
practice of military arts suitable to his rank, he desires to hire
instructors, an allowance may be granted to him for that purpose.

4. The staple of diet shall be unhulled rice. At social entertainments
one guest for one host is the proper limit. Only when men are
assembled for military exercises shall many dine together.

5. It is the duty of every samurai to make himself acquainted with the
principles of his craft. Extravagant displays of adornment are
forbidden in battle.

6. Dancing or organizing dances is unlawful; it is likely to betray
sword-carrying men into acts of violence. Whatever a man does should
be done with his heart. Therefore for the soldier military amusements
alone are suitable. The penalty for violating this provision is death
by suicide.

7. Learning shall be encouraged. Military books must be read. The
spirit of loyalty and filial piety must be educated before all things.
Poem-composing pastimes are not to be engaged in by samurai. To be
addicted to such amusements is to resemble a woman. A man born a
samurai should live and die sword in hand. Unless he is thus trained
in time of peace, he will be useless in the hour of stress. To be
brave and warlike must be his invariable condition.

8. Whosoever finds these rules too severe shall be relieved from
service. Should investigation show that any one is so unfortunate as
to lack manly qualities, he shall be singled out and dismissed
forthwith. The imperative character of these instructions must not be
doubted.

The plainly paramount purpose of these rules was to draw a sharp line of
demarcation between the samurai and the courtiers living in Kioto. The
dancing, the couplet-composing, the sumptuous living and the fine
costumes of the officials frequenting the imperial capital were strictly
interdicted by the feudatories. Frugality, fealty and filial
piety--these may be called the fundamental virtues of the samurai. Owing
to the circumstances out of which his caste had grown, he regarded all
bread-winning pursuits with contempt, and despised money. To be swayed
in the smallest degree by mercenary motives was despicable in his eyes.
Essentially a stoic, he made self-control the ideal of his existence,
and practised the courageous endurance of suffering so thoroughly that
he could without hesitation inflict on his own body pain of the most
horrible description. Nor can the courage of the samurai justly be
ascribed to bluntness of moral sensibility resulting from semi-savage
conditions of life. From the 8th century onwards the current of
existence in Japan set with general steadiness in the direction of
artistic refinement and voluptuous luxury, amidst which men could
scarcely fail to acquire habits and tastes inconsistent with acts of
high courage and great endurance. The samurai's mood was not a product
of semi-barbarism, but rather a protest against emasculating
civilization. He schooled himself to regard death by his own hand as a
normal eventuality. The story of other nations shows epochs when death
was welcomed as a relief and deliberately invited as a refuge from the
mere weariness of living. But wherever there has been liberty to choose,
and leisure to employ, a painless mode of exit from the world, men have
invariably selected it. The samurai, however, adopted in _harakiri_
(disembowelment) a mode of suicide so painful and so shocking that to
school the mind to regard it with indifference and perform it without
flinching was a feat not easy to conceive. Assistance was often rendered
by a friend who stood ready to decapitate the victim immediately after
the stomach had been gashed; but there were innumerable examples of men
who consummated the tragedy without aid, especially when the sacrifice
of life was by way of protest against the excesses of a feudal chief or
the crimes of a ruler, or when some motive for secrecy existed. It must
be observed that the suicide of the samurai was never inspired by any
doctrine like that of Hegesias. Death did not present itself to him as a
legitimate means of escaping from the cares and disappointments of life.
Self-destruction had only one consolatory aspect, that it was the
soldier's privilege to expiate a crime with his own sword, not under the
hand of the executioner. It rested with his feudal chief to determine
his guilt, and his peremptory duty was never to question the justice of
an order to commit suicide, but to obey without murmur or protest. For
the rest, the general motives for suicide were to escape falling into
the hands of a victorious enemy, to remonstrate against some official
abuse which no ordinary complaint could reach, or, by means of a dying
protest, to turn a liege lord from pursuing courses injurious to his
reputation and his fortune. This last was the noblest and by no means
the most infrequent reason for suicide. Scores of examples are recorded
of men who, with everything to make existence desirable, deliberately
laid down their lives at the prompting of loyalty. Thus the samurai rose
to a remarkable height of moral nobility. He had no assurance that his
death might not be wholly fruitless, as indeed it often proved. If the
sacrifice achieved its purpose, if it turned a liege lord from evil
courses, the samurai could hope that his memory would be honoured. But
if the lord resented such a violent and conspicuous mode of reproving
his excesses, then the faithful vassal's retribution would be an
execrated memory and, perhaps, suffering for his family and relatives.
Yet the deed was performed again and again. It remains to be noted that
the samurai entertained a high respect for the obligations of truth; "A
bushi has no second word," was one of his favourite mottoes. However, a
reservation is necessary here. The samurai's doctrine was not truth for
truth's sake, but truth for the sake of the spirit of uncompromising
manliness on which he based all his code of morality. A pledge or a
promise must never be broken, but the duty of veracity did not override
the interests or the welfare of others. Generosity to a defeated foe was
also one of the tenets of the samurai's ethics. History contains many
instances of the exercise of that quality.

Religious Influence.

Something more, however, than a profound conception of duty was needed
to nerve the samurai for sacrifices such as he seems to have been always
ready to make. It is true that Japanese parents of the military class
took pains to familiarize their children of both sexes from very tender
years with the idea of self-destruction at any time. But superadded to
the force of education and the incentive of tradition there was a
transcendental influence. Buddhism supplied it. The tenets of that creed
divided themselves, broadly speaking, into two doctrines, salvation by
faith and salvation by works, and the chief exponent of the latter
principle is the sect which prescribes meditation as the vehicle of
enlightenment. Whatever be the mental processes induced by this rite,
those who have practised it insist that it leads finally to a state of
absorption, in which the mind is flooded by an illumination revealing
the universe in a new aspect, absolutely free from all traces of
passion, interest or affection, and showing, written across everything
in flaming letters, the truth that for him who has found Buddha there is
neither birth nor death, growth nor decay. Lifted high above his
surroundings, he is prepared to meet every fate with indifference. The
attainment of that state seems to have been a fact in the case both of
the samurai of the military epoch and of the Japanese soldier to-day.

Abolition of the Samurai.

The policy of seclusion adopted by the Tokugawa administration after the
Shimabara insurrection included an order that no samurai should acquire
foreign learning. Nevertheless some knowledge could not fail to filter
in through the Dutch factory at Deshima, and thus, a few years before
the advent of the American ships, Takashima Shuhan, governor of
Nagasaki, becoming persuaded of the fate his country must invite if she
remained oblivious of the world's progress, memorialized the Yedo
government in the sense that, unless Japan improved her weapons of war
and reformed her military system, she could not escape humiliation such
as had just overtaken China. He obtained small arms and field-guns of
modern type from Holland, and, repairing to Yedo with a company of men
trained according to the new tactics, he offered an object lesson for
the consideration of the conservative officials. They answered by
throwing him into prison. But Egawa, one of his retainers, proved a
still more zealous reformer, and his foresight being vindicated by the
appearance of the American war-vessels in 1853, he won the government's
confidence and was entrusted with the work of planning and building
forts at Shinagawa and Shimoda. At Egawa's instance rifles and cannon
were imported largely from Europe, and their manufacture was commenced
in Japan, a powder-mill also being established with machinery obtained
from Holland. Finally, in 1862, the shogun's government adopted the
military system of the West, and organized three divisions of all arms,
with a total strength of 13,600 officers and men. Disbanded at the fall
of the shogunate in 1867, this force nevertheless served as a model for
a similar organization under the imperial government, and in the
meanwhile the principal fiefs had not been idle, some--as
Satsuma--adopting English tactics, others following France or Germany,
and a few choosing Dutch. There appeared upon the stage at this juncture
a great figure in the person of Omura Masujiro, a samurai of the Choshu
clan. He established Japan's first military school at Kioto in 1868; he
attempted to substitute for the hereditary soldier conscripts taken from
all classes of the people, and he conceived the plan of dividing the
whole empire into six military districts. An assassin's dagger removed
him on the threshold of these great reforms, but his statue now stands
in Tokyo and his name is spoken with reverence by all his countrymen. In
1870 Yamagata Aritomo (afterwards Field-Marshal Prince Yamagata) and
Saigo Tsugumichi (afterwards Field-Marshal Marquis Saigo) returned from
a tour of military inspection in Europe, and in 1872 they organized a
corps of Imperial guards, taken from the three clans which had been
conspicuous in the work of restoring the administrative power to the
sovereign, namely, the clans of Satsuma, Choshu and Tosa. They also
established garrisons in Tokyo, Sendai, Osaka and Kumamoto, thus placing
the military authority in the hands of the central government. Reforms
followed quickly. In 1872, the _hyobusho_, an office which controlled
all matters relating to war, was replaced by two departments, one of war
and one of the navy, and, in 1873, an imperial decree substituted
universal conscription for the system of hereditary militarism. Many
persons viewed this experiment with deep misgiving. They feared that it
would not only alienate the samurai, but also entrust the duty of
defending the country to men unfitted by tradition and custom for such a
task, namely, the farmers, artisans and tradespeople, who, after
centuries of exclusion from the military pale, might be expected to have
lost all martial spirit. The government, however, was not deterred by
these apprehensions. It argued that since the distinction of samurai and
commoner had not originally existed, and since the former was a product
simply of accidental conditions, there was no valid reason to doubt the
military capacity of the people at large. The justice of this reasoning
was put to a conclusive test a few years later. Originally the period of
service with the colours was fixed at 3 years, that of service with the
first and second reserves being 2 years each. One of the serious
difficulties encountered at the outset was that samurai conscripts were
too proud to stand in the ranks with common rustics or artisans, and
above all to obey the commands of plebeian officers. But patriotism soon
overcame this obstacle. The whole country--with the exception of the
northern island, Yezo--was parcelled out into six military districts
(headquarters Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sendai, Hiroshima and Kumamoto) each
furnishing a division of all arms and services. There was also from 1876
a guards division in Tokyo. The total strength on a peace footing was
31,680 of all arms, and on a war footing, 46,350. The defence of Yezo
was entrusted to a colonial militia. It may well be supposed that to
find competent officers for this army greatly perplexed its organizers.
The military school--now in Tokyo but originally founded by Omura in
Kioto--had to turn out graduates at high pressure, and private soldiers
who showed any special aptitude were rapidly promoted to positions of
command. French military instructors were engaged, and the work of
translating manuals was carried out with all celerity. In 1877, this new
army of conscripts had to endure a crucial test: it had to take the
field against the Satsuma samurai, the very flower of their class, who
in that year openly rebelled against the Tokyo government. The campaign
lasted eight months; as there had not yet been time to form the
reserves, the Imperial forces were soon seriously reduced in number by
casualties in the field and by disease, the latter claiming many victims
owing to defective commissariat. It thus became necessary to have
recourse to volunteers, but as these were for the most part samurai, the
expectation was that their hereditary instinct of fighting would
compensate for lack of training. That expectation was not fulfilled.
Serving side by side in the field, the samurai volunteer and the
heimin[15] regular were found to differ by precisely the degree of their
respective training. The fact was thus finally established that the
fighting qualities of the farmer and artisan reached as high a standard
as those of the bushi.

Thenceforth the story of the Japanese army is one of steady progress
and development. In 1878, the military duties of the empire were
divided among three offices: namely, the army department, the general
staff and the inspection department, while the six divisions of troops
were organized into three army corps.

In 1879, the total period of colour and reserve service became 10
years. In 1883 the period was extended to 12 years, the list of
exemptions was abbreviated, and above all substitution was no longer
allowed. Great care was devoted to the training of officers; promotion
went by merit, and at least ten of the most promising officers were
sent abroad every year to study. A comprehensive system of education
for the rank and file was organized. Great difficulty was experienced
in procuring horses suitable for cavalry, and indeed the Japanese army
long remained weak in this arm. In 1886, the whole littoral of the
empire was divided into five districts, each with its admiralty and
its naval port, and the army being made responsible for coast defence,
a battery construction corps was formed. Moreover, an exhaustive
scheme was elaborated to secure full co-operation between the army and
navy. In 1888 the seven divisions of the army first found themselves
prepared to take the field, and, in 1893, a revised system of
mobilization was sanctioned, to be put into operation the following
year, for the Chino-Japanese War (q.v.). At this period the division,
mobilized for service in the field, consisted of 12 battalions of
infantry, 3 troops of cavalry, 4 batteries of field and 2 of mountain
artillery, 2 companies of sappers and train, totalling 18,492 of all
arms with 5633 horses. The guards had only 8 battalions and 4
batteries (field). The field army aggregated over 120,000, with 168
field and 72 mountain guns, and the total of all forces, field,
garrison and dépôt, was 220,580 of all arms, with 47,220 horses and
294 guns. Owing, however, to various modifications necessitated by
circumstances, the numbers actually on duty were over 240,000, with
6495 non-combatant employees and about 100,000 coolies who acted as
carriers. The infantry were armed with the Murata single-loader rifle,
but the field artillery was inferior, and the only two divisions
equipped with magazine rifles and smokeless powder never came into
action. The experiences gained in this war bore large fruit. The total
term of service with the colours and the reserves was slightly
increased; the colonial militia of Yezo (Hokkaido) was organized as a
seventh line division; 5 new divisions were added, bringing the whole
number of divisions to 13 (including the guards); a mixed brigade was
stationed in Formosa (then newly added to Japan's dominions); a high
military council composed of field-marshals was created; the cavalry
was brigaded; the garrison artillery was increased; strenuous efforts
were made to improve the education of officers and men; and lastly,
sanitary arrangements underwent much modification. An arsenal had been
established in Tokyo, in 1868, for the manufacture of small arms and
small-arm ammunition; this was followed by an arsenal in Osaka for the
manufacture of guns and gun-ammunition; four powder factories were
opened, and in later years big-gun factories at Kure and Mororan.
Japan was able to make 12-inch guns in 1902, and her capacity for this
kind of work was in 1909 second to none. She has her own patterns of
rifle and field gun, so that she is independent of foreign aid so far
as armaments are concerned. In 1900, she sent a force to North China
to assist in the campaign for the relief of the foreign legations in
Peking, and on that occasion her troops were able to observe at first
hand the qualities and methods of European soldiers. In 1904 took
place the great war with Russia (see RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR). After the
war important changes were made in the direction of augmenting and
improving the armed forces. The number of divisions was increased to
19 (including the guards), of which one division is for service in
Korea and one for service in Manchuria. Various technical corps were
organized, as well as horse artillery, heavy field artillery and
machine-gun units. The field-gun was replaced by a quick-firer
manufactured at Osaka, and much attention was given to the question of
remounts--for, both in the war with China and in that with Russia, the
horsing of the cavalry had been poor. Perhaps the most far-reaching
change in all armies of late years is the shortening of the term of
service with the colours to 2 years for the infantry, 3 years
remaining the rule for other arms. This was adopted by Japan after the
war, the infantry period of service with the reserves being extended
to 14{1/3} years, and of course has the effect of greatly augmenting
the potential war strength. As to this, figures are kept secret, nor
can any accurate approximation be attempted without danger of error.
Rough estimates of Japan's war strength have, however, been made,
giving 550,000 as the war strength of the first line army, plus 34,000
for garrisons overseas and 150,000 special reserves (_hoju_); 370,000
second line or _kobi_, and 110,000 for the fully trained portion of
the territorial forces, or _Kokumin-hei_. All these branches can
further draw upon half-trained elements to the number of about 800,000
to replace losses. Japan's available strength in the last resort for
home defence was recently (1909) stated by the Russian _Novoye Vremya_
at 3,000,000. In 20 years, when the present system has produced its
full effect, the first line should be 740,000 strong, the second line
780,000, and the third line about 3,850,000 (3,000,000 untrained and
850,000 partly trained). Details can be found in _Journal of the R.
United Service Institution_, Dec. 1909-Jan. 1910.

Recruiting.

At 20 years of age every Japanese subject, of whatever status, becomes
liable for military service. But the difficulty of making service
universal in the case of a growing population is felt here as in
Europe, and practically the system has elements of the old-fashioned
conscription. The minimum height is 5.2 ft. (artillery and engineers,
5.4 ft.). There are four principal kinds of service, namely, service
with the colours (_genyeki_), for two years; service with the first
reserves (_yobi_), for 7{1/3} years; service with the second reserves
(_kobi_), for 7 years; and service with the territorial troops (_ko
kumin-hei_) up to the age of 40. Special reserve (_hoju_) takes up men
who, though liable for conscription and medically qualified, have
escaped the lot for service with the colours. It consists of two
classes, one of men remaining in the category of _hoju_ for 7{1/3}
years, the other for 1{1/3} year, before passing into the territorial
army. Their purpose is similar to that of special or _ersatz_ reserves
elsewhere. The first class receives the usual short initial training.
Men of the second class, in ordinary circumstances, pass, after their
1{1/3} year's inability, to the territorial army untrained. As for the
first and second general reserves (_yobi_ and _kobi_), each is called
out twice during its full term for short "refresher" courses. After
reaching the territorial army a man is relieved from all further
training. The total number of youths eligible for conscription each
year is about 435,000, but the annual contingent for full service is
not much more than 100,000. Conscripts in the active army may be
discharged before the expiration of two years if their conduct and
aptitude are exceptional.

A youth is exempted if it be clearly established[16] that his family
is dependent upon his earnings. Except for permanent deformities men
are put back for one year before being finally rejected on medical
grounds. Men who have been convicted of crime are disqualified, but
those who have been temporarily deprived of civil rights must present
themselves for conscription at the termination of their sentence.
Educated men may enrol themselves as one-year volunteers instead of
drawing lots, this privilege of entry enduring up to the age of 28,
after which, service for the full term without drawing lots is
imposed. Residence in a foreign country secures exemption up to the
age of 32--provided that official permission to go abroad has been
obtained. A man returning after the age of 32 is drafted into the
territorial army, but if he returns before that age he must volunteer
to receive training, otherwise he is taken without lot for service
with the colours. The system of volunteering is largely resorted to by
persons of the better classes. Any youth who possesses certain
educational qualifications is entitled to volunteer for training. If
accepted after medical inspection, he serves with the colours for one
year, during three months of which time he must live in
barracks--unless a special permit be granted by his commanding
officer. A volunteer has to contribute to his maintenance and
equipment, although youths who cannot afford the full expense, if
otherwise qualified, are assisted by the state. At the conclusion of a
year's training the volunteer is drafted into the first reserve for 6¼
years, and then into the second reserve for 5 years, so that his total
period (12¼ years) of service before passing into the territorial army
is the same as that of an ordinary conscript. The main purpose of the
one-year voluntariat, as in Germany, is to provide officers for the
reserves to territorial troops. Qualified teachers in the public
service are only liable to a very short initial training, after which
they pass at once into the territorial army. But if a teacher abandons
that calling before the age of 28, he becomes liable, without lot,[17]
to two years with the colours, unless he adopts the alternative of
volunteering.

Officers.

Officers are obtained in two ways. There are six local preparatory
cadet schools (_yonen-gakko_) in various parts of the empire, for boys
of from 13 to 15. After 3 years at one of these schools[18] a graduate
spends 21 months at the central preparatory school
(_chuo-yonen-gakko_), Tokyo, and if he graduates with sufficient
credit at the latter institution, he becomes eligible for admission to
the officers' college (_shikan-gakko_) without further test of
proficiency. The second method of obtaining officers is by competitive
examination for direct admission to the officers' college. In either
case the cadet is sent to serve with the colours for 6 to 12 months as
a private and non-commissioned officer, before commencing his course
at the officers' college. The period of study at the officers' college
is one year, and after graduating successfully the cadet serves with
troops for 6 months on probation. If at the end of that time he is
favourably reported on, he is commissioned as a sub-lieutenant. Young
officers of engineers and artillery receive a year's further training
at a special college. Officers' ranks are the same as in the British
army, but the nomenclature is more simple. The terms, with their
English equivalents, are _shoi_ (second lieutenant), _chui_ (first
lieutenant), _tai_ (captain), _shosa_ (major), _chusa_
(lieut.-colonel), _taisa_ (colonel), _shosho_ (major-general), _chujo_
(lieut.-general), _taisho_ (general), _gensui_ (field-marshal). All
these except the last apply to the same relative ranks in the navy.
Promotion of officers in the junior grades is by seniority or merit,
but after the rank of captain all promotion is by merit, and thus many
officers never rise higher than captain, in which case retirement is
compulsory at the age of 48. Except in the highest ranks, a certain
minimum period has to be spent in each rank before promotion to the
next.

Soldiers.

There are three grades of privates: upper soldiers (_joto-hei_),
first-class soldiers (_itto-sotsu_), and second-class soldiers
(_nito-sotsu_). A private on joining is a second-class soldier. For
proficiency and good conduct he is raised to the rank of first-class
soldier, and ultimately to that of upper soldier. Non-commissioned
officers are obtained from the ranks, or from those who wish to make
soldiering a profession, as in European armies. The grades are
corporal (_gocho_), sergeant (_gunso_), sergeant-major (_socho_) and
special sergeant-major (_tokumu-socho_).

The pay of the conscript is, as it is everywhere, a trifle (1s.
10d.-3s. 0½d. per month). The professional non-commissioned officers
are better paid, the lowest grade receiving three times as much as an
upper soldier. Officers' pay is roughly at about three-quarters of the
rates prevailing in Germany, sub-lieutenants receiving about £34,
captains £71, colonels £238 per annum, &c. Pensions for officers and
non-commissioned officers, according to scale, can be claimed after 11
years' colour service.

The emperor is the commander-in-chief of the army, and theoretically
the sole source of military authority, which he exercises through a
general staff and a war department, with the assistance of a board of
field-marshals (_gensuifu_). The general staff has for chief a
field-marshal, and for vice-chief a general or lieutenant-general. It
includes besides the usual general staff departments, various survey
and topographical officers, and the military college is under its
direction. The war department is presided over by a general officer on
the active list, who is a member of the cabinet without being
necessarily affected by ministerial changes. There are, further,
artillery and engineer committees, and a remount bureau. The
headquarters of coast defences under general officers are Tokyo,
Yokohama, Shimonoseki and Yura. The whole empire is divided into three
military districts--eastern, central and western--each under the
command of a general or lieutenant-general. The divisional
headquarters are as follows:--Guard Tokyo, I. Tokyo, II. Sendai, III.
Nagoya, IV. Wakayama, V. Hiroshima, VI. Kumamoto, VII. Asahikawa,
VIII. Hirosaki, IX. Kasanava, X. Himeji, XI. Senzui, XII. Kokura,
XIII. Takata, XIV. Utsonomia, XV. Fushimi, XVI. Kioto, XVII. Okayama,
XVIII. Kurume. Some of these divisions are permanently on foreign
service, but their recruiting areas in Japan are maintained. There are
also four cavalry brigades, and a number of unassigned regiments of
field and mountain artillery, as well as garrison artillery and army
technical troops. The organization of the active army by regiments is
176 infantry regiments of 3 battalions; 27 cavalry regiments; 30 field
artillery regiments each of 6 and 3 mountain artillery regiments each
of 3 batteries; 6 regiments and 6 battalions of siege, heavy field and
fortress artillery; 20 battalions engineers; 19 supply and transport
battalions.

Medical Service.

The medical service is exceptionally well organized. It received
unstinted praise from European and American experts who observed it
closely during the wars of 1900 and 1904-5. The establishment of
surgeons to each division is approximately 100, and arrangements
complete in every detail are made for all lines of medical assistance.
Much help is rendered by the red cross society of Japan, which has an
income of 2,000,000 yen annually, a fine hospital in Tokyo, a large
nursing staff and two specially built and equipped hospital ships.
During the early part of the campaign in Pechili, in 1900, the French
column entrusted its wounded to the care of the Japanese.

Supply.

The staple article of commissariat for a Japanese army in the field is
_hoshii_ (dried rice), of which three days' supply can easily be
carried in a bag by the soldier. When required for use the rice, being
placed in water, swells to its original bulk, and is eaten with a
relish of salted fish, dried sea-weed or pickled plums. The task of
provisioning an army on these lines is comparatively simple. The
Japanese soldier, though low in stature, is well set up, muscular and
hardy. He has great powers of endurance, and manoeuvres with
remarkable celerity, doing everything at the run, if necessary, and
continuing to run without distress for a length of time astonishing to
European observers. He is greatly subject, however, to attacks of
_kakke_ (beri-beri), and if he has recourse to meat diet, which
appears to be the best preventive, he will probably lose something of
his capacity for prolonged rapid movement. He attacks with apparent
indifference to danger, preserves his cheerfulness amid hardships, is
splendidly patriotic and has always shown himself thoroughly amenable
to discipline.

Military Schools.

Of the many educational and training establishments, the most
important is the _rikugun daigakko_, or army college, where officers,
(generally subalterns), are prepared for service in the upper ranks
and for staff appointments, the course of study extending over three
years. The Toyama school stands next in importance. The courses
pursued there are attended chiefly by subaltern officers of dismounted
branches, non-commissioned officers also being allowed to take the
musketry course. The term of training is five months. Young officers
of the scientific branches are instructed at the _hokogakko_ (school
of artillery and engineers). There are, further, two special schools
of gunnery--one for field, the other for garrison artillery, attended
chiefly by captains and senior subalterns of the two branches. There
is an inspection department of military education, the
inspector-general being a lieutenant-general, under whom are fifteen
field and general officers, who act as inspectors of the various
schools and colleges and of military educational matters in general.

The Japanese officer's pay is small and his mode of life frugal. He
lives out of barracks, frequently with his own family. His uniform is
plain and inexpensive,[19] and he has no desire to exchange it for
mufti. He has no mess expenses, contribution to a band, or luxuries of
any kind, and as he is nearly always without private means to
supplement his pay, his habits are thoroughly economical. He devotes
himself absolutely to his profession, living for nothing else, and
since he is strongly imbued with an effective conception of the honour
of his cloth, instances of his incurring disgrace by debt or
dissipation are exceptional. The samurai may be said to have been
revived in the officers of the modern army, who preserve and act up to
all the old traditions. The system of promotion has evidently much to
do with this good result, for no Japanese officer can hope to rise
above the rank of captain unless, by showing himself really zealous
and capable, he obtains from his commanding officer the recommendation
without which all higher educational opportunities are closed to him.
Yet promotion by merit has not degenerated into promotion by favour,
and corruption appears to be virtually absent. In the stormiest days
of parliamentary warfare, when charges of dishonesty were freely
preferred by party politicians against all departments of officialdom,
no whisper ever impeached the integrity of army officers.

The training of the troops is thorough and strictly progressive, the
responsibility of the company, squadron and battery commanders for the
training of their commands, and the latitude granted them in choice of
means being, as in Germany, the keystone of the system.

Foreign Assistance.

Originally the government engaged French officers to assist in
organizing the army and elaborating its system of tactics and
strategy, and during several years a military mission of French
officers resided in Tokyo and rendered valuable aid to the Japanese.
Afterwards German officers were employed, with Jakob Meckel at their
head, and they left a perpetually grateful memory. But ultimately the
services of foreigners were dispensed with altogether, and Japan now
adopts the plan of sending picked men to complete their studies in
Europe. Up to 1904 she followed Germany in military matters almost
implicitly, but since then, having the experience of her own great war
to guide her, she has, instead of modelling herself on any one foreign
system, chosen from each whatever seemed most desirable, and also, in
many points, taken the initiative herself.

Military Finance.

When the power of the sword was nominally restored to the Imperial
government in 1868, the latter planned to devote one-fourth of the
state's ordinary revenue to the army and navy. Had the estimated
revenue accrued, this would have given a sum of about 3 millions
sterling for the two services. But not until 1871, when the troops of
the fiefs were finally disbanded, did the government find itself in a
position to include in the annual budgets an adequate appropriation on
account of armaments. Thenceforth, from 1872 to 1896, the ordinary
expenditures of the army varied from three-quarters of a million
sterling to 1½ millions, and the extraordinary outlays ranged from a
few thousands of pounds to a quarter of a million. Not once in the
whole period of 25 years--if 1877 (the year of the Satsuma rebellion)
be excepted--did the state's total expenditures on account of the army
exceed 1½ millions sterling, and it redounds to the credit of Japan's
financial management that she was able to organize, equip and maintain
such a force at such a small cost. In 1896, as shown above, she
virtually doubled her army, and a proportionate increase of
expenditure ensued, the outlays for maintenance jumping at once from
an average of about 1¼ millions sterling to 2¼ millions, and growing
thenceforth with the organization of the new army, until in the year
(1903) preceding the outbreak of war with Russia, they reached the
figure of 4 millions. Then again, in 1906, six divisions were added,
and additional expenses had to be incurred on account of the new
overseas garrisons, so that, in 1909, the ordinary outlays reached a
total of 7 millions, or about one-seventh of the ordinary revenue of
the state. This takes no account of extraordinary outlays incurred for
building forts and barracks, providing new patterns of equipment, &c.
In 1909 the latter, owing to the necessity of replacing the weapons
used in the Russian War, and in particular the field artillery gun
(which was in 1905 only a semi-quickfirer), involved a relatively
large outlay.

Early Japanese War-vessels.

_The Navy._--The traditions of Japan suggest that the art of navigation
was not unfamiliar to the inhabitants of a country consisting of
hundreds of islands and abounding in bays and inlets. Some interpreters
of her cosmography discover a great ship in the "floating bridge of
heaven" from which the divine procreators of the islands commenced their
work, and construe in a similar sense other poetically named vehicles of
that remote age. But though the seas were certainly traversed by the
early invaders of Japan, and though there is plenty of proof that in
medieval times the Japanese flag floated over merchantmen which voyaged
as far as Siam and India, and over piratical craft which harassed the
coasts of Korea and China, it is unquestionable that in the matter of
naval architecture Japan fell behind even her next-door neighbours.
Thus, when a Mongol fleet came to Kiushiu in the 13th century, Japan had
no vessels capable of contending against the invaders, and when, at the
close of the 16th century, a Japanese army was fighting in Korea,
repeated defeats of Japan's squadrons by Korean war-junks decided the
fate of the campaign on shore as well as on sea. It seems strange that
an enterprising nation like the Japanese should not have taken for
models the great galleons which visited the Far East in the second half
of the 16th century under the flags of Spain, Portugal, Holland and
England. With the exception, however, of two ships built by a castaway
English pilot to order of Iyeyasu, no effort in that direction appears
to have been made, and when an edict vetoing the construction of
sea-going vessels was issued in 1636 as part of the Tokugawa policy of
isolation, it can scarcely be said to have checked the growth of Japan's
navy, for she possessed nothing worthy of the name. It was to the object
lesson furnished by the American ships which visited Yedo bay in 1853
and to the urgent counsels of the Dutch that Japan owed the inception of
a naval policy. A seamen's training station was opened under Dutch
instructors in 1855 at Nagasaki, a building-slip was constructed and an
iron factory established at the same place, and shortly afterwards a
naval school was organized at Tsukiji in Yedo, a war-ship the "Kwanko
Maru"[20]--presented by the Dutch to the shogun's government--being used
for exercising the cadets. To this vessel two others, purchased from the
Dutch, were added in 1857 and 1858, and these, with one given by Queen
Victoria, formed the nucleus of Japan's navy. In 1860, we find the
Pacific crossed for the first time by a Japanese war-ship--the "Kwanrin
Maru"--and subsequently some young officers were sent to Holland for
instruction in naval science. In fact the Tokugawa statesmen had now
thoroughly appreciated the imperative need of a navy. Thus, in spite of
domestic unrest which menaced the very existence of the Yedo government,
a dockyard was established and fully equipped, the place chosen as its
site being, by a strange coincidence, the village of Yokosuka where
Japan's first foreign ship-builder, Will Adams, had lived and died 250
years previously. This dockyard was planned and its construction
superintended by a Frenchman, M. Bertin. But although the Dutch had been
the first to advise Japan's acquisition of a navy, and although French
aid was sought in the case of the important and costly work at Yokosuka,
the shogun's government turned to England for teachers of the art of
maritime warfare. Captain Tracey, R.N., and other British officers and
warrant-officers were engaged to organize and superintend the school at
Tsukiji. They arrived, however, on the eve of the fall of the Tokugawa
shogunate, and as the new administration was not prepared to utilize
their services immediately, they returned to England. It is not to be
inferred that the Imperial government underrated the importance of
organizing a naval force. One of the earliest Imperial rescripts ranked
a navy among "the country's most urgent needs" and ordered that it
should be "at once placed on a firm foundation." But during the four
years immediately subsequent to the restoration, a semi-interregnum
existed in military affairs, the power of the sword being partly
transferred to the hands of the sovereign and partly retained by the
feudal chiefs. Ultimately, not only the vessels which had been in the
possession of the shogunate but also several obtained from Europe by the
great feudatories had to be taken over by the Imperial government,
which, on reviewing the situation, found itself owner of a motley
squadron of 17 war-ships aggregating 13,812 tons displacement, of which
two were armoured, one was a composite ship, and the rest were of wood.
Steps were now taken to establish and equip a suitable naval college in
Tsukiji, and application having been made to the British government for
instructors, a second naval mission was sent from England in 1873,
consisting of 30 officers and warrant-officers under Commander
(afterwards Vice-Admiral Sir) Archibald Douglas. At the very outset
occasions for active service afloat presented themselves. In 1868, the
year after the fall of the shogunate, such ships as could be assembled
had to be sent to Yezo to attack the main part of the Tokugawa squadron
which had raised the flag of revolt and retired to Hakodate under the
command of the shogun's admiral, Enomoto. Then in 1874 the duty of
convoying a fleet of transports to Formosa had to be undertaken; and in
1877 sea power played its part in crushing the formidable rebellion in
Satsuma. Meanwhile the work of increasing and organizing the navy went
on steadily. The first steam war-ship constructed in Japan had been a
gunboat (138 tons) launched in 1866 from a building-yard established at
Ishikawajima, an island near the mouth of the Sumida river on which
Tokyo stands. At this yard and at Yokosuka two vessels of 897 tons and
1450 tons, respectively, were launched in 1875 and 1876, and Japan now
found herself competent not only to execute all repairs but also to
build ships of considerable size. An order was placed in England in
1875, which produced, three years later, the "Fuso," Japan's first
ironclad (3717 tons) and the "Kongo" and "Hiei," steel-frame
sister-cruisers of 2248 tons. Meanwhile training, practical and
theoretical, in seamanship, gunnery, torpedo-practice and naval
architecture went on vigorously, and in 1878 the Japanese flag was for
the first time seen in European waters, floating over the cruiser
"Seiki" (1897 tons) built in Japan and navigated solely by Japanese. The
government, constantly solicitous of increasing the fleet, inaugurated,
in 1882, a programme of 30 cruisers and 12 torpedo-boats, and in 1886
this was extended, funds being obtained by an issue of naval loan-bonds.
But the fleet did not yet include a single battleship. When the diet
opened for the first time in 1890, a plan for the construction of two
battleships encountered stubborn opposition in the lower house, where
the majority attached much less importance to voting money for war-ships
than to reducing the land tax. Not until 1892 was this opposition
overcome in deference to an order from the throne that thirty thousand
pounds sterling should be contributed yearly from the privy purse and
that a tithe of all official salaries should be devoted during the same
interval to naval needs. Had the house been more prescient, Japan's
position at the outbreak of war with China in 1894 would have been very
different. She entered the contest with 28 fighting craft, aggregating
57,600 tons, and 24 torpedo-boats, but among them the most powerful was
a belted cruiser of 4300 tons. Not one battleship was included, whereas
China had two ironclads of nearly 8000 tons each. Under these conditions
the result of the naval conflict was awaited with much anxiety in Japan.
But the Chinese suffered signal defeats (see CHINO-JAPANESE WAR) off the
Yalu and at Wei-hai-wei, and the victors took possession of 17 Chinese
craft, including one battleship. The resulting addition to Japan's
fighting force was, however, insignificant. But the naval strength of
Japan did not depend on prizes. Battleships and cruisers were ordered
and launched in Europe one after the other, and when the Russo-Japanese
War (q.v.) came, the fleet promptly asserted its physical and moral
superiority in the surprise of Port Arthur, the battle of the 10th of
August 1904, and the crowning victory of Tsushima.

As to the development of the navy from 1903 onwards, it is not
possible to detail with absolute accuracy the plans laid down by the
admiralty in Tokyo, but the actual state of the fleet in the year 1909
will be apparent from the figures given below.

Japan's naval strength at the outbreak of the war with Russia in 1904
was:--

Number. Displacement.
Tons.

Battleships 6 84,652
Armoured cruisers 8 73,982
Other cruisers 44 111,470
Destroyers 19 6,519
Torpedo-boats 80 7,119
-- -------
Totals 157 283,742

Losses during the war were:--

Battleships 2 27,300
Cruisers (second
and smaller classes) 8 18,009
Destroyers 2 705
Torpedo-boats 7 557
-- ------
Totals 19 46,571

The captured vessels repaired and added to the fleet were:--

Battleships 5 62,524
Cruisers 11 71,276
Destroyers 5 1,740
-- -------
Totals 21 135,530

The vessels built or purchased after the war and up to the close of
1908 were:--

Battleships 4 71,500
Armoured cruisers 4 56,700
Other cruisers 5 7,000
Destroyers 33 12,573
Torpedo-boats 5 760
-- -------
Totals 51 148,533

Some of the above have been superannuated, and the serviceable fleet
in 1909 was:--

Battleships 13 191,380
Armoured cruisers 12 130,683
Other cruisers, coast-
defence ships and
gun-boats 47 165,253
Destroyers 55 20,508
Torpedo-boats 77 7,258
--- -------
Totals 204 515,082

To the foregoing must be added two armoured cruisers--the "Kurama"
(14,000) launched at Yokosuka in October 1907, and the "Ibuki"
(14,700) launched at Kure in November 1907, but no other battleships
or cruisers were laid down in Japan or ordered abroad up to the close
of 1908.

Naval Dockyards.

There are four naval dockyards, namely, at Yokosuka, Kure, Sasebo and
Maizuru. Twenty-one vessels built at Yokosuka since 1876 included a
battleship (19,000 tons) and an armoured cruiser (14,000 tons); seven
built at Kure since 1898 included a battleship (19,000 tons) and an
armoured cruiser (14,000 tons). The yards at Sasebo and Maizuru had
not yet been used in 1909 for constructing large vessels. Two private
yards--the Mitsubishi at Nagasaki and Kobe, and the Kawasaki at the
latter place--have built several cruisers, gun-boats and torpedo
craft, and are competent to undertake more important work.
Nevertheless in 1909 Japan did not yet possess complete independence
in this matter, for she was obliged to have recourse to foreign
countries for a part of the steel used in ship-building. Kure
manufactures practically all the steel it requires, and there is a
government steel-foundry at Wakamatsu on which more than 3 millions
sterling had been spent in 1909, but it did not yet keep pace with the
country's needs. When this independence has been attained, it is hoped
to effect an economy of about 18% on the outlay for naval
construction, owing to the cheapness of manual labour and the
disappearance both of the manufacturer's profit and of the expenses of
transfer from Europe to Japan.

There are five admiralties--Yokosuka, Kure, Sasebo, Maizuru and Port
Arthur; and four naval stations--Takeshiki (in Tsushima), Mekong (in
the Pescadores), Ominato and Chinhai (in southern Korea).

Personnel.

The navy is manned partly by conscripts and partly by volunteers.
About 5500 are taken every year, and the ratio is, approximately, 55%
of volunteers and 45% of conscripts. The period of active service is 4
years and that of service with the reserve 7 years. On the average 200
cadets are admitted yearly, of whom 50 are engineers, and in 1906 the
personnel of the navy consisted of the following:--

Admirals, combative and non-combative 77
Officers, combative and non-combative,
below the rank of admiral 2,867
Warrant officers 9,075
Bluejackets 29,667
Cadets 721
------
Total 42,407

Naval Education.

The highest educational institution for the navy is the naval staff
college, in which there are five courses for officers alone. The
gunnery and torpedo schools are attended by officers, and also by
selected warrant-officers and bluejackets, who consent to extend their
service. There is also a mechanical school for junior engineers,
warrant-officers and ordinary artificers.

At the naval cadet academy--originally situated in Tokyo but now at
Etajima near Kure--aspirants for service as naval officers receive a 3
years' academical course and 1 year's training at sea; and, finally,
there is a naval engineering college collateral to the naval cadet
academy.

Since 1882, foreign instruction has been wholly dispensed with in the
Japanese navy; since 1886 she has manufactured her own prismatic
powder; since 1891 she has been able to make quick-firing guns and
Schwartzkopf torpedoes, and in 1892 one of her officers invented a
particularly potent explosive, called (after its inventor) Shimose
powder.

The Feudal Period.

_Finance._--Under the feudal system of the Tokugawa (1603-1871), all
land in Japan was regarded as state property, and parcelled out into 276
fiefs, great and small, which were assigned to as many feudatories.
These were empowered to raise revenue for the support of their
households, for administrative purposes, and for the maintenance of
troops. The basis of taxation varied greatly in different districts,
but, at the time of the Restoration in 1867, the general principle was
that four-tenths of the gross produce should go to the feudatory,
six-tenths to the farmer. In practice this rule was applied to the rice
crop only, the assessments for other kinds of produce being levied
partly in money and partly in manufactured goods. Forced labour also was
exacted, and artisans and tradesmen were subjected to pecuniary levies.
The yield of rice in 1867 was about 154 million bushels,[21] of which
the market value at prices then ruling was £24,000,000, or 240,000,000
_yen_.[22] Hence the grain tax represented, at the lowest calculation,
96,000,000 _yen_. When the administration reverted to the emperor in
1867 the central treasury was empty, and the funds hitherto employed for
governmental purposes in the fiefs continued to be devoted to the
support of the feudatories, to the payment of the samurai, and to
defraying the expenses of local administration, the central treasury
receiving only whatever might remain after these various outlays.

The shogun himself, whose income amounted to about £3,500,000, did not,
on abdicating, hand over to the sovereign either the contents of his
treasury or the lands from which he derived his revenues. He contended
that funds for the government of the nation as a whole should be levied
from the people at large. Not until 1871 did the feudal system cease to
exist. The fiefs being then converted into prefectures, their revenues
became an asset of the central treasury, less 10% allotted for the
support of the former feudatories.[23]

Paper Money.

But during the interval between 1867 and 1871, the men on whom had
devolved the direction of national affairs saw no relief from crippling
impecuniosity except an issue of paper money. This was not a novelty in
Japan. Paper money had been known to the people since the middle of the
17th century, and in the era of which we are now writing no less than
1694 varieties of notes were in circulation. There were gold notes,
silver notes, cash-notes, rice-notes, umbrella-notes, ribbon-notes,
lathe-article-notes, and so on through an interminable list, the
circulation of each kind being limited to the issuing fief. Many of
these notes had almost ceased to have any purchasing power, and nearly
all were regarded by the people as evidences of official greed. The
first duty of a centralized progressive administration should have been
to reform the currency. The political leaders of the time appreciated
that duty, but saw themselves compelled by stress of circumstances to
adopt the very device which in the hands of the feudal chiefs had
produced such deplorable results. The ordinary revenue amounted to only
3,000,000 _yen_, while the extraordinary aggregated 29,000,000, and was
derived wholly from issues of paper money or other equally unsound
sources.

Land Tax.

Even on the abolition of feudalism in 1871 the situation was not
immediately relieved. The land tax, which constituted nine-tenths of the
feudal revenues, had been assessed by varying methods and at various
rates by the different feudatories, and re-assessment of all the land
became a preliminary essential to establishing a uniform system. Such a
task, on the basis of accurate surveys, would have involved years of
work, whereas the financial needs of the state had to be met
immediately. Under the pressure of this imperative necessity a
re-assessment was roughly made in two years, and being continued
thereafter with greater accuracy, was completed in 1881. This survey,
eminently liberal to the agriculturists, assigned a value of
1,200,000,000 _yen_ to the whole of the arable land, and the treasury
fixed the tax at 3% of the assessed value of the land, which was about
one-half of the real market value. Moreover, the government contemplated
a gradual reduction of this already low impost until it should
ultimately fall to 1%. Circumstances prevented the consummation of that
purpose. The rate underwent only one reduction of ½%, and thereafter had
to be raised on account of war expenditures. On the whole, however, no
class benefited more conspicuously from the change of administration
than the peasants, since not only was their burden of taxation light,
but also they were converted from mere tenants into actual proprietors.
In brief, they acquired the fee-simple of their farms in consideration
of paying an annual rent equal to about one sixty-sixth of the market
value of the land.

State Revenue.

In 1873, when these changes were effected, the ordinary revenue of the
state rose from 24,500,000 _yen_ to 70,500,000 _yen_. But seven millions
sterling is a small income for a country confronted by such problems as
Japan had to solve. She had to build railways; to create an army and a
navy; to organize posts, telegraphs, prisons, police and education; to
construct roads, improve harbours, light and buoy the coasts; to create
a mercantile marine; to start under official auspices numerous
industrial enterprises which should serve as object lessons to the
people, as well as to lend to private persons large sums in aid of
similar projects. Thus, living of necessity beyond its income, the
government had recourse to further issues of fiduciary notes, and in
proportion as the volume of the latter exceeded actual currency
requirements their specie value depreciated.

Banks.

This question of paper currency inaugurates the story of banking; a
story on almost every page of which are to be found inscribed the names
of Prince Ito, Marquis Inouye, Marquis Matsukata, Count Okuma and Baron
Shibusawa, the fathers of their country's economic and financial
progress in modern times. The only substitutes for banks in feudal days
were a few private firms--"households" would, perhaps, be a more correct
expression--which received local taxes in kind, converted them into
money, paid the proceeds to the central government or to the
feudatories, gave accommodation to officials, did some exchange
business, and occasionally extended accommodation to private
individuals. They were not banks in the Occidental sense, for they
neither collected funds by receiving deposits nor distributed capital by
making loans. The various fiefs were so isolated that neither social nor
financial intercourse was possible, and moreover the mercantile and
manufacturing classes were regarded with some disdain by the gentry. The
people had never been familiarized with combinations of capital for
productive purposes, and such a thing as a joint-stock company was
unknown. In these circumstances, when the administration of state
affairs fell into the hands of the men who had made the restoration,
they not only lacked the first essential of rule, money, but were also
without means of obtaining any, for they could not collect taxes in the
fiefs, these being still under the control of the feudal barons; and in
the absence of widely organized commerce or finance, no access to funds
presented itself. Doubtless the minds of these men were sharpened by the
necessities confronting them, yet it speaks eloquently for their
discernment that, samurai as they were, without any business training
whatever, one of their first essays was to establish organizations which
should take charge of the national revenue, encourage industry and
promote trade and production by lending money at comparatively low rates
of interest. The tentative character of these attempts is evidenced by
frequent changes. There was first a business bureau, then a trade
bureau, then commercial companies, and then exchange companies, these
last being established in the principal cities and at the open ports,
their personnel consisting of the three great families--Mitsui, Shimada
and Ono--houses of ancient repute, as well as other wealthy merchants in
Kioto, Osaka and elsewhere. These exchange companies were partnerships,
though not strictly of the joint-stock kind. They formed the nucleus of
banks in Japan, and their functions included, for the first time, the
receiving of deposits and the lending of money to merchants and
manufacturers. They had power to issue notes, and, at the same time, the
government issued notes on its own account. Indeed, in this latter fact
is to be found one of the motives for organizing the exchange companies,
the idea being that if the state's notes were lent to the companies, the
people would become familiarized with the use of such currency, and the
companies would find them convenient capital. But this system was
essentially unsound: the notes, alike of the treasury and of the
companies, though nominally convertible, were not secured by any fixed
stock of specie. Four years sufficed to prove the unpracticality of such
an arrangement, and in 1872 the exchange companies were swept away, to
be succeeded in July 1873 by the establishment of national banks on a
system which combined some of the features of English banking with the
general bases of American. Each bank had to pay into the treasury 60%
of its capital in government notes. It was credited in return with
interest-bearing bonds, which bonds were to be left in the treasury as
security for the issue of bank-notes to an equal amount, the banks being
required to keep in gold the remaining 40% of their capital as a fund
for converting the notes, which conversion must always be effected on
application. The elaborators of this programme were Ito, Inouye, Okuma
and Shibusawa. They added a provision designed to prevent the
establishment of too small banks, namely, that the capital of each bank
must bear a fixed ratio to the population of its place of business.
Evidently the main object of the treasury was gradually to replace its
own fiat paper with convertible bank-notes. But experience quickly
proved that the scheme was unworkable. The treasury notes had been
issued in such large volume that sharp depreciation had ensued; gold
could not be procured except at a heavy cost, and the balance of foreign
trade being against Japan, some 300,000,000 _yen_ in specie flowed out
of the country between 1872 and 1874.

It should be noted that at this time foreign trade was still invested
with a perilous character in Japanese eyes. In early days, while the
Dutch had free access to her ports, they sold her so much and bought
so little in return that an immense quantity of the precious metals
flowed out of her coffers. Again, when over-sea trade was renewed in
modern times, Japan's exceptional financial condition presented to
foreigners an opportunity of which they did not fail to take full
advantage. For, during her long centuries of seclusion, gold had come
to hold to silver in her coinage a ratio of 1 to 8, so that gold cost,
in terms of silver, only one-half of what it cost in the West. On the
other hand, the treaty gave foreign traders the right to exchange
their own silver coins against Japanese, weight for weight, and thus
it fell out that the foreigner, going to Japan with a supply of
Mexican dollars, could buy with them twice as much gold as they had
cost in Mexico. Japan lost very heavily by this system, and its
effects accentuated the dread with which her medieval experience had
invested foreign commerce. Thus, when the balance of trade swayed
heavily in the wrong direction between 1872 and 1874, the fact created
undue consternation, and moreover there can be no doubt that the
drafters of the bank regulations had over-estimated the quantity of
available gold in the country.

All these things made it impossible to keep the bank-notes long in
circulation. They were speedily returned for conversion; no deposits
came to the aid of the banks, nor did the public make any use of them.
Disaster became inevitable. The two great firms of Ono and Shimada,
which had stood high in the nation's estimation alike in feudal and in
imperial days, closed their doors in 1874; a panic ensued, and the
circulation of money ceased almost entirely.

Change of the Banking System.

Evidently the banking system must be changed. The government bowed to
necessity. They issued a revised code of banking regulations which
substituted treasury notes in the place of specie. Each bank was
thenceforth required to invest 80% of its capital in 6% state bonds,
and these being lodged with the treasury, the bank became competent to
issue an equal quantity of its own notes, forming with the remainder
of its capital a reserve of treasury notes for purposes of redemption.
This was a complete subversion of the government's original scheme.
But no alternative offered. Besides, the situation presented a new
feature. The hereditary pensions of the feudatories had been commuted
with bonds aggregating 174,000,000 _yen_. Were this large volume of
bonds issued at once, their heavy depreciation would be likely to
follow, and moreover their holders, unaccustomed to dealing with
financial problems, might dispose of the bonds and invest the proceeds
in hazardous enterprises. To devise some opportunity for the safe and
profitable employment of these bonds seemed, therefore, a pressing
necessity, and the newly organized national banks offered such an
opportunity. For bond-holders, combining to form a bank, continued to
draw from the treasury 6% on their bonds, while they acquired power to
issue a corresponding amount of notes which could be lent at
profitable rates. The programme worked well. Whereas, up to 1876, only
five banks were established under the original regulations, the number
under the new rule was 151 in 1879, their aggregate capital having
grown in the same interval from 2,000,000 _yen_ to 40,000,000 _yen_,
and their note issues from less than 1,000,000 to over 34,000,000.
Here, then, was a rapidly growing system resting wholly on state
credit. Something like a mania for bank-organizing declared itself,
and in 1878 the government deemed it necessary to legislate against
the establishment of any more national banks, and to limit to
34,000,000 _yen_ the aggregate note issues of those already in
existence.

It is possible that the conditions which prevailed immediately after
the establishment of the national banks might have developed some
permanency had not the Satsuma rebellion broken out in 1877. Increased
taxation to meet military outlay being impossible in such
circumstances, nothing offered except recourse to further note
issues. The result was that by 1881, fourteen years after the
Restoration, notes whose face value aggregated 164,000,000 _yen_ had
been put into circulation; the treasury possessed specie amounting to
only 8,000,000 _yen_, and 18 paper _yen_ could be purchased with 10
silver ones.

Resumption of Specie Payments.

Up to 1881 fitful efforts had been made to strengthen the specie value
of fiat paper by throwing quantities of gold and silver upon the
market from time to time, and 23,000,000 _yen_ had been devoted to the
promotion of industries whose products, it was hoped, would go to
swell the list of exports, and thus draw specie to the country. But
these devices were now finally abandoned, and the government applied
itself steadfastly to reducing the volume of the fiduciary currency on
the one hand, and accumulating a specie reserve on the other. The
steps of the programme were simple. By cutting down administrative
expenditure; by transferring certain charges from the treasury to the
local communes; by suspending all grants in aid of provincial public
works and private enterprises, and by a moderate increase of the tax
on alcohol, an annual surplus of revenue, totalling 7,500,000 _yen_,
was secured. This was applied to reducing the volume of the notes in
circulation. At the same time, it was resolved that all officially
conducted industrial and agricultural works should be sold--since
their purpose of instruction and example seemed now to have been
sufficiently achieved--and the proceeds, together with various
securities (aggregating 26,000,000 _yen_ in face value) held by the
treasury, were applied to the purchase of specie. Had the government
entered the market openly as a seller of its own fiduciary notes, its
credit must have suffered. There were also ample reasons to doubt
whether any available stores of precious metal remained in the
country. In obedience to elementary economical laws, the cheap money
had steadily driven out the dear, and although the government mint at
Osaka, founded in 1871, had struck gold and silver coins worth
80,000,000 _yen_ between that date and 1881, the customs returns
showed that a great part of this metallic currency had flowed out of
the country. In these circumstances Japanese financiers decided that
only one course remained: the treasury must play the part of national
banker. Produce and manufactures destined for export must be purchased
by the state with fiduciary notes, and the metallic proceeds of their
sales abroad must be collected and stored in the treasury. This
programme required the establishment of consulates in the chief marts
of the Occident, and the organization of a great central bank--the
present Bank of Japan--as well as of a secondary bank--the present
Specie Bank of Yokohama--the former to conduct transactions with
native producers and manufacturers, the latter to finance the business
of exportation. The outcome of these various arrangements was that, by
the middle of 1885, the volume of fiduciary notes had been reduced to
119,000,000 _yen_, their depreciation had fallen to 3%, and the
metallic reserve of the treasury had increased to 45,000,000 _yen_.
The resumption of specie payments was then announced, and became, in
the autumn of that year, an accomplished fact. From the time when this
programme began to be effective, Japan entered a period of favourable
balance of trade. According to accepted economic theories, the
influence of an appreciating currency should be to encourage imports;
but the converse was seen in Japan's case, for from 1882 her exports
annually exceeded her imports, the maximum excess being reached in
1886, the very year after the resumption of specie payments.

The above facts deserve to figure largely in a retrospect of Japanese
finance, not merely because they set forth a fine economic feat,
indicating clear insight, good organizing capacity, and courageous
energy, but also because volumes of adverse foreign criticism were
written in the margin of the story during the course of the incidents
it embodies. Now Japan was charged with robbing her own people because
she bought their goods with paper money and sold them for specie;
again, she was accused of an official conspiracy to ruin the foreign
local banks because she purchased exporters' bills on Europe and
America at rates that defied ordinary competition; and while some
declared that she was plainly without any understanding of her own
doings, others predicted that her heroic method of dealing with the
problem would paralyze industry, interrupt trade and produce
widespread suffering. Undoubtedly, to carry the currency of a nation
from a discount of 70 or 80% to par in the course of four years,
reducing its volume at the same time from 160 to 119 million _yen_,
was a financial enterprise violent and daring almost to rashness. The
gentler expedient of a foreign loan would have commended itself to the
majority of economists. But it may be here stated, once for all, that
until her final adoption of a gold standard in 1897, the foreign money
market was practically closed to Japan. Had she borrowed abroad it
must have been on a sterling basis. Receiving a fixed sum in silver,
she would have had to discharge her debt in rapidly appreciating gold.
Twice, indeed, she had recourse to London for small sums, but when she
came to cast up her accounts the cost of the accommodation stood out
in deterrent proportions. A 9% loan, placed in England in 1868 and
paid off in 1889, produced 3,750,000 _yen_, and cost altogether
11,750,000 _yen_ in round figures; and a 7% loan, made in 1872 and
paid off in 1897, produced 10,750,000 _yen_, and cost 36,000,000
_yen_. These considerations were supplemented by a strong aversion
from incurring pecuniary obligations to Western states before the
latter had consented to restore Japan's judicial and tariff autonomy.
The example of Egypt showed what kind of fate might overtake a
semi-independent state falling into the clutches of foreign
bond-holders. Japan did not wish to fetter herself with foreign debts
while struggling to emerge from the rank of Oriental powers.

Closing of the National Banks.

After the revision of the national bank regulations, semi-official
banking enterprise won such favour in public eyes that the government
found it necessary to impose limits. This conservative policy proved
an incentive to private banks and banking companies, so that, by the
year 1883, no less than 1093 banking institutions were in existence
throughout Japan with an aggregate capital of 900,000,000 yen. But
these were entirely lacking in arrangements for combination or for
equalizing rates of interest, and to correct such defects, no less
than ultimately to constitute the sole note-issuing institution, a
central bank (the Bank of Japan) was organized on the model of the
Bank of Belgium, with due regard to corresponding institutions in
other Western countries and to the conditions existing in Japan.
Established in 1882 with a capital of 4,000,000 yen, this bank has now
a capital of 30 millions, a security reserve of 206 millions, a
note-issue of 266 millions, a specie reserve of 160 millions, and
loans of 525 millions.

The banking machinery of the country being now complete, in a general
sense, steps were taken in 1883 for converting the national banks into
ordinary joint-stock concerns and for the redemption of all their
note-issues. Each national bank was required to deposit with the
treasury the government paper kept in its strong room as security for
its own notes, and further to take from its annual profits and hand to
the treasury a sum equal to 2½% of its notes in circulation. With
these funds the central bank was to purchase state bonds, devoting the
interest to redeeming the notes of the national banks. Formed with the
object of disturbing the money market as little as possible, this
programme encountered two obstacles. The first was that, in view of
the Bank of Japan's purchases, the market price of state bonds rose
rapidly, so that, whereas official financiers had not expected them to
reach par before 1897, they were quoted at a considerable premium in
1886. The second was that the treasury having in 1886 initiated the
policy of converting its 6% bonds into 5% consols, the former no
longer produced interest at the rate estimated for the purposes of the
banking scheme. The national banks thus found themselves in an
embarrassing situation and began to clamour for a revision of the
programme. But the government, seeing compensations for them in other
directions, adhered firmly to its scheme. Few problems have caused
greater controversy in modern Japan than this question of the ultimate
fate of the national banks. Not until 1896 could the diet be induced
to pass a bill providing for their dissolution at the close of their
charter terms, or their conversion into ordinary joint-stock concerns
without any note-issuing power, and not until 1899 did their notes
cease to be legal tender. Out of a total of 153 of these banks, 132
continued business as private institutions, and the rest were absorbed
or dissolved. Already (1890 and 1893) minute regulations had been
enacted bringing all the banks and banking institutions--except the
special banks to be presently described--within one system of
semi-annual balance-sheets and official auditing, while in the case of
savings banks the directors' responsibility was declared unlimited and
these banks were required to lodge security with the treasury for the
protection of their depositors.

Special Banks.

Just as the ordinary banks were all centred on the Bank of Japan[24]
and more or less connected with it, so in 1895, a group of special
institutions, called agricultural and commercial banks, were organized
and centred on a hypothec bank, the object of this system being to
supply cheap capital to farmers and manufacturers on the security of
real estate. The hypothec bank had its head office in Tokyo and was
authorized to obtain funds by issuing premium-bearing bonds, while an
agricultural and industrial bank was established in each prefecture
and received assistance from the hypothec bank. Two years later
(1900), an industrial bank--sometimes spoken of as the _crédit
mobilier_ of Japan--was brought into existence under official
auspices, its purpose being to lend money against bonds, debentures
and shares as well as to public corporations. These various
institutions, together with clearing houses, bankers' associations,
the Hokkaido colonial bank, the bank of Formosa, savings banks
(including a post-office savings bank), and a mint complete the
financial machinery of modern Japan.

Review of Banking Development.

Reviewing this chapter of Japan's material development, we find that
whereas, at the beginning of the Meiji era (1867), the nation did not
possess so much as one banking institution worthy of the name, forty
years later it had 2211 banks, with a paid-up capital of £40,000,000,
reserves of £12,000,000, and deposits of £147,000,000; and whereas
there was not one savings bank in 1867, there were 487 in 1906 with
deposits of over £50,000,000. The average yearly dividends of these
banks in the ten years ending 1906 varied between 9.1 and 9.9%.

Insurance.

Necessarily the movement of industrial expansion was accompanied by a
development of insurance business. The beginnings of this kind of
enterprise did not become visible, however, until 1881, and even at
that comparatively recent date no Japanese laws had yet been enacted
for the control of such operations. The commercial code, published in
March 1890, was the earliest legislation which met the need, and from
that time the number of insurance companies and the volume of their
transactions grew rapidly. In 1897, there were 35 companies with a
total paid-up capital of 7,000,000 _yen_ and policies aggregating
971,000,000 _yen_, and in 1906 the corresponding figures were 65
companies, 22,000,000 _yen_ paid up and policies of 4,149,000,000
_yen_. The premium reserves grew in the same period from 7,000,000 to
108,000,000. The net profits of these companies in 1906 were (in round
numbers) 10,000,000 _yen_.

Clearing Houses.

The origin of clearing houses preceded that of insurance companies in
Japan by only two years (1879). Osaka set the example, which was
quickly followed by Tokyo, Kobe, Yokohama, Kioto and Nagoya. In 1898
the bills handled at these institutions amounted to 1,186,000,000
_yen_, and in 1907 to 7,484,000,000 _yen_. Japanese clearing houses
are modelled after those of London and New York.

Bourses.

Exchanges existed in Japan as far back as the close of the 17th
century. At that time the income of the feudal chiefs consisted almost
entirely of rice, and as this was sold to brokers, the latter found it
convenient to meet at fixed times and places for conducting their
business. Originally their transactions were all for cash, but
afterwards they devised time bargains which ultimately developed into
a definite form of exchange. The reform of abuses incidental to this
system attracted the early attention of the Meiji government, and in
1893 a law was promulgated for the control of exchanges, which then
numbered 146. Under this law the minimum share capital of a bourse
constituted as a joint-stock company was fixed at 100,000 _yen_, and
the whole of its property became liable for failure on the part of its
brokers to implement their contracts. There were 51 bourses in 1908.

The Government and Economic Development.

Not less remarkable than this economic development was the large part
acted in it by officialdom. There were two reasons for this. One was
that a majority of the men gifted with originality and foresight were
drawn into the ranks of the administration by the great current of the
revolution; the other, that the feudal system had tended to check
rather than to encourage material development, since the limits of
each fief were also the limits of economical and industrial
enterprise. Ideas for combination and co-operation had been confined
to a few families, and there was nothing to suggest the organization
of companies nor any law to protect them if organized. Thus the
opening of the Meiji era found the Japanese nation wholly unqualified
for the commercial and manufacturing competition in which it was
thenceforth required to engage, and therefore upon those who had
brought the country out of its isolation there devolved the
responsibility of speedily preparing their fellow countrymen for the
new situation. To these leaders banking facilities seemed to be the
first need, and steps were accordingly taken in the manner already
described. But how to educate men of affairs at a moment's notice? How
to replace by a spirit of intelligent progress the ignorance and
conservatism of the hitherto despised traders and artisans? When the
first bank was organized, its two founders--men who had been urged,
nay almost compelled, by officialdom to make the essay--were obliged
to raise four-fifths of the capital themselves, the general public not
being willing to subscribe more than one-fifth--a petty sum of 500,000
yen--and when its staff commenced their duties, they had not the most
shadowy conception of what to do. That was a faithful reflection of
the condition of the business world at large. If the initiative of the
people themselves had been awaited, Japan's career must have been slow
indeed.

Only one course offered, namely, that the government itself should
organize a number of productive enterprises on modern lines, so that
they might serve as schools and also as models. Such, as already noted
under _Industries_, was the programme adopted. It provoked much
hostile criticism from foreign onlookers, who had learned to decry all
official incursions into trade and industry, but had not properly
appreciated the special conditions existing in Japan. The end
justified the means. At the outset of its administration we find the
Meiji government not only forming plans for the circulation of money,
building railways and organizing posts and telegraphs, but also
establishing dockyards, spinning mills, printing-houses, silk-reeling
filatures, paper-making factories and so forth, thus by example
encouraging these kinds of enterprise and by legislation providing for
their safe prosecution. Yet progress was slow. One by one and at long
intervals joint-stock companies came into existence, nor was it until
the resumption of specie payments in 1886 that a really effective
spirit of enterprise manifested itself among the people. Railways,
harbours, mines, spinning, weaving, paper-making, oil-refining,
brick-making, leather-tanning, glass-making and other industries
attracted eager attention, and whereas the capital subscribed for such
works aggregated only 50,000,000 _yen_ in 1886, it exceeded
1,000,000,000 _yen_ in 1906.

Adoption of the Gold Standard.

When specie payments were resumed in 1885, the notes issued by the
Bank of Japan were convertible into silver on demand, the silver
standard being thus definitely adopted, a complete reversal of the
system inaugurated at the establishment of the national banks on
Prince Ito's return from the United States. Japanese financiers
believed from the outset in gold monometallism. But, in the first
place, the country's stock of gold was soon driven out by her
depreciated fiat currency; and, in the second, not only were all other
Oriental nations silver-using, but also the Mexican silver dollar had
long been the unit of account in Far-Eastern trade. Thus Japan
ultimately drifted into silver monometallism, the silver _yen_
becoming her unit of currency. So soon, however, as the indemnity that
she received from China after the war of 1894-95 had placed her in
possession of a stock of gold, she determined to revert to the gold
standard. Mechanically speaking, the operation was very easy. Gold
having appreciated so that its value in terms of silver had exactly
doubled during the first 30 years of the Meiji era, nothing was
necessary except to double the denominations of the gold coins in
terms of _yen_, leaving the silver subsidiary coins unchanged. Thus
the old 5-_yen_ gold piece, weighing 2.22221 _momme_ of 900 fineness,
became a 10-_yen_ piece in the new currency, and a new 5-_yen_ piece
of half the weight was coined. No change whatever was required in the
reckonings of the people. The _yen_ continued to be their coin of
account, with a fixed sterling value of a small fraction over two
shillings, and the denominations of the gold coins were doubled. Gold,
however, is little seen in Japan; the whole duty of currency is done
by notes.

It is not to be supposed that all this economic and financial
development was unchequered by periods of depression and severe panic.
There were in fact six such seasons: in 1874, 1881, 1889, 1897, 1900
and 1907. But no year throughout the whole period failed to witness an
increase in the number of Japan's industrial and commercial companies,
and in the amount of capital thus invested.

State Revenue.

To obtain a comprehensive idea of Japan's state finance, the simplest
method is to set down the annual revenue at quinquennial periods,
commencing with the year 1878-1879, because it was not until 1876 that
the system of duly compiled and published budgets came into existence.

REVENUE (omitting fractions)

+--------+-----------+-------------+-------------+
| | Ordinary |Extraordinary|Total Revenue|
| Year.* | Revenue | Revenue | (millions |
| | (millions | (millions | of _yen_). |
| | of _yen_).| of _yen_). | |
+--------+-----------+-------------+-------------+
| 1878-9 | 53 | 9 | 62 |
| 1883-4 | 76 | 7 | 83 |
| 1888-9 | 74 | 18 | 92 |
| 1893-4 | 86 | 28 | 114 |
| 1898-9 | 133 | 87 | 220 |
| 1903-4 | 224 | 36 | 260 |
| 1908-9 | 476 | 144 | 620 |
+--------+-----------+-------------+-------------+

* The Japanese fiscal year is from April 1 to March 31.

The most striking feature of the above table is the rapid growth of
revenue during the last three periods. So signal was the growth that
the revenue may be said to have sextupled in the 15 years ended 1909.
This was the result of the two great wars in which Japan was involved,
that with China in 1894-95 and that with Russia in 1904-5. The details
will be presently shown.

Turning now to the expenditure and pursuing the same plan, we have the
following figures:--

EXPENDITURE (omitting fractions)

+--------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| | Ordinary |Extraordinary| Total |
| Year. | Expenditures| Expenditures| Expenditures|
| | (millions | (millions | (millions |
| | of _yen_). | of _yen_). | of _yen_). |
+--------+-------------+-------------+-------------+
| 1878-9 | 56 | 5 | 61 |
| 1883-4 | 68 | 15 | 83 |
| 1888-9 | 66 | 15 | 81 |
| 1893-4 | 64 | 20 | 84 |
| 1898-9 | 119 | 101 | 220 |
| 1903-4 | 170 | 80 | 250 |
| 1908-9 | 427 | 193 | 620 |
+--------+-------------+-------------+-------------+

It may be here stated that, with three exceptions, the working of the
budget showed a surplus in every one of the 41 years between 1867 and
1908.

The sources from which revenue is obtained are as follow:--

ORDINARY REVENUE

+--------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| | 1894-5. | 1898-9. | 1903-4. | 1908-9. |
| +---------+---------+---------+---------+
| |millions |millions |millions |millions |
| |of _yen_.|of _yen_.|of _yen_.|of _yen_.|
+--------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+
| Taxes | 70.50 | 96.20 | 146.10 | 299.61 |
| Receipts from | | | | |
| stamps and Public| | | | |
| Undertakings | 14.75 | 33.00 | 96.87 | 164.66 |
| Various Receipts | 4.58 | 3.67 | 8.15 | 11.48 |
+--------------------+---------+---------+---------+---------+

It appears from the above that during 15 years the weight of taxation
increased fourfold. But a correction has to be applied, first, on
account of the tax on alcoholic liquors and, secondly, on account of
customs dues, neither of which can properly be called general imposts.
The former grew from 16 millions in 1894-1895 to 72 millions in
1908-1909, and the latter from 5¼ millions to 41½ millions. If these
increases be deducted, it is found that taxes, properly so called,
grew from 70.5 millions in 1894-1895 to 207.86 millions in 1908-1909,
an increase of somewhat less than three-fold. Otherwise stated, the
burden per unit of population in 1894-1895 was 3s. 6d., whereas in
1908-1909 it was 8s. 4d. To understand the principle of Japanese
taxation and the manner in which the above development took place, it
is necessary to glance briefly at the chief taxes separately.

Land Tax.

The land tax is the principal source of revenue. It was originally
fixed at 3% of the assessed value of the land, but in 1877 this ratio
was reduced to 2½%, on which basis the tax yielded from 37 to 38
million _yen_ annually. After the war with China (1894-1895) the
government proposed to increase this impost in order to obtain funds
for an extensive programme of useful public works and expanded
armaments (known subsequently as the "first _post bellum_ programme").
By that time the market value of agricultural land had largely
appreciated owing to improved communications, and urban land commanded
greatly enhanced prices. But the lower house of the diet, considering
itself guardian of the farmers' interests, refused to endorse any
increase of the tax. Not until 1889 could this resistance be overcome,
and then only on condition that the change should not be operative for
more than 5 years. The amended rates were 3.3% on rural lands and 5%
on urban building sites. Thus altered, the tax produced 46,000,000
_yen_, but at the end of the five-year period it would have reverted
to its old figure, had not war with Russia broken out. An increase was
then made so that the impost varied from 3% to 17½% according to the
class of land, and under this new system the tax yielded 85 millions.
Thus the exigencies of two wars had augmented it from 38 millions in
1889 to 85 millions in 1907.

Income Tax.

The income tax was introduced in 1887. It was on a graduated scale,
varying from 1% on incomes of not less than 300 _yen_, to 3% on
incomes of 30,000 _yen_ and upwards. At these rates the tax yielded an
insignificant revenue of about 2,000,000 _yen_. In 1899, a revision
was effected for the purposes of the first _post bellum_ programme.
This revision increased the number of classes from five to ten,
incomes of 300 _yen_ standing at the bottom and incomes of 100,000
_yen_ or upwards at the top, the minimum and maximum rates being 1%
and 5½%. The tax now produced approximately 8,000,000 _yen_. Finally
in 1904, when war broke out with Russia, these rates were again
revised, the minimum now becoming 2%, and the maximum 8.2%. Thus
revised, the tax yields a revenue of 27,000,000 _yen_.

Business Tax.

The business tax was instituted in 1896, after the war with China, and
the rates have remained unchanged. For the purposes of the tax all
kinds of business are divided into nine classes, and the tax is levied
on the amounts of sales (wholesale and retail), on rental value of
buildings, on number of employees and on amount of capital. The yield
from the tax grows steadily. It was only 4,500,000 _yen_ in 1897, but
it figured at 22,000,000 _yen_ in the budget for 1908-1909.

Tax on Alcoholic Liquors.

The above three imposts constitute the only direct taxes in Japan.
Among indirect taxes the most important is that upon alcoholic
liquors. It was inaugurated in 1871; doubled, roughly speaking, in
1878; still further increased thenceforth at intervals of about 3
years, until it is now approximately twenty times as heavy as it was
originally. The liquor taxed is mainly sake; the rate is about 50
_sen_ (one shilling) per gallon, and the annual yield is 72,000,000
_yen_.

Customs Duties.

In 1859, when Japan re-opened her ports to foreign commerce, the
customs dues were fixed on a basis of 10% _ad valorem_, but this was
almost immediately changed to a nominal 5% and a real 3%. The customs
then yielded a very petty return--not more than three or four million
_yen_--and the Japanese government had no discretionary power to alter
the rates. Strenuous efforts to change this system were at length
successful, and, in 1899, the tariff was divided into two sections,
conventional and statutory; the rates in the former being governed by
a treaty valid for 12 years; those in the latter being fixed at
Japan's will. Things remained thus until the war with Russia
compelled a revision of the statutory tariff. Under this system the
ratio of the duties to the value of the dutiable goods was about
15.65%. The customs yield a revenue of about 42,000,000 _yen_.

Other Taxes.

In addition to the above there are eleven taxes, some in existence
before the war of 1904-5, and some created for the purpose of carrying
on the war or to meet the expenses of a _post bellum_ programme.

Taxes in existence before 1904-1905:--

Yield
Name. (millions of _yen_).

Tax on soy 4
Tax on sugar 16¼
Mining tax 2
Tax on bourses 2
Tax on issue of bank-notes 1
Tonnage dues ½

Taxes created on account of the war (1904-5) or in its immediate
sequel:--

Yield
Name. (millions of _yen_).

Consumption tax on textile fabrics 19½
Tax on dealers in patent medicines ¼
Tax on communications 2(1/3)
Consumption tax on kerosene 1½
Succession tax 1½

Also, as shown above, the land tax was increased by 39 millions; the
income tax by 19 millions; the business tax by 15 millions; and the
tax on alcoholic liquors by 15 millions. On the whole, if taxes of
general incidence and those of special incidence be lumped together,
it appears that the burden swelled from 160,000,000 _yen_ before the
war to 320,000,000 after it.

State Monopolies and Manufactures.

The government of Japan carries on many manufacturing undertakings for
purposes of military and naval equipment, for ship-building, for the
construction of railway rolling stock, for the manufacture of
telegraph and light-house materials, for iron-founding and
steel-making, for printing, for paper-making and so forth. There are
48 of these institutions, giving employment to 108,000 male operatives
and 23,000 female, together with 63,000 labourers. But the financial
results do not appear independently in the general budget. Three other
government undertakings, however, constitute important budgetary
items: they are, the profits derived from the postal and telegraph
services, 39,000,000 _yen_; secondly, from forests, 13,000,000 _yen_;
and thirdly, from railways, 37,000,000 _yen_. The government further
exercises a monopoly of three important staples, tobacco, salt and
camphor. In each case the crude article is produced by private
individuals from whom it is taken over at a fair price by the
government, and, having been manufactured (if necessary), it is resold
by government agents at fixed prices. The tobacco monopoly yields a
profit of some 33,000,000 _yen_; the salt monopoly a profit of
12,000,000 _yen_, and the camphor monopoly a profit of 1,000,000
_yen_. Thus the ordinary revenue of the state consisted in 1908-1909
of:--

_Yen._

Proceeds of taxes 320,000,000
Proceeds of state enterprises (posts and
telegraphs, forests and railways) 89,000,000
Proceeds of monopolies 56,000,000
Sundries 11,000,000
-----------
Total 476,000,000

The ordinary expenditures of the nine departments of state
aggregated--in 1908-1909--427,000,000 _yen_, so that there was a
surplus revenue of 49,000,000 _yen_.

Extraordinary Expenditures.

Japanese budgets have long included an extraordinary section, so
called because it embodies outlays of a special and terminable
character as distinguished from ordinary and perpetually recurring
expenditures. The items in this extraordinary section possessed deep
interest in the years 1896 and 1907, because they disclosed the
special programmes mapped out by Japanese financiers and statesmen
after the wars with China and Russia. Both programmes had the same
bases--expansion of armaments and development of the country's
material resources. After her war with China, Japan received a plain
intimation that she must either fight again after a few years or
resign herself to a career of insignificance on the confines of the
Far East. No other interpretation could be assigned to the action of
Russia, Germany and France in requiring her to retrocede the territory
which she had acquired by right of conquest. Japan therefore made
provision for the doubling of her army and her navy, for the growth of
a mercantile marine qualified to supply a sufficiency of troop-ships,
and for the development of resources which should lighten the burden
of these outlays.

The war with Russia ensued nine years after these preparations had
begun, and Japan emerged victorious. It then seemed to the onlooking
nations that she would rest from her warlike efforts. On the contrary,
just as she had behaved after her war with China, so she now behaved
after her war with Russia--made arrangements to double her army and
navy and to develop her material resources. The government drafted for
the year 1907-1908 a budget with three salient features. First,
instead of proceeding to deal in a leisurely manner with the greatly
increased national debt, Japan's financiers made dispositions to pay
it off completely in the space of 30 years. Secondly, a total outlay
of 422,000,000 _yen_ was set down for improving and expanding the army
and the navy. Thirdly, expenditures aggregating 304,000,000 _yen_ were
estimated for productive purposes. All these outlays, included in the
extraordinary section of the budget, were spread over a series of
years commencing in 1907 and ending in 1913, so that the disbursements
would reach their maximum in the fiscal year 1908-1909 and would
thenceforth decline with growing rapidity. To finance this programme
three constant sources of annual revenue were provided, namely,
increased taxation, yielding some 30 millions yearly; domestic loans,
varying from 30 to 40 millions each year; and surpluses of ordinary
revenue amounting to from 45 to 75 millions. There were also some
exceptional and temporary assets: such as 100,000,000 _yen_ remaining
over from the war fund; 50 millions paid by Russia for the maintenance
of her officers and soldiers during their imprisonment in Japan;
occasional sales of state properties and so forth. But the backbone of
the scheme was the continuing revenue detailed above.

The house of representatives unanimously approved this programme. By
the bulk of the nation, however, it was regarded with something like
consternation, and a very short time sufficed to demonstrate its
impracticability. From the beginning of 1907 a cloud of commercial and
industrial depression settled down upon Japan, partly because of so
colossal a programme of taxes and expenditures, and partly owing to
excessive speculation during the year 1906 and to unfavourable
financial conditions abroad. To float domestic loans became a hopeless
task, and thus one of the three sources of extraordinary revenue
ceased to be available. There remained no alternative but to modify
the programme, and this was accomplished by extending the original
period of years so as correspondingly to reduce the annual outlays.
The nation, however, as represented by its leading men of affairs,
clamoured for still more drastic measures, and it became evident that
the government must study retrenchment, not expansion, eschewing above
all things any increase of the country's indebtedness. A change of
ministry took place, and the new cabinet drafted a programme on five
bases: first, that all expenditures should be brought within the
margin of actual visible revenue, loans being wholly abstained from;
secondly, that the estimates should not include any anticipated
surpluses of yearly revenue; thirdly, that appropriations of at least
50,000,000 _yen_ should be annually set aside to form a sinking fund,
the whole of the foreign debt being thus extinguished in 27 years;
fourthly, that the state railways should be placed in a separate
account, all their profits being devoted to extensions and repairs;
and fifthly, that the period for completing the _post bellum_
programme should be extended from 6 years to 11. This scheme had the
effect of restoring confidence in the soundness of the national
finances.

_National Debt._--When the fiefs were surrendered to the sovereign at
the beginning of the Meiji era, it was decided to provide for the
feudal nobles and the samurai by the payment of lump sums in
commutation, or by handing to them public bonds, the interest on which
should constitute a source of income. The result of this transaction
was that bonds having a total face value of 191,500,000 _yen_ were
issued, and ready-money payments were made aggregating 21,250,000
_yen_.[25] This was the foundation of Japan's national debt. Indeed,
these public bonds may be said to have represented the bulk of the
state's liabilities during the first 25 years of the Meiji period. The
government had also to take over the debts of the fiefs, amounting to
41,000,000 _yen_, of which 21,500,000 _yen_ were paid with
interest-bearing bonds, the remainder with ready money. If to the
above figures be added two foreign loans aggregating 16,500,000 _yen_
(completely repaid by the year 1897); a loan of 15,000,000 _yen_
incurred on account of the Satsuma revolt of 1877; loans of 33,000,000
_yen_ for public works, 13,000,000 _yen_ for naval construction, and
14,500,000 _yen_[26] in connexion with the fiat currency, we have a
total of 305,000,000 _yen_, being the whole national debt of Japan
during the first 28 years of her new era under Imperial
administration.

The second epoch dates from the war with China in 1894-95. The direct
expenditures on account of the war aggregated 200,000,000 _yen_, of
which 135,000,000 _yen_ were added to the national debt, the remainder
being defrayed with accumulations of surplus revenue, with a part of
the indemnity received from China, and with voluntary contributions
from patriotic subjects. As the immediate sequel of the war, the
government elaborated a large programme of armaments and public works.
The expenditure for these unproductive purposes, as well as for coast
fortifications, dockyards, and so on, came to 314,000,000 _yen_, and
the total of the productive expenditures included in the programme was
190,000,000 _yen_--namely, 120 millions for railways, telegraphs and
telephones; 20 millions for riparian improvements; 20 millions in aid
of industrial and agricultural banks and so forth--the whole programme
thus involving an outlay of 504,000,000 _yen_. To meet this large
figure, the Chinese indemnity, surpluses of annual revenue and other
assets, furnished 300 millions; and it was decided that the remaining
204 millions should be obtained by domestic loans, the programme to be
carried completely into operation--with trifling exceptions--by the
year 1905. In practice, however, it was found impossible to obtain
money at home without paying a high rate of interest. The government,
therefore, had recourse to the London market in 1899, raising a loan
of £10,000,000 at 4%, and selling the £100 bonds at 90. In 1902, it
was not expected that Japan would need any further immediate recourse
to foreign borrowing. According to her financiers' forecast at that
time, her national indebtedness would reach its maximum, namely,
575,000,000 _yen_, in the year 1903, and would thenceforward diminish
steadily. All Japan's domestic loans were by that time placed on a
uniform basis. They carried 5% interest, ran for a period of 5 years
without redemption, and were then to be redeemed within 50 years at
latest. The treasury had power to expedite the operation of redemption
according to financial convenience, but the sum expended on
amortization each year must receive the previous consent of the diet.
Within the limit of that sum redemption was effected either by
purchasing the stock of the loans in the open market or by drawing
lots to determine the bonds to be paid off. During the first two
periods (1867 to 1897) of the Meiji era, owing to the processes of
conversion, consolidation, &c., and to the various requirements of the
state's progress, twenty-two different kinds of national bonds were
issued; they aggregated 673,215,500 _yen_; 269,042,198 _yen_ of that
total had been paid off at the close of 1897, and the remainder was to
be redeemed by 1946, according to these programmes.

But at this point the empire became involved in war with Russia, and
the enormous resulting outlays caused a signal change in the financial
situation. Before peace was restored in the autumn of 1905, Japan had
been obliged to borrow 405,000,000 _yen_ at home and 1,054,000,000
abroad, so that she found herself in 1908 with a total debt of
2,276,000,000 _yen_, of which aggregate her domestic indebtedness
stood for 1,110,000,000 and her foreign borrowings amounted to
1,166,000,000. This meant that her debt had grown from 561,000,000
_yen_ in 1904 to 2,276,000,000 _yen_[27] in 1908; or from 11.3 _yen_
to 43.8 _yen_ per head of the population. Further, out of the grand
total, the sum actually spent on account of war and armaments
represented 1,357,000,000 _yen_. The debt carried interest varying
from 4 to 5%.

It will be observed that the country's indebtedness grew by
1,700,000,000 _yen_, in round numbers, owing to the war with Russia.
This added obligation the government resolved to discharge within the
space of 30 years, for which purpose the diet was asked to approve the
establishment of a national debt consolidation fund, which should be
kept distinct from the general accounts of revenue and expenditure,
and specially applied to payment of interest and redemption of
principal. The amount of this fund was never to fall below 110,000,000
_yen_ annually. Immediately after the war, the diet approved a cabinet
proposal for the nationalization of 17 private railways, at a cost of
500,000,000 _yen_, and this brought the state's debts to 2,776,000,000
_yen_ in all. The people becoming impatient of this large burden, a
scheme was finally adopted in 1908 for appropriating a sum of at least
50,000,000 _yen_ annually to the purpose of redemption.

_Local Finance._--Between 1878 and 1888 a system of local autonomy in
matters of finance was fully established. Under this system the total
expenditures of the various corporations in the last year of each
quinquennial period commencing from the fiscal year 1889-1890 were as
follow:--

Total Expenditure
Year. (millions of _yen_).

1889-1890 22
1893-1894 52
1898-1899 97
1903-1904[28] 158
1907-1908 167

In the same years the total indebtedness of the corporations was:--

Debts
Year. (millions of _yen_).

1890 ¾
1894 10
1899 32
1904 65
1907 89[29]

The chief purposes to which the proceeds of these loans were applied
are as follow:--

Millions of _yen_.

Education 5
Sanitation 12
Industries 13
Public works 52

Local corporations are not competent to incur unrestricted
indebtedness. The endorsement of the local assembly must be secured;
redemption must commence within 3 years after the date of issue and be
completed within 30 years; and, except in the case of very small
loans, the sanction of the minister of home affairs must be obtained.

_Wealth of Japan._--With reference to the wealth of Japan, there is no
official census. So far as can be estimated from statistics for the
year 1904-1905, the wealth of Japan proper, excluding Formosa,
Sakhalin and some rights in Manchuria, amounts to about 19,896,000,000
_yen_, the items of which are as follow:--

_Yen_ (10 _yen_ = £1).

Lands 12,301,000,000
Buildings 2,331,000,000
Furniture and fittings 1,080,000,000
Live stock 109,000,000
Railways, telegraphs and telephones 707,000,000
Shipping 376,000,000
Merchandise 873,000,000
Specie and bullion 310,000,000
Miscellaneous 1,809,000,000
--------------
Grand total 19,896,000,000

Early Education.

_Education._--There is no room to doubt that the literature and learning
of China and Korea were transported to Japan in very ancient times, but
tradition is the sole authority for current statements that in the 3rd
century a Korean immigrant was appointed historiographer to the Imperial
court of Japan and another learned man from the same country introduced
the Japanese to the treasures of Chinese literature. About the end of
the 6th century the Japanese court began to send civilians and
religionists direct to China, there to study Confucianism and Buddhism,
and among these travellers there were some who passed as much as 25 or
30 years beyond the sea. The knowledge acquired by these students was
crystallized into a body of laws and ordinances based on the
administrative and legal systems of the Sui dynasty in China, and in the
middle of the 7th century the first Japanese school seems to have been
established by the emperor Tenchi, followed some 50 years later by the
first university. Nara was the site of the latter, and the subjects of
study were ethics, law, history and mathematics.

Not until 794, the date of the transfer of the capital to Kioto,
however, is there any evidence of educational organization on a
considerable scale. A university was then opened in the capital, with
affiliated colleges; and local schools were built and endowed by noble
families, to whose scions admittance was restricted, but for general
education one institution only appears to have been provided. In this
Kioto university the curriculum included the Chinese classics,
calligraphy, history, law, etiquette, arithmetic and composition; while
in the affiliated colleges special subjects were taught, as medicine,
herbalism, acupuncture, shampooing, divination, the almanac and
languages. Admission was limited to youths of high social grade; the
students aggregated some 400, from 13 to 16 years of age; the faculty
included professors and teachers, who were known by the same titles
(_hakase_ and _shi_) as those applied to their successors to-day; and
the government supplied food and clothing as well as books. The family
schools numbered five, and their patrons were the Wage, the Fujiwara,
the Tachibana (one school each) and the Minamoto (two). At the one
institution--opened in 828--where youths in general might receive
instruction, the course embraced only calligraphy and the precepts of
Buddhism and Confucianism.

Combination of Native and Foreign Element.

The above retrospect suggests that Japan, in those early days, borrowed
her educational system and its subjects of study entirely from China.
But closer scrutiny shows that the national factor was carefully
preserved. The ethics of administration required a combination of two
elements, _wakon_, or the soul of Japan, and _kwansai_, or the ability
of China; so that, while adopting from Confucianism the doctrine of
filial piety, the Japanese grafted on it a spirit of unswerving loyalty
and patriotism; and while accepting Buddha's teaching as to three states
of existence, they supplemented it by a belief that in the life beyond
the grave the duty of guarding his country would devolve on every man.
Great academic importance attached to proficiency in literary
composition, which demanded close study of the ideographic script,
endlessly perplexing in form and infinitely delicate in sense. To be
able to compose and indite graceful couplets constituted a passport to
high office as well as to the favour of great ladies, for women vied
with men in this accomplishment. The early years of the 11th century
saw, grouped about the empress Aki, a galaxy of female authors whose
writings are still accounted their country's classics--Murasaki no
Shikibu, Akazome Emon, Izumi Shikibu, Ise Taiyu and several lesser
lights. To the first two Japan owes the _Genji monogatari_ and the _Eiga
monogatari_, respectively, and from the Imperial court of those remote
ages she inherited admirable models of painting, calligraphy, poetry,
music, song and dance. But it is to be observed that all this refinement
was limited virtually to the noble families residing in Kioto, and that
the first object of education in that era was to fit men for office and
for society.

Education in the Middle Ages.

Meanwhile, beyond the precincts of the capital there were rapidly
growing to maturity numerous powerful military magnates who despised
every form of learning that did not contribute to martial excellence. An
illiterate era ensued which reached its climax with the establishment of
feudalism at the close of the 12th century. It is recorded that, about
that time, only one man out of a force of five thousand could decipher
an Imperial mandate addressed to them. Kamakura, then the seat of feudal
government, was at first distinguished for absence of all intellectual
training, but subsequently the course of political events brought
thither from Kioto a number of court nobles whose erudition and
refinement acted as a potent leaven. Buddhism, too, had been from the
outset a strong educating influence. Under its auspices the first great
public library was established (1270) at the temple Shomyo-ji in
Kanazawa. It is said to have contained practically all the Chinese and
Japanese books then existing, and they were open for perusal by every
class of reader. To Buddhist priests, also, Japan owed during many years
all the machinery she possessed for popular education. They organized
schools at the temples scattered about in almost every part of the
empire, and at these _tera-koya_, as they were called, lessons in
ethics, calligraphy, reading and etiquette were given to the sons of
samurai and even to youths of the mercantile and manufacturing classes.

Education in the pre-Meiji Era.

When, at the beginning of the 17th century, administrative supremacy
fell into the hands of the Tokugawa, the illustrious founder of that
dynasty of shoguns, Iyeyasu, showed himself an earnest promoter of
erudition. He employed a number of priests to make copies of Chinese and
Japanese books; he patronized men of learning and he endowed schools. It
does not appear to have occurred to him, however, that the spread of
knowledge was hampered by a restriction which, emanating originally from
the Imperial court in Kioto, forbade any one outside the ranks of the
Buddhist priesthood to become a public teacher. To his fifth successor
Tsunayoshi (1680-1709) was reserved the honour of abolishing this veto.
Tsunayoshi, whatever his faults, was profoundly attached to literature.
By his command a pocket edition of the Chinese classics was prepared,
and the example he himself set in reading and expounding rare books to
audiences of feudatories and their vassals produced something like a
mania for erudition, so that feudal chiefs competed in engaging teachers
and founding schools. The eighth shogun, Yoshimune (1716-1749), was an
even more enlightened ruler. He caused a geography to be compiled and an
astronomical observatory to be constructed; he revoked the veto on the
study of foreign books; he conceived and carried out the idea of
imparting moral education through the medium of calligraphy by preparing
ethical primers whose precepts were embodied in the head-lines of
copy-books, and he encouraged private schools. Iyenari (1787-1838), the
eleventh shogun, and his immediate successor, Iyeyoshi (1838-1853),
patronized learning no less ardently, and it was under the auspices of
the latter that Japan acquired her five classics, the primers of _True
Words_, of _Great Learning_, of _Lesser Learning_, of _Female Ethics_
and of _Women's Filial Piety_.

Thus it may be said that the system of education progressed steadily
throughout the Tokugawa era. From the days of Tsunayoshi the number of
fief schools steadily increased, and as students were admitted free of
all charges, a duty of grateful fealty as well as the impulse of
interfief competition drew thither the sons of all samurai. Ultimately
the number of such schools rose to over 240, and being supported
entirely at the expense of the feudal chiefs, they did no little honour
to the spirit of the era. From 7 to 15 years of age lads attended as day
scholars, being thereafter admitted as boarders, and twice a year
examinations were held in the presence of high officials of the fief.
There were also several private schools where the curriculum consisted
chiefly of moral philosophy, and there were many temple schools, where
ethics, calligraphy, arithmetic, etiquette and, sometimes, commercial
matters were taught. A prominent feature of the system was the bond of
reverential affection uniting teacher and student. Before entering
school a boy was conducted by his father or elder brother to the home of
his future teacher, and there the visitors, kneeling before the teacher,
pledged themselves to obey him in all things and to submit
unquestioningly to any discipline he might impose. Thus the teacher came
to be regarded as a parent, and the veneration paid to him was embodied
in a precept: "Let not a pupil tread within three feet of his teacher's
shadow." In the case of the temple schools the priestly instructor had
full cognisance of each student's domestic circumstances and was guided
by that knowledge in shaping the course of instruction. The universally
underlying principle was, "serve the country and be diligent in your
respective avocations." Sons of samurai were trained in military arts,
and on attaining proficiency many of them travelled about the country,
inuring their bodies to every kind of hardship and challenging all
experts of local fame.

Unfortunately, however, the policy of national seclusion prevented for a
long time all access to the stores of European knowledge. Not until the
beginning of the 18th century did any authorized account of the great
world of the West pass into the hands of the people. A celebrated
scholar (Arai Hakuseki) then compiled two works--_Saiyo kibun_ (_Record
of Occidental Hearsay_), and _Sairan igen_ (_Renderings of Foreign
Languages_)--which embodied much information, obtained from Dutch
sources, about Europe, its conditions and its customs. But of course the
light thus furnished had very restricted influence. It was not
extinguished, however. Thenceforth men's interest centred more and more
on the astronomical, geographical and medical sciences of the West,
though such subjects were not included in academical studies until the
renewal of foreign intercourse in modern times. Then (1857), almost
immediately, the nation turned to Western learning, as it had turned to
Chinese thirteen centuries earlier. The Tokugawa government established
in Yedo an institution called _Bansho-shirabe-dokoro_ (place for
studying foreign books), where Occidental languages were learned and
Occidental works translated. Simultaneously a school for acquiring
foreign medical art (_Seiyo igaku-sho_) was opened, and, a little later
(1862), the _Kaisei-jo_ (place of liberal culture), a college for
studying European sciences, was added to the list of new institutions.
Thus the eve of the Restoration saw the Japanese people already
appreciative of the stores of learning rendered accessible to them by
contact with the Occident.

Commercial Education in Tokugawa Times.

Commercial education was comparatively neglected in the schools. Sons of
merchants occasionally attended the _tera-koya_, but the instruction
they received there had seldom any bearing upon the conduct of trade.
Mercantile knowledge had to be acquired by a system of apprenticeship. A
boy of 9 or 10 was apprenticed for a period of 8 or 9 years to a
merchant, who undertook to support him and teach him a trade. Generally
this young apprentice could not even read or write. He passed through
all the stages of shop menial, errand boy, petty clerk, salesman and
senior clerk, and in the evenings he received instruction from a
teacher, who used for textbooks the manual of letter-writing (_Shosoku
orai_) and the manual of commerce (_Shobai orai_). The latter contained
much useful information, and a youth thoroughly versed in its contents
was competent to discharge responsible duties. When an apprentice,
having attained the position of senior clerk, had given proof of
practical ability, he was often assisted by his master to start business
independently, but under the same firm-name, for which purpose a sum of
capital was given to him or a section of his master's customers were
assigned.

Education in Modern Japan.

When the government of the Restoration came into power, the emperor
solemnly announced that the administration should be conducted on the
principle of employing men of capacity wherever they could be found.
This amounted to a declaration that in choosing officials scholastic
acquirements would thenceforth take precedence of the claims of birth,
and thus unprecedented importance was seen to attach to education. But
so long as the feudal system survived, even in part, no general scheme
of education could be thoroughly enforced, and thus it was not until the
conversion of the fiefs into prefectures in 1871 that the government saw
itself in a position to take drastic steps. A commission of
investigation was sent to Europe and America, and on its return a very
elaborate and extensive plan was drawn up in accordance with French
models, which the commissioners had found conspicuously complete and
symmetrical. This plan subsequently underwent great modifications. It
will be sufficient to say that in consideration of the free education
hitherto provided by the feudatories in their various fiefs, the
government of the restoration resolved not only that the state should
henceforth shoulder the main part of this burden, but also that the
benefits of the system should be extended equally to all classes of the
population, and that the attendance at primary schools should be
compulsory. At the outset the sum to be paid by the treasury was fixed
at 2,000,000 _yen_, that having been approximately the expenditure
incurred by the feudatories. But the financial arrangements suffered
many changes from time to time, and finally, in 1877, the cost of
maintaining the schools became a charge on the local taxes, the central
treasury granting only sums in aid.

Every child, on attaining the age of six, must attend a common
elementary school, where, during a six-years' course, instruction is
given in morals, reading, arithmetic, the rudiments of technical work,
gymnastics and poetry. Year by year the attendance at these schools
has increased. Thus, whereas in the year 1900, only 81.67% of the
school-age children of both sexes received the prescribed elementary
instruction, the figure in 1905 was 94.93%. The desire for instruction
used to be keener among boys than among girls, as was natural in view
of the difference of inducement; but ultimately this discrepancy
disappeared almost completely. Thus, whereas the percentage of girls
attending school was 75.90 in 1900, it rose to 91.46 in 1905, and the
corresponding figures for boys were 90.55 and 97.10 respectively. The
tuition fee paid at a common elementary school in the rural districts
must not exceed 5s. yearly, and in the urban districts, 10s.; but in
practice it is much smaller, for these elementary schools form part of
the communal system, and such portion of their expenses as is not
covered by tuition fees, income from school property and miscellaneous
sources, must be defrayed out of the proceeds of local taxation. In
1909 there were 18,160 common elementary schools, and also 9105
schools classed as elementary but having sections where, subsequently
to the completion of the regular curriculum, a special supplementary
course of study might be pursued in agriculture, commerce or industry
(needle-work in the case of girls). The time devoted to these special
courses is two, three or four years, according to the degree of
proficiency contemplated, and the maximum fees are 15d. per month in
urban districts and one-half of that amount in rural districts.

There are also 294 kindergartens, with an attendance of 26,000
infants, whose parents pay 3d. per month on the average for each
child. In general the kindergartens are connected with elementary
schools or with normal schools.

If a child, after graduation at a common elementary school, desires to
extend its education, it passes into a common middle school, where
training is given for practical pursuits or for admission to higher
educational institutions. The ordinary curriculum at a common middle
school includes moral philosophy, English language, history,
geography, mathematics, natural history, natural philosophy,
chemistry, drawing and the Japanese language. Five years are required
to graduate, and from the fourth year the student may take up a
special technical course as well as the main course; or, in accordance
with local requirements, technical subjects may be taught conjointly
with the regular curriculum throughout the whole time. The law
provides that there must be at least one common middle school in each
prefecture. The actual number in 1909 was 216.

Great inducements attract attendance at a common middle school. Not
only does the graduation certificate carry considerable weight as a
general qualification, but it also entitles a young man to volunteer
for one year's service with the colours, thus escaping one of the two
years he would have to serve as an ordinary conscript.

The graduate of a common middle school can claim admittance, without
examination, to a high school, where he spends three years preparing
to pass to a university, or four years studying a special subject, as
law, engineering or medicine. By following the course in a high
school, a youth obtains exemption from conscription until the age of
28, when one year as a volunteer will free him from all service with
the colours. A high-school certificate of graduation entitles its
holder to enter a university without examination, and qualifies him
for all public posts.

For girls also high schools are provided, the object being to give a
general education of higher standard. Candidates for admission must be
over 12 years of age, and must have completed the second-year course
of a higher elementary school. The regular course of study requires 4
years, and supplementary courses as well as special art courses may be
taken.

In addition to the schools already enumerated, which may be said to
constitute the machinery of general education, there are special
schools, generally private, and technical schools (including a few
private), where instruction is given in medicine and surgery,
agriculture, commerce, mechanics, applied chemistry, navigation,
electrical engineering, art (pictorial and applied), veterinary
science, sericulture and various other branches of industry. There are
also apprentices' schools, classed under the heading of elementary,
where a course of not less than six months, and not more than four
years, may be taken in dyeing and weaving, embroidery, the making of
artificial flowers, tobacco manufacture, sericulture, reeling silk,
pottery, lacquer, woodwork, metal-work or brewing. There are also
schools--nearly all supported by private enterprise--for the blind and
the dumb.

Normal schools are maintained for the purpose of training teachers, a
class of persons not plentiful in Japan, doubtless because of an
exceptionally low scale of emoluments, the yearly pay not exceeding
£60 and often falling as low as £15.

There are two Imperial universities, one in Tokyo and one in Kioto. In
1909 the former had about 220 professors and instructors and 2880
students. Its colleges number six: law, medicine, engineering,
literature, science and agriculture. It has a university hall where
post-graduate courses are studied, and it publishes a quarterly
journal giving accounts of scientific researches, which indicate not
only large erudition, but also original talent. The university of
Kioto is a comparatively new institution and has not given any signs
of great vitality. In 1909 its colleges numbered four: law, medicine,
literature and science; its faculty consisted of about 60 professors
with 70 assistants, and its students aggregated about 1100.

Except in the cases specially indicated, all the figures given above
are independent of private educational institutions. The system
pursued by the state does not tend to encourage private education, for
unless a private school brings its curriculum into exact accord with
that prescribed for public institutions of corresponding grade, its
students are denied the valuable privilege of partial exemption from
conscription, as well as other advantages attaching to state
recognition. Thus the quality of the instruction being nominally the
same, the rate of fees must also be similar, and no margin offers to
tempt private enterprise.

Public education in Japan is strictly secular: no religious teaching
of any kind is permitted in the schools. There are about 100
libraries. Progress is marked in this branch, the rate of growth
having been from 43 to 100 in the five-year period ended 1905. The
largest library is the Imperial, in Tokyo. It had about half a million
volumes in 1909, and the daily average of visitors was about 430.

Apart from the universities, the public educational institutions in
Japan involve an annual expenditure of 3½ millions sterling, out of
which total a little more than half a million is met by students'
fees; 2¾ millions are paid by the communes, and the remainder is
defrayed from various sources, the central government contributing
only some £28,000. It is estimated that public school property--in
land, buildings, books, furniture, &c., aggregates 11 millions
sterling.

VII.--RELIGION

Shinto.

The primitive religion of Japan is known by the name of Shinto, which
signifies "the divine way," but the Japanese maintain that this term is
of comparatively modern application. The term Shinto being obviously of
Chinese origin, cannot have been used in Japan before she became
acquainted with the Chinese language. Now Buddhism did not reach Japan
until the 6th century, and a knowledge of the Chinese language had
preceded it by only a hundred years. It is therefore reasonable to
conclude that the primitive religion of Japan had no name, and that it
did not begin to be called Shinto until Buddhism had entered the field.
The two creeds remained distinct, though not implacably antagonistic,
until the beginning of the 9th century, when they were welded together
into a system of doctrine to which the name _Ryobu-Shinto_ (dual Shinto)
was given. In this new creed the Shinto deities were regarded as avatars
of Buddhist divinities, and thus it may be said that Shinto was absorbed
into Buddhism. Probably that would have been the fate of the indigenous
creed in any circumstances, for a religion without a theory as to a
future state and without any code of moral duties could scarcely hope to
survive contact with a faith so well equipped as Buddhism in these
respects. But Shinto, though absorbed, was not obliterated. Its beliefs
survived; its shrines survived; its festivals survived, and something of
its rites survived also.

Shinto, indeed, may be said to be entwined about the roots of Japan's
national existence. Its scripture--as the _Kojiki_ must be
considered--resembles the Bible in that both begin with the cosmogony.
But it represents the gods as peopling the newly created earth with
their own offspring instead of with human beings expressly made for the
purpose. The actual work of creation was done by a male deity, Izanagi,
and a female deity, Izanami. From the right eye of the former was born
Amaterasu, who became goddess of the sun; from his left eye, the god of
the moon; and from his nose, a species of Lucifer. The grandson of the
sun goddess was the first sovereign of Japan, and his descendants have
ruled the land in unbroken succession ever since, the 121st being on the
throne in 1909. Thus it is to Amaterasu (the heaven-illuminating
goddess) that the Japanese pay reverence above all other deities, and it
is to her shrine at Ise that pilgrims chiefly flock.

The story of creation, as related in the _Kojiki_, is obviously based on
a belief that force is indestructible, and that every exercise of it is
productive of some permanent result. Thus by the motions of the creative
spirit there spring into existence all the elements that go to make up
the universe, and these, being of divine origin, are worshipped and
propitiated. Their number becomes immense when we add the deified ghosts
of ancestors who were descended from the gods and whose names are
associated with great deeds. These ancestors are often regarded as the
tutelary deities of districts, where they receive special homage and
where shrines are erected to them. The method of worship consists in
making offerings and in the recital of rituals (_norito_). Twenty-seven
of these rituals were reduced to writing and embodied in a work called
_Engishiki_ (927). Couched in antique language, these liturgies are
designed for the dedication of shrines, for propitiating evil, for
entreating blessings on the harvest, for purification, for obtaining
household security, for bespeaking protection during a journey, and so
forth. Nowhere is any reference found to a future state of reward or
punishment, to deliverance from evil, to assistance in the path of
virtue. One ceremonial only is designed to avert the consequences of sin
or crime; namely, the rite of purification, which, by washing with water
and by the sacrifice of valuables, removes the pollution resulting from
all wrong-doing. Originally performed on behalf of individuals, this
_o-barai_ ultimately came to be a semi-annual ceremony for sweeping away
the sins of all the people.

Shinto is thus a mixture of ancestor-worship and of nature-worship
without any explicit code of morals. It regards human beings as virtuous
by nature; assumes that each man's conscience is his best guide; and
while believing in a continued existence beyond the grave, entertains no
theory as to its pleasures or pains. Those that pass away become
disembodied spirits, inhabiting the world of darkness (_yomi-no-yo_) and
possessing power to bring sorrow or joy into the lives of their
survivors, on which account they are worshipped and propitiated. Purity
and simplicity being essential characteristics of the cult, its shrines
are built of white wood, absolutely without decorative features of any
kind, and fashioned as were the original huts of the first Japanese
settlers. There are no graven images--a fact attributed by some critics
to ignorance of the glyptic art on the part of the original
worshippers--but there is an emblem of the deity, which generally takes
the form of a sword, a mirror or a so-called jewel, these being the
insignia handed by the sun goddess to her grandson, the first ruler of
Japan. This emblem is not exposed to public view: it is enveloped in
silk and brocade and enclosed in a box at the back of the shrine. The
mirror sometimes prominent is a Buddhist innovation and has nothing to
do with the true emblem of the creed.

From the 9th century, when Buddhism absorbed Shinto, the two grew
together so intimately that their differentiation seemed hopeless. But
in the middle of the 17th century a strong revival of the indigenous
faith was effected by the efforts of a group of illustrious scholars and
politicians, at whose head stood Mabuchi, Motoori and Hirata. These men
applied themselves with great diligence and acumen to reproduce the pure
Shinto of the _Kojiki_ and to restore it to its old place in the
nation's reverence, their political purpose being to educate a spirit of
revolt against the feudal system which deprived the emperor of
administrative power. The principles thus revived became the basis of
the restoration of 1867; Shinto rites and Shinto rituals were readopted,
and Buddhism fell for a season into comparative disfavour, Shinto being
regarded as the national religion. But Buddhism had twined its roots too
deeply around the heart of the people to be thus easily torn up. It
gradually recovered its old place, though not its old magnificence, for
its disestablishment at the hands of the Meiji government robbed it of a
large part of its revenues.

Buddhism.

Buddhism entered China at the beginning of the Christian era, but not
until the 4th century did it obtain any strong footing. Thence, two
centuries later (522), it reached Japan through Korea. The reception
extended to it was not encouraging at first. Its images and its
brilliant appurtenances might well deter a nation which had never seen
an idol nor ever worshipped in a decorated temple. But the ethical
teachings and the positive doctrines of the foreign faith presented an
attractive contrast to the colourless Shinto. After a struggle, not
without bloodshed, Buddhism won its way. It owed much to the active
patronage of Shotoku taishi, prince-regent during the reign of the
empress Suiko (593-621). At his command many new temples were built; the
country was divided into dioceses under Buddhist prelates; priests were
encouraged to teach the arts of road-making and bridge-building, and
students were sent to China to investigate the mysteries of the faith at
its supposed fountain-head. Between the middle of the 7th century and
that of the 8th, six sects were introduced from China, all imperfect and
all based on the teachings of the Hinayana system. Up to this time the
propagandists of the creed had been chiefly Chinese and Korean teachers.
But from the 8th century onwards, when Kioto became the permanent
capital of the empire, Japanese priests of lofty intelligence and
profound piety began to repair to China and bring thence modified forms
of the doctrines current there. It was thus that Dengyo daishi (c. 800)
became the founder of the Tendai (heavenly tranquillity) sect and Kobo
daishi (774-834) the apostle of the Shingon (true word). Other sects
followed, until the country possessed six principal sects in all with
thirty-seven sub-sects. It must be remembered that Buddhism offers an
almost limitless field for eclecticism. There is not in the world any
literary production of such magnitude as the Chinese scriptures of the
Mahayana. "The canon is seven hundred times the amount of the New
Testament. Hsüan Tsang's translation of the _Prajna paramita_ is
twenty-five times as large as the whole Christian Bible."

It is natural that out of such a mass of doctrine different systems
should be elaborated. The Buddhism that came to Japan prior to the days
of Dengyo daishi was that of the Vaipulya school, which seems to have
been accepted in its entirety. But the Tendai doctrines, introduced by
Dengyo, Iikaku and other fellow-thinkers, though founded mainly on the
_Saddharma pundarika_, were subjected to the process of eclecticism
which all foreign institutions undergo at Japanese hands. Dengyo studied
it in the monastery of Tientai which "had been founded towards the close
of the 6th century of our era on a lofty range of mountains in the
province of Chehkiang by the celebrated preacher Chikai" (Lloyd,
"Developments of Japanese Buddhism," _Transactions of the Asiatic
Society of Japan_, vol. xxii.), and carrying it to Japan he fitted its
disciplinary and meditative methods to the foundations of the sects
already existing there.

This eclecticism was even more marked in the case of the Shingon (true
word) doctrines, taught by Dengyo's illustrious contemporary, Kobo
daishi, who was regarded as the incarnation of Vairocana. He led his
countrymen, by a path almost wholly his own, from the comparatively low
platform of Hinayana Buddhism, whose sole aim is individual salvation,
to the Mahayana doctrine, which teaches its devotee to strive after
perfect enlightenment, not for his own sake alone, but also that he may
help his fellows and intercede for them. Then followed the Jodo (Pure
Land) sect, introduced in 1153 by a priest, Senku, who is remembered by
later generations as Honen shonin. He taught salvation by faith
ritualistically expressed. The virtue that saves comes, not from
imitation of and conformity to the person and character of the saviour
Amida, but from blind trust in his efforts and ceaseless repetition of
pious formulae. It is really a religion of despair rather than of hope,
and in that respect it reflects the profound sympathy awakened in the
bosom of its teacher by the sorrows and sufferings of the troublous
times in which he lived.

A favourite pupil of Honen shonin was Shinran (1173-1262). He founded
the Jodo Shinshu (true sect of jodo), commonly called simply Shinshu and
sometimes Monto, which subsequently became the most influential of
Japanese sects, with its splendid monasteries, the two Hongwana-ji in
Kioto. The differences between the doctrines of this sect and those of
its predecessors were that the former "divested itself of all
metaphysics"; knew nothing of a philosophy of religion, dispensed with a
multiplicity of acts of devotion and the keeping of many commandments;
did not impose any vows of celibacy or any renunciation of the world,
and simply made faith in Amida the all in all. In modern days the
Shinshu sect has been the most progressive of all Buddhist sects and has
freely sent forth its promising priests to study in Europe and America.
Its devotees make no use of charms or spells, which are common among the
followers of other sects.

Anterior by a few years to that introduction of the Shinshu was the Zen
sect, which has three main divisions, the Rinzai (1168), the Soto (1223)
and the Obaku (1650). This is essentially a contemplative sect. Truth is
reached by pure contemplation, and knowledge can be transmitted from
heart to heart without the use of words. In that simple form the
doctrine was accepted by the Rinzai believers. But the founders of the
Soto branch--Shoyo taishi and Butsuji zenshi--added scholarship and
research to contemplation, and taught that the "highest wisdom and the
most perfect enlightenment are attained when all the elements of
phenomenal existence are recognized as empty, vain and unreal." This
creed played an important part in the development of Bushido, and its
priests have always been distinguished for erudition and indifference to
worldly possessions.

Last but not least important among Japanese sects of Buddhism is the
Nichiren or Hokke, called after its founder, Nichiren (1222-1282). It
was based on the _Saddharma pundarika_, and it taught that there was
only one true Buddha--the moon in the heavens--the other Buddhas being
like the moon reflected in the waters, transient, shadowy reflections of
the Buddha of truth. It is this being who is the source of all
phenomenal existence, and in whom all phenomenal existence has its
being. The imperfect Buddhism teaches a chain of cause and effect; true
Buddhism teaches that the first link in this chain of cause and effect
is the Buddha of original enlightenment. When this point has been
reached true wisdom has at length been attained. Thus the monotheistic
faith of Christianity was virtually reached in one God in whom all
creatures "live, move and have their being." It will readily be
conceived that these varied doctrines caused dissension and strife among
the sects professing them. Sectarian controversies and squabbles were
nearly as prominent among Japanese Buddhists as they were among European
Christians, but to the credit of Buddhism it has to be recorded that the
stake and the rack never found a place among its instruments of
self-assertion. On the other hand, during the wars that devastated Japan
from the 12th to the end of the 16th century, many of the monasteries
became military camps, and the monks, wearing armour and wielding
glaives, fought in secular as well as religious causes.

Christianity in Modern Japan.

The story of the first Christian missionaries to Japan is told
elsewhere (see § VIII. FOREIGN INTERCOURSE). Their work suffered an
interruption for more than 200 years until, in 1858, almost
simultaneously with the conclusion of the treaties, a small band of
Catholic fathers entered Japan from the Riukiu islands, where they had
carried on their ministrations since 1846. They found that, in the
neighbourhood of Nagasaki, there were some small communities where
Christian worship was still carried on. It would seem that these
communities had not been subjected to any severe official scrutiny.
But the arrival of the fathers revived the old question, and the
native Christians, or such of them as refused to apostatize, were
removed from their homes and sent into banishment. This was the last
example of religious intolerance in Japan. At the instance of the
foreign representatives in Tokyo the exiles were set at liberty in
1873, and from that time complete freedom of conscience existed in
fact, though it was not declared by law until the promulgation of the
constitution in 1889. In 1905 there were 60,000 Roman Catholic
converts in Japan forming 360 congregations, with 130 missionaries and
215 teachers, including 145 nuns. These were all European. They were
assisted by 32 Japanese priests, 52 Japanese nuns, 280 male catechists
and 265 female catechists and nurses. Three seminaries for native
priests existed, together with 58 schools and orphanages and two
lepers' homes. The whole was presided over by an archbishop and three
bishops.

The Anglican Church was established in Japan in 1859 by two American
clergymen who settled in Nagasaki, and now, in conjunction with the
Episcopal Churches of America and Canada, it has missions collectively
designated Nihon Sei-Kokai. There are 6 bishops--2 American and 4
English--with about 60 foreign and 50 Japanese priests and deacons,
besides many foreign lay workers of both sexes and Japanese catechists
and school teachers. The converts number 11,000. The Protestant
missions include Presbyterian (Nihon Kirisuto Kyokai), Congregational
(Kumi-ai), Methodist, Baptist and the Salvation Army (Kyusei-gun). The
pioneer Protestant mission was founded in 1859 by representatives of
the American Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed Churches. To this mission
belongs the credit of having published, in 1880, the first complete
Japanese version of the New Testament, followed by the Old Testament
in 1887. The Presbyterians, representing 7 religious societies, have
over a hundred missionaries; 12,400 converts; a number of boarding
schools for boys and girls and day schools. The Congregational
churches are associated exclusively with the mission of the American
board of commissioners for foreign missions. They have about 11,400
converts, and the largest Christian educational institution in Japan,
namely, the Doshisha in Kioto. The Methodists represent 6 American
societies and 1 Canadian. They have 130 missionaries and 10,000
converts; boarding schools, day schools, and the most important
Christian college in Tokyo, namely, the Awoyama Gaku-in. The Baptists
represent 4 American societies; have 60 missionaries, a theological
seminary, an academy for boys, boarding schools for girls, day schools
and 3500 converts. The Salvation Army, which did not enter Japan until
1895, has organized 15 corps, and publishes ten thousand copies of a
fortnightly magazine, the _War Cry_ (_Toki no Koe_). Finally, the
Society of Friends, the American and London Religious Tract Societies
and the Young Men's Christian Association have a number of missions.
It will be seen from the above that the missionaries in Japan, in the
space of half a century (1858 to 1908), had won 110,000 converts, in
round numbers. To these must be added the Orthodox Russian Church,
which has a fine cathedral in Tokyo, a staff of about 40 Japanese
priests and deacons and 27,000 converts, the whole presided over by a
bishop. Thus the total number of converts becomes 137,000. In spite
of the numerous sects represented in Japan there has been virtually no
sectarian strife, and it may be said of the Japanese converts that
they concern themselves scarcely at all about the subtleties of dogma
which divide European Christianity. Their tendency is to consider only
the practical aspects of the faith as a moral and ethical guide. They
are disposed, also, to adapt the creed to their own requirements just
as they adapted Buddhism, and this is a disposition which promises to
grow.

VIII.--FOREIGN INTERCOURSE

_Foreign Intercourse in Early and Medieval Times._--There can be no
doubt that commerce was carried on by Japan with China and Korea earlier
that the 8th century of the Christian era. It would appear that from the
very outset over-sea trade was regarded as a government monopoly.
Foreigners were allowed to travel freely in the interior of the country
provided that they submitted their baggage for official inspection and
made no purchases of weapons of war, but all imported goods were bought
in the first place by official appraisers who subsequently sold them to
the people at arbitrarily fixed prices. Greater importance attached to
the trade with China under the Ashikaga shoguns (14th, 15th and 16th
centuries), who were in constant need of funds to defray the cost of
interminable military operations caused by civil disturbances. In this
distress they turned to the neighbouring empire as a source from which
money might be obtained. This idea seems to have been suggested to the
shogun Takauji by a Buddhist priest, when he undertook the construction
of the temple Tenryu-ji. Two ships laden with goods were fitted out, and
it was decided that the enterprise should be repeated annually. Within a
few years after this development of commercial relations between the two
empires, an interruption occurred owing partly to the overthrow of the
Yuen Mongols by the Chinese Ming, and partly to the activity of Japanese
pirates and adventurers who raided the coasts of China. The shogun
Yoshimitsu (1368-1394), however, succeeded in restoring commercial
intercourse, though in order to effect his object he consented that
goods sent from Japan should bear the character of tribute and that he
himself should receive investiture at the hands of the Chinese emperor's
ambassador. The Nanking government granted a certain number of
commercial passports, and these were given by the shogun to Ouchi,
feudal chief of Cho-shu, which had long been the principal port for
trade with the neighbouring empire. Tribute goods formed only a small
fraction of a vessel's cargo: the bulk consisted of articles which were
delivered into the government's stores in China, payment being received
in copper cash. It was from this transaction that the shogun derived a
considerable part of his profits, for the articles did not cost him
anything originally, being either presents from the great temples and
provincial governors or compulsory contributions from the house of
Ouchi. As for the gifts by the Chinese government and the goods shipped
in China, they were arbitrarily distributed among the noble families in
Japan at prices fixed by the shogun's assessor. Thus, so far as the
shogun was concerned, these enterprises could not fail to be lucrative.
They also brought large profits to the Ouchi family, for, in the absence
of competition, the products and manufactures of each country found
ready sale in the markets of the other. The articles found most suitable
in China were swords, fans, screens, lacquer wares, copper and agate,
and the goods brought back to Japan were brocade and other silk fabrics,
ceramic productions, jade and fragrant woods. The Chinese seem to have
had a just appreciation of the wonderful swords of Japan. At first they
were willing to pay the equivalent of 12 guineas for a pair of blades,
but by degrees, as the Japanese began to increase the supply, the price
fell, and at the beginning of the 16th century all the diplomacy of the
Japanese envoys was needed to obtain good figures for the large and
constantly growing quantity of goods that they took over by way of
supplement to the tribute. Buddhist priests generally enjoyed the
distinction of being selected as envoys, for experience showed that
their subtle reasoning invariably overcame the economical scruples of
the Chinese authorities and secured a fine profit for their master, the
shogun. In the middle of the 16th century these tribute-bearing
missions came to an end with the ruin of the Ouchi family and the
overthrow of the Ashikaga shoguns, and they were never renewed.

With Korea.

Japan's medieval commerce with Korea was less ceremonious than that with
China. No passports had to be obtained from the Korean government. A
trader was sufficiently equipped when he carried a permit from the So
family, which held the island of Tsushima in fief. Fifty vessels were
allowed to pass yearly from ports in Japan to the three Japanese
settlements in Korea. Little is recorded about the nature of this trade,
but it was rudely interrupted by the Japanese settlers, who, offended at
some arbitrary procedure on the part of the local Korean authorities,
took up arms (A.D. 1510) and at first signally routed the Koreans. An
army from Seoul turned the tables, and the Japanese were compelled to
abandon the three settlements. Subsequently the shogun's
government--which had not been concerned in the struggle--approached
Korea with amicable proposals, and it was agreed that the ringleaders of
the raiders should be decapitated and their heads sent to Seoul, Japan's
compliance with this condition affording, perhaps, a measure of the
value she attached to neighbourly friendship. Thenceforth the number of
vessels was limited to 25 annually and the settlements were abolished.
Some years later, the Japanese again resorted to violent acts of
self-assertion, and on this occasion, although the offenders were
arrested by order of the shogun Yoshiharu, and handed over to Korea for
punishment, the Seoul court persisted in declining to restore the system
of settlements or to allow the trade to be resumed on its former basis.
Fifty years afterwards the taiko's armies invaded Korea, overrunning it
for seven years, and leaving, when they retired in 1598, a country so
impoverished that it no longer offered any attraction to commercial
enterprise from beyond the sea.

With Occidental Nations.

The Portuguese discovered Japan by accident in 1542 or 1543--the exact
date is uncertain. On a voyage to Macao from Siam, a junk carrying three
Portuguese was blown from her course and fetched Tanegashima, a small
island lying south of the province of Satsuma. The Japanese, always
hospitable and inquisitive, welcomed the newcomers and showed special
curiosity about the arquebuses carried by the Portuguese, fire-arms
being then a novelty in Japan and all weapons of war being in great
request. Conversation was impossible, of course, but, by tracing
ideographs upon the sand, a Chinese member of the crew succeeded in
explaining the cause of the junk's arrival. She was then piloted to a
more commodious harbour, and the Portuguese sold two arquebuses to the
local feudatory, who immediately ordered his armourer to manufacture
similar weapons. Very soon the news of the discovery reached all the
Portuguese settlements in the East, and at least seven expeditions were
fitted out during the next few years to exploit this new market. Their
objective points were all in the island of Kiushiu--the principal stage
where the drama--ultimately converted into a tragedy--of Christian
propagandism and European commercial intercourse was acted in the
interval between 1542 and 1637.

Arrival of the Jesuits.

It does not appear that the Jesuits at Macao, Goa or other centres of
Portuguese influence in the East took immediate advantage of the
discovery of Japan. The pioneer propagandist was Francis Xavier, who
landed at Kagoshima on the 15th of August 1549. During the interval of
six (or seven) years that separated this event from the drifting of the
junk to Tanegashima, the Portuguese had traded freely in the ports of
Kiushiu, had visited Kioto, and had reported the Japanese capital to be
a city of 96,000 houses, therefore larger than Lisbon. Xavier would
certainly have gone to Japan even though he had not been specially
encouraged, for the reports of his countrymen depicted the Japanese as
"very desirous of being instructed," and he longed to find a field more
promising than that inhabited by "all these Indian nations, barbarous,
vicious and without inclination to virtue." There were, however, two
special determinants. One was a request addressed by a feudatory,
supposed to have been the chief of the Bungo fief, to the viceroy of
the Indies at Goa; the other, an appeal made in person by a Japanese
named Yajiro, whom the fathers spoke of as Anjiro, and who subsequently
attained celebrity under his baptismal name, Paul of the holy faith. No
credible reason is historically assigned for the action of the Japanese
feudatory. Probably his curiosity had been excited by accounts which the
Portuguese traders gave of the noble devotion of their country's
missionaries, and being entirely without bigotry, as nearly all Japanese
were at that epoch, he issued the invitation partly out of curiosity and
partly from a sincere desire for progress. Anjiro's case was very
different. Labouring under stress of repentant zeal, and fearful that
his evil acts might entail murderous consequences, he sought an asylum
abroad, and was taken away in 1548 by a Portuguese vessel whose master
advised him to repair to Malacca for the purpose of confessing to
Xavier. This might well have seemed to the Jesuits a providential
dispensation, for Anjiro, already able to speak Portuguese, soon
mastered it sufficiently to interpret for Xavier and his
fellow-missionaries (without which aid they must have remained long
helpless in the face of the immense difficulty of the Japanese
language), and to this linguistic skill he added extraordinary gifts of
intelligence and memory. Xavier, with two Portuguese companions and
Anjiro, were excellently received by the feudal chiefs of Satsuma and
obtained permission to preach their doctrine in any part of the fief.
This permit is not to be construed as an evidence of official sympathy
with the foreign creed. Commercial considerations alone were in
question. A Japanese feudal chief in that era had sedulously to foster
every source of wealth or strength, and as the newly opened trade with
the outer world seemed full of golden promise, each feudatory was not
less anxious to secure a monopoly of it in the 16th century than the
Ashikaga shoguns had been in the 15th. The Satsuma daimyo was led to
believe that the presence of the Jesuits in Kagoshima would certainly
prelude the advent of trading vessels. But within a few months one of
the expected merchantmen sailed to Hirado without touching at Kagoshima,
and her example was followed by two others in the following year, so
that the Satsuma chief saw himself flouted for the sake of a petty
rival, Matsudaira of Hirado. This fact could not fail to provoke his
resentment. But there was another influence at work. Buddhism has always
been a tolerant religion, eclectic rather than exclusive. Xavier,
however, had all the bigoted intolerance of his time. The Buddhist
priests in Kagoshima received him with courtesy and listened
respectfully to the doctrines he expounded through the mouth of Anjiro.
Xavier rejoined with a display of aggressive intolerance which shocked
and alienated the Buddhists. They represented to the Satsuma chief that
peace and good order were inconsistent with such a display of militant
propagandism, and he, already profoundly chagrined by his commercial
disappointment, issued in 1550 an edict making it a capital offence for
any of his vassals to embrace Christianity. Xavier, or, more correctly
speaking, Anjiro, had won 150 converts, who remained without
molestation, but Xavier himself took ship for Hirado. There he was
received with salvoes of artillery by the Portuguese merchantmen lying
in the harbour and with marks of profound respect by the Portuguese
traders, a display which induced the local chief to issue orders that
courteous attention should be paid to the teaching of the foreign
missionaries. In ten days a hundred baptisms took place; another
significant index of the mood of the Japanese in the early era of
Occidental intercourse: the men in authority always showed a complaisant
attitude towards Christianity where trade could be fostered by so doing,
and wherever the men in authority showed such an attitude, considerable
numbers of the lower orders embraced the foreign faith. Thus, in
considering the commercial history of the era, the element of religion
constantly thrusts itself into the foreground.

First Visit of Europeans to Kioto.

Xavier next resolved to visit Kioto. The first town of importance he
reached on the way was Yamaguchi, capital of the Choshu fief, situated
on the northern shore of the Shimonoseki Strait. There the feudal chief,
Ouchi, though sufficiently courteous and inquisitive, showed no special
cordiality towards humble missionaries unconnected with commerce, and
the work of proselytizing made no progress, so that Xavier and his
companion, Fernandez, pushed on to Kioto. The time was mid-winter; the
two fathers suffered terrible privations during their journey of two
months on foot, and on reaching Kioto they found a city which had been
almost wholly reduced to ruins by internecine war. Necessarily they
failed to obtain audience of either emperor or shogun, at that time the
most inaccessible potentates in the world, the Chinese "son of heaven"
excepted, and nothing remained but street preaching, a strange resource,
seeing that Xavier, constitutionally a bad linguist, had only a most
rudimentary acquaintance with the profoundly difficult tongue in which
he attempted to expound the mysteries of a novel creed. A fortnight
sufficed to convince him that Kioto was unfruitful soil. He therefore
returned to Yamaguchi. But he had now learned a lesson. He saw that
propagandism without scrip or staff and without the countenance of those
sitting in the seats of power would be futile in Japan. So he obtained
from Hirado his canonicals, together with a clock and other novel
products of European skill, which, as well as credentials from the
viceroy of India, the governor of Malacca and the bishop of Goa, he
presented to the Choshu chief. His prayer for permission to preach
Christianity was now readily granted, and Ouchi issued a proclamation
announcing his approval of the introduction of the new religion and
according perfect liberty to embrace it. Xavier and Fernandez now made
many converts. They also gained the valuable knowledge that the road to
success in Japan lay in associating themselves with over-sea commerce
and its directors, and in thus winning the co-operation of the feudal
chiefs.

Christian Propagandists.

Nearly ten years had now elapsed since the first Portuguese landed in
Kagoshima, and during that time trade had gone on steadily and
prosperously. No attempt was made to find markets in the main island:
the Portuguese confined themselves to Kiushiu for two reasons: one, that
having no knowledge of the coasts, they hesitated to risk their ships
and their lives in unsurveyed waters; the other, that whereas the main
island, almost from end to end, was seething with internecine war,
Kiushiu remained beyond the pale of disturbance and enjoyed comparative
tranquillity. At the time of Xavier's second sojourn in Yamaguchi, a
Portuguese ship happened to be visiting Bungo, and at its master's
suggestion the great missionary proceeded thither, with the intention of
returning temporarily to the Indies. At Bungo there was then ruling
Otomo, second in power to only the Satsuma chief among the feudatories
of Kiushiu. By him the Jesuit father was received with all honour.
Xavier did not now neglect the lesson he had learned in Yamaguchi. He
repaired to the Bungo chieftain's court, escorted by nearly the whole of
the Portuguese crew, gorgeously bedizened, carrying their arms and with
banners flying. Otomo, a young and ambitious ruler, was keenly anxious
to attract foreign traders with their rich cargoes and puissant weapons
of war. Witnessing the reverence paid to Xavier by the Portuguese
traders, he appreciated the importance of gaining the goodwill of the
Jesuits, and accordingly not only granted them full freedom to teach and
preach, but also enjoined upon his younger brother, who, in the sequel
of a sudden rebellion, had succeeded to the lordship of Yamaguchi, the
advisability of extending protection to Torres and Fernandez, then
sojourning there. After some four months' stay in Bungo, Xavier set sail
for Goa in February 1552. Death overtook him in the last month of the
same year.

Xavier's departure from Japan marked the conclusion of the first epoch
of Christian propagandism. His sojourn in Japan extended to 27 months.
In that time he and his coadjutors won about 760 converts. In Satsuma
more than a year's labour produced 150 believers. There Xavier had the
assistance of Anjiro to expound his doctrines. No language lends itself
with greater difficulty than Japanese to the discussion of theological
questions. The terms necessary for such a purpose are not current among
laymen, and only by special study, which, it need scarcely be said,
must be preluded by an accurate acquaintance with the tongue itself, can
a man hope to become duly equipped for the task of exposition and
dissertation. It is open to grave doubt whether any foreigner has ever
attained the requisite proficiency. Leaving Anjiro in Kagoshima to care
for the converts made there, Xavier pushed on to Hirado, where he
baptized a hundred Japanese in a few days. Now we have it on the
authority of Xavier himself that in this Hirado campaign "none of us
knew Japanese." How then did they proceed? "By reciting a semi-Japanese
volume" (a translation made by Anjiro of a treatise from Xavier's pen)
"and by delivering sermons, we brought several over to the Christian
cult." Sermons preached in Portuguese or Latin to a Japanese audience on
the island of Hirado in the year 1550 can scarcely have attracted
intelligent interest. On his first visit to Yamaguchi, Xavier's means of
access to the understanding of his hearers was confined to the
rudimentary knowledge of Japanese which Fernandez had been able to
acquire in 14 months, a period of study which, in modern times, with all
the aids now procurable, would not suffice to carry a student beyond the
margin of the colloquial. No converts were won. The people of Yamaguchi
probably admired the splendid faith and devotion of these over-sea
philosophers, but as for their doctrine, it was unintelligible. In Kioto
the same experience was repeated, with an addition of much physical
hardship. But when the Jesuits returned to Yamaguchi in the early autumn
of 1551, they baptized 500 persons, including several members of the
military class. Still Fernandez with his broken Japanese was the only
medium for communicating the profound doctrines of Christianity. It must
be concluded that the teachings of the missionaries produced much less
effect than the attitude of the local chieftain.

Second Period of Christian Propagandism.

Only two missionaries, Torres and Fernandez, remained in Japan after the
departure of Xavier, but they were soon joined by three others. These
newcomers landed at Kagoshima and found that, in spite of the official
veto against the adoption of Christianity, the feudal chief had lost
nothing of his desire to foster foreign trade. Two years later, all the
Jesuits in Japan were assembled in Bungo. Their only church stood there;
and they had also built two hospitals. Local disturbances had compelled
them to withdraw from Yamaguchi, not, however, before their violent
disputes with the Buddhist priests in that town had induced the
feudatory to proscribe the foreign religion, as had previously been done
in Kagoshima. From Funai, the chief town of Bungo, the Jesuits began in
1579 to send yearly reports to their Generals in Rome. These reports,
known as the _Annual Letters_, comprise some of the most valuable
information available about the conditions then existing in Japan. They
describe a state of abject poverty among the lower orders; poverty so
cruel that the destruction of children by their famishing parents was an
everyday occurrence, and in some instances choice had to be made between
cannibalism and starvation. Such suffering becomes easily intelligible
when the fact is recalled that Japan had been racked by civil war during
more than 200 years, each feudal chief fighting for his own hand, to
save or to extend his territorial possessions. From these _Annual
Letters_ it is possible also to gather a tolerably clear idea of the
course of events during the years immediately subsequent to Xavier's
departure. There was no break in the continuity of the newly inaugurated
foreign trade. Portuguese ships visited Hirado as well as Bungo, and in
those days their masters and crews not only attended scrupulously to
their religious duties, but also showed such profound respect for the
missionaries that the Japanese received constant object lessons in the
influence wielded over the traders by the Jesuits. Thirty years later,
this orderly and reverential demeanour was exchanged for riotous
excesses such as had already made the Portuguese sailor a byword in
China. But in the early days of intercourse with Japan the crews of the
merchant vessels seem to have preached Christianity by their exemplary
conduct. Just as Xavier had been induced to visit Bungo by the anxiety
of a ship-captain for Christian ministrations, so in 1557 two of the
fathers repaired to Hirado in obedience to the solicitations of
Portuguese sailors. There the fathers, under the guidance of Vilela,
sent brothers to parade the streets ringing bells and chaunting
litanies; they organized bands of boys for the same purpose; they caused
the converts, and even children, to flagellate themselves at a model of
Mount Calvary, and they worked miracles, healing the sick by contact
with scourges or with a booklet in which Xavier had written litanies and
prayers. It may well be imagined that such doings attracted surprised
attention in Japan. They were supplemented by even more striking
practices. For a sub-feudatory of the Hirado chief, having been
converted, showed his zeal by destroying Buddhist temples and throwing
down the idols, thus inaugurating a campaign of violence destined to
mark the progress of Christianity throughout the greater part of its
history in Japan. There followed the overthrowing of a cross in the
Christian cemetery, the burning of a temple in the town of Hirado, and a
street riot, the sequel being that the Jesuit fathers were compelled to
return once more to Bungo. It is essential to follow all these events,
for not otherwise can a clear understanding be reached as to the aspects
under which Christianity presented itself originally to the Japanese.
The Portuguese traders, reverent as was their demeanour towards
Christianity, did not allow their commerce to be interrupted by
vicissitudes of propagandism. They still repaired to Hirado, and rumours
of the wealth-begetting effects of their presence having reached the
neighbouring fief of Omura, its chief, Sumitada, made overtures to the
Jesuits in Bungo, offering a port free from all dues for ten years, a
large tract of land, a residence for the missionaries and other
privileges. The Jesuits hastened to take advantage of this proposal, and
no sooner did the news reach Hirado than the feudatory of that island
repented of having expelled the fathers and invited them to return. But
while they hesitated, a Portuguese vessel arrived at Hirado, and the
feudal chief declared publicly that no need existed to conciliate the
missionaries, since trade went on without them. When this became known
in Bungo, Torres hastened to Hirado, was received with extraordinary
honours by the crew of the vessel, and at his instance she left the
port, her master declaring that "he could not remain in a country where
they maltreated those who professed the same religion as himself."
Hirado remained a closed port for some years, but ultimately the advent
of three merchantmen, which intimated their determination not to put in
unless the anti-Christian ban was removed, induced the feudal chief to
receive the Jesuits, once more. This incident was paralleled a few years
later in the island of Amakusa, where a petty feudatory, in order to
attract foreign trade, as the missionaries themselves frankly explain,
embraced Christianity and ordered all his vassals to follow his example;
but when no Portuguese ship appeared, he apostatized, required his
subjects to revert to Buddhism arid made the missionaries withdraw. In
fact, the competition for the patronage of Portuguese traders was so
keen that the Hirado feudatory attempted to burn several of their
vessels because they frequented the territorial waters of his neighbour
and rival, Sumitada. The latter became a most stalwart Christian when
his wish was gratified. He set himself to eradicate idolatry throughout
his fief with the strong arm, and his fierce intolerance provoked
results which ended in the destruction of the Christian town at the
newly opened free port. Sumitada, however, quickly reasserted his
authority, and five years later (1567), he took a step which had
far-reaching consequences, namely, the building of a church at Nagasaki,
in order that Portuguese commerce might have a centre and the Christians
an assured asylum. Nagasaki was then a little fishing village. In five
years it grew to be a town of thirty thousand inhabitants, and Sumitada
became one of the richest of the Kiushiu feudatories. When in 1573
successful conflicts with the neighbouring fiefs brought him an access
of territory, he declared that he owed these victories to the influence
of the Christian God, and shortly afterwards he publicly proclaimed
banishment for all who would not accept the foreign faith. There were
then no Jesuits by his side, but immediately two hastened to join him,
and "these, accompanied by a strong guard, but yet not without danger of
their lives, went round causing the churches of the Gentiles, with their
idols, to be thrown to the ground, while three Japanese Christians went
preaching the law of God everywhere. Three of us who were in the
neighbouring kingdoms all withdrew therefrom to work in this abundant
harvest, and in the space of seven months twenty thousand persons were
baptized, including the bonzes of about sixty monasteries, except a few
who quitted the State." In Bungo, however, where the Jesuits were
originally so well received, it is doubtful whether Christian
propagandism would not have ended in failure but for an event which
occurred in 1576, namely, the conversion of the chieftain's son, a youth
of some 16 years. Two years later Otomo himself came over to the
Christian faith. He rendered inestimable aid, not merely within his own
fief, but also by the influence he exercised on others. His
intervention, supported by recourse to arms, obtained for the Jesuits a
footing on the island of Amakusa, where one of the feudatories gave his
vassals the choice of conversion or exile, and announced to the Buddhist
priests that unless they accepted Christianity their property would be
confiscated and they themselves banished. Nearly the whole population of
the fief did violence to their conscience for the sake of their homes.
Christianity was then becoming established in Kiushiu by methods similar
to those of Islam and the inquisition. Another notable illustration is
furnished by the story of the Arima fief, adjoining that of Sumitada
(Omura), where such resolute means had been adopted to force
Christianity upon the vassals. Moreover, the heads of the two fiefs were
brothers. Accordingly, at the time of Sumitada's very dramatic
conversion, the Jesuits were invited to Arima and encouraged to form
settlements at the ports of Kuchinotsu and Shimabara, which thenceforth
began to be frequented by Portuguese merchantmen. The fief naturally
became involved in the turmoil resulting from Sumitada's iconoclastic
methods of propagandism; but, in 1576, the then ruling feudatory,
influenced largely by the object lesson of Sumitada's prosperity and
puissance, which that chieftain openly ascribed to the tutelary aid of
the Christian deity, accepted baptism and became the "Prince Andrew" of
missionary records. It is written in those records that "the first thing
Prince Andrew did after his baptism was to convert the chief temple of
his capital into a church, its revenues being assigned for the
maintenance of the building and the support of the missionaries. He then
took measures to have the same thing done in the other towns of his
fief, and he seconded the preachers of the gospel so well in everything
else that he could flatter himself that he soon would not have one
single idolater in his states." Thus in the two years that separated his
baptism from his death, twenty thousand converts were won in Arima. But
his successor was an enemy of the alien creed. He ordered the Jesuits to
quit his dominions, required the converts to return to their ancestral
faith, and caused "the holy places to be destroyed and the crosses to be
thrown down." Nearly one-half of the converts apostatized under this
pressure, but others had recourse to a device of proved potency. They
threatened to leave Kuchinotsu _en masse_, and as that would have
involved the loss of foreign trade, the hostile edict was materially
modified. To this same weapon the Christians owed a still more signal
victory. For just at that time the great ship from Macao, now an annual
visitor, arrived in Japanese waters carrying the visitor-general,
Valegnani. She put into Kuchinotsu, and her presence, with its suggested
eventualities, gave such satisfaction that the feudatory offered to
accept baptism and to sanction its acceptance by his vassals. This did
not satisfy Valegnani, a man of profound political sagacity. He saw that
the fief was menaced by serious dangers at the hands of its neighbours,
and seizing the psychological moment of its extreme peril, he used the
secular arm so adroitly that the fief's chance of survival seemed to be
limited to the unreserved adoption of Christianity. Thus, in 1580, the
chieftain and his wife were baptized; "all the city was made Christian;
they burned their idols and destroyed 40 temples, reserving some
materials to build churches."

Christian propagandism had now made substantial progress. The _Annual
Letter_ of 1582 recorded that at the close of 1581, thirty-two years
after the landing of Xavier in Japan, there were about 150,000 converts,
of whom some 125,000 were in Kiushiu and the remainder in Yamaguchi,
Kioto and the neighbourhood of the latter city. The Jesuits in the
empire then numbered 75, but down to the year 1563 there had never been
more than 9, and down to 1577, not more than 18. The harvest was
certainly great in proportion to the number of sowers. But it was a
harvest mainly of artificial growth; forced by the despotic insistence
of feudal chiefs who possessed the power of life and death over their
vassals, and were influenced by a desire to attract foreign trade. To
the Buddhist priests this movement of Christian propagandism had brought
an experience hitherto unknown to them, persecution on account of creed.
They had suffered for interfering in politics, but the fierce cruelty of
the Christian fanatic now became known for the first time to men
themselves conspicuous for tolerance of heresy and receptivity of
instruction. They had had no previous experience of humanity in the garb
of an Otomo of Bungo, who, in the words of Crasset, "went to the chase
of the bonzes as to that of wild beasts, and made it his singular
pleasure to exterminate them from his states."

First Japanese Embassy to Europe.

In 1582 the first Japanese envoys sailed from Nagasaki for Europe. The
embassy consisted of four youths, the oldest not more than 16,
representing the fiefs of Arima, Omura and Bungo. They visited Lisbon,
Madrid and Rome, and in all these cities they were received with
displays of magnificence such as 16th century Europe delighted to make.
That, indeed, had been the motive of Valegnani in organizing the
mission: he desired to let the Japanese see with their own eyes how
great were the riches and might of Western states.

Second Visit of Jesuits to Kioto.

In the above statistics of converts at the close of 1581 mention is made
of Christians in Kioto, though we have already seen that the visit by
Xavier and Fernandez to that city was wholly barren of results. A second
visit, however, made by Vilela in 1559, proved more successful. He
carried letters of recommendation from the Bungo chieftain, and the
proximate cause of his journey was an invitation from a Buddhist priest
in the celebrated monastery of Hiei-zan, who sought information about
Christianity. This was before the razing of temples and the overthrow of
idols had commenced in Kiushiu. On arrival at Hiei-zan, Vilela found
that the Buddhist prior who had invited him was dead and that only a
portion of the old man's authority had descended to his successor.
Nevertheless the Jesuit obtained an opportunity to expound his doctrines
to a party of bonzes at the monastery. Subsequently, through the good
offices of a priest, described as "one of the most respected men in the
city," and with the assistance of the Bungo feudatory's letter, Vilela
enjoyed the rare honour of being received by the shogun in Kioto, who
treated him with all consideration and assigned a house for his
residence. It may be imagined that, owing such a debt of gratitude to
Buddhist priests, Vilela would have behaved towards them and their creed
with courtesy. But the Jesuit fathers were proof against all influences
calculated to impair their stern sense of duty. Speaking through the
mouth of a Japanese convert, Vilela attacked the bonzes in unmeasured
terms and denounced their faith. Soon the bonzes, on their side, were
seeking the destruction of these uncompromising assailants with
insistence inferior only to that which the Jesuits themselves would have
shown in similar circumstances. Against these perils Vilela was
protected by the goodwill of the shogun, who had already issued a decree
threatening with death any one who injured the missionaries or
obstructed their work. In spite of all difficulties and dangers these
wonderful missionaries, whose courage, zeal and devotion are beyond all
eulogy, toiled on resolutely and even recklessly, and such success
attended their efforts that by 1564 many converts had been won and
churches had been established in five walled towns within a distance of
50 miles from Kioto. Among the converts were two Buddhist priests,
notoriously hostile at the outset, who had been nominated as official
commissioners to investigate and report upon the doctrine of
Christianity. The first conversion _en masse_ was due to pressure from
above. A petty feudatory, Takayama, whose fief lay at Takatsuki in the
neighbourhood of the capital, challenged Vilela to a public controversy,
the result of which was that the Japanese acknowledged himself
vanquished, embraced Christianity and invited his vassals as well as his
family to follow his example. This man's son--Takayama Yusho--proved one
of the stanchest supporters of Christianity in all Japan, and has been
immortalized by the Jesuits under the name of Don Justo Ucondono.
Incidentally this event furnishes an index to the character of the
Japanese samurai: he accepted the consequences of defeat as frankly as
he dared it. In the same year (1564) the feudatory of Sawa, a brother of
Takayama, became a Christian and imposed the faith on all his vassals,
just as Sumitada and other feudal chiefs had done in Kiushiu. But the
Kioto record differs from that of Kiushiu in one important respect--the
former is free from any intrusion of commercial motives.

Nobunaga and the Jesuits.

Kioto was at that time the scene of sanguinary tumults, which culminated
in the murder of the shogun (1565), and led to the issue of a decree by
the emperor proscribing Christianity. In Japanese medieval history this
is one of the only two instances of Imperial interference with Christian
propagandism. There is evidence that the edict was obtained at the
instance of one of the shogun's assassins and certain Buddhist priests.
The Jesuits--their number had been increased to three--were obliged to
take refuge in Sakai, now little more than a suburb of Osaka, but at
that time a great and wealthy mart, and the only town in Japan which did
not acknowledge the sway of any feudal chief. Three years later they
were summoned thence to be presented to Oda Nobunaga, one of the
greatest captains Japan has ever produced. In the very year of Xavier's
landing at Kagoshima, Nobunaga had succeeded to his father's fief, a
comparatively petty estate in the province of Owari. In 1568 he was
seated in Kioto, a maker of shoguns and acknowledged ruler of 30 among
the 66 provinces of Japan. Had Nobunaga, wielding such immense power,
adopted a hostile attitude towards Christianity, the fires lit by the
Jesuits in Japan must soon have been extinguished. Nobunaga, however, to
great breadth and liberality of view added strong animosity towards
Buddhist priests. Many of the great monasteries had become armed camps,
their inmates skilled equally in field-attacks and in the defence of
ramparts. One sect (the Nichiren), which was specially affected by the
samurai, had lent powerful aid to the murderers of the shogun three
years before Nobunaga's victories carried him to Kioto, and the armed
monasteries constituted _imperia in imperio_ which assorted ill with his
ambition of complete supremacy. He therefore welcomed Christianity for
the sake of its opposition to Buddhism, and when Takayama conducted
Froez from Sakai to Nobunaga's presence, the reception accorded to the
Jesuit was of the most cordial character. Throughout the fourteen years
of life that remained to him, Nobunaga continued to be the constant
friend of the missionaries in particular and of foreigners visiting
Japan in general. He stood between the Jesuits and the Throne when, in
reply to an appeal from the Buddhist priests, the emperor, for the
second time, issued an anti-Christian decree (1568); he granted a site
for a church and residence at Azuchi on Lake Biwa, where his new
fortress stood; he addressed to various powerful feudatories letters
signifying a desire for the spread of Christianity; he frequently made
handsome presents to the fathers, and whenever they visited him he
showed a degree of accessibility and graciousness very foreign to his
usually haughty and imperious demeanour. The Jesuits themselves said of
him: "This man seems to have been chosen by God to open and prepare the
way for our faith." Nevertheless they do not appear to have entertained
much hope at any time of converting Nobunaga. They must have understood
that their doctrines had not made any profound impression on a man who
could treat them as this potentate did in 1579, when he plainly showed
that political exigencies might at any moment induce him to sacrifice
them.[30] His last act, too, proved that sacrilege was of no account in
his eyes, for he took steps to have himself apotheosized at Azuchi with
the utmost pomp and circumstance. Still nothing can obscure the benefits
he heaped upon the propagandists of Christianity.

Hideyshi and the Christians.

The terrible tumult of domestic war through which Japan passed in the
15th and 16th centuries brought to her service three of the greatest men
ever produced in Occident or Orient. They were Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi
Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Iyeyasu. Hideyoshi, as Nobunaga's lieutenant,
contributed largely to the building of the latter's fortunes, and,
succeeding him in 1582, brought the whole 66 provinces of the empire
under his own administrative sway. For the Jesuits now the absorbing
question was, what attitude Hideyoshi would assume towards their
propagandism. His power was virtually limitless. With a word he could
have overthrown the whole edifice created by them at the cost of so much
splendid effort and noble devotion. They were very quickly reassured. In
this matter Hideyoshi walked in Nobunaga's footsteps. He not only
accorded a friendly audience to Father Organtino, who waited on him as
representative of the Jesuits, but also he went in person to assign to
the company a site for a church and a residence in Osaka, where there
was presently to rise the most massive fortress ever built in the East.
At that time many Christian converts were serving in high positions, and
in 1584 the Jesuits placed it on record that "Hideyoshi was not only not
opposed to the things of God, but he even showed that he made much
account of them and preferred them to all the sects of the bonzes.... He
is entrusting to Christians his treasures, his secrets and his
fortresses of most importance, and shows himself well pleased that the
sons of the great lords about him should adopt our customs and our law."
Two years later in Osaka he received with every mark of cordiality and
favour a Jesuit mission which had come from Nagasaki seeking audience,
and on that occasion his visitor recorded that he spoke of an intention
of christianizing one half of Japan. Nor did Hideyoshi confine himself
to words. He actually signed a patent licensing the missionaries to
preach throughout all Japan, and exempting not only their houses and
churches from the billeting of soldiers but also the priests themselves
from local burdens. This was in 1586, on the eve of Hideyoshi's greatest
military enterprise, the invasion of Kiushiu and its complete reduction.
He carried that difficult campaign to completion by the middle of 1587,
and throughout its course he maintained a uniformly friendly demeanour
towards the Jesuits. But suddenly, when on the return journey he reached
Hakata in the north of the island, his policy underwent a radical
metamorphosis. Five questions were by his order propounded to the
vice-provincial of the Jesuits: "Why and by what authority he and his
fellow-propagandists had constrained Japanese subjects to become
Christians? Why they had induced their disciples and their sectaries to
overthrow temples? Why they persecuted the bonzes? Why they and other
Portuguese ate animals useful to men, such as oxen and cows? Why the
vice-provincial allowed merchants of his nation to buy Japanese to make
slaves of them in the Indies?" To these queries Coelho, the
vice-provincial, made answer that the missionaries had never themselves
resorted, or incited, to violence in their propagandism or persecuted
bonzes; that if their eating of beef were considered inadvisable, they
would give up the practice; and that they were powerless to prevent or
restrain the outrages perpetrated by their countrymen. Hideyoshi read
the vice-provincial's reply and, without comment, sent him word to
retire to Hirado, assemble all his followers there, and quit the country
within six months. On the next day (July 25, 1587) the following edict
was published:--

"Having learned from our faithful councillors that foreign priests
have come into our estates, where they preach a law contrary to that
of Japan, and that they even had the audacity to destroy temples
dedicated to our Kami and Hotoke; although the outrage merits the most
extreme punishment, wishing nevertheless to show them mercy, we order
them under pain of death to quit Japan within twenty days. During that
space no harm or hurt will be done to them. But at the expiration of
that term, we order that if any of them be found in our states, they
should be seized and punished as the greatest criminals. As for the
Portuguese merchants, we permit them to enter our ports, there to
continue their accustomed trade, and to remain in our states provided
our affairs need this. But we forbid them to bring any foreign priests
into the country, under the penalty of the confiscation of their ships
and goods."

How are we to account for this apparently rapid change of mood on the
part of Hideyoshi? Some historians insist that from the very outset he
conceived the resolve of suppressing Christianity and expelling its
propagandists, but that he concealed his design pending the subjugation
of Kiushiu, lest, by premature action, he might weaken his hand for that
enterprise. This hypothesis rests mainly on conjecture. Its formulators
found it easier to believe in a hidden purpose than to attribute to a
statesman so shrewd and far-seeing a sudden change of mind. A more
reasonable theory is that, shortly before leaving Osaka for Kiushiu,
Hideyoshi began to entertain doubts as to the expediency of tolerating
Christian propagandism, and that his doubts were signally strengthened
by direct observation of the state of affairs in Kiushiu. While still in
Osaka, he one day remarked publicly that "he feared much that all the
virtue of the European priests served only to conceal pernicious designs
against the empire." There had been no demolishing of temples or
overthrowing of images at Christian instance in the metropolitan
provinces. In Kiushiu, however, very different conditions prevailed.
There Christianity may be said to have been preached at the point of the
sword. Temples and images had been destroyed wholesale; vassals in
thousands had been compelled to embrace the foreign faith; and the
missionaries themselves had come to be treated as demi-gods whose nod
was worth conciliating at any cost of self-abasement. Brought into
direct contact with these evidences of the growth of a new power,
temporal as well as spiritual, Hideyoshi may well have reached the
conclusion that a choice had to be finally made between his own
supremacy and that of the alien creed, if not between the independence
of Japan and the yoke of the great Christian states of Europe.

Sequel of the Edict of Banishment.

Hideyoshi gauged the character of the medieval Christians with
sufficient accuracy to know that for the sake of their faith they would
at any time defy the laws of the island. His estimate received immediate
verification, for when the Jesuits, numbering 120, assembled at Hirado
and received his order to embark at once they decided that only those
should sail whose services were needed in China. The others remained and
went about their duties as usual, under the protection of the converted
feudatories. Hideyoshi, however, saw reason to wink at this disregard of
his authority. At first he showed uncompromising resolution. All the
churches in Kioto, Osaka and Sakai were demolished, while troops were
sent to raze the Christian places of worship in Kiushiu and seize the
port of Nagasaki. These troops were munificently dissuaded from their
purpose by the Christian feudatories. But Hideyoshi did not protest, and
in 1588 he allowed himself to be convinced by a Portuguese envoy that in
the absence of missionaries foreign trade must cease, since without the
intervention of the fathers peace and good order could not be maintained
among the merchants. Rather than suffer the trade to be interrupted
Hideyoshi agreed to the coming of priests, and thenceforth, during some
years, Christianity not only continued to flourish and grow in Kiushiu
but also found a favourable field of operations in Kioto itself. Care
was taken that Hideyoshi's attention should not be attracted by any
salient evidences of what he had called a "diabolical religion," and
thus for a time all went well. There is evidence that, like the feudal
chiefs in Kiushiu, Hideyoshi set great store by foreign trade and would
even have sacrificed to its maintenance and expansion something of the
aversion he had conceived for Christianity. He did indeed make one very
large concession. For on being assured that Portuguese traders could not
frequent Japan unless they found Christian priests there to minister to
them, he consented to sanction the presence of a limited number of
Jesuits. The statistics of 1595 show how Christianity fared under even
this partial tolerance, for there were then 137 Jesuits in Japan with
300,000 converts, among whom were 17 feudal chiefs, to say nothing of
many men of lesser though still considerable note, and even not a few
bonzes.

Hideyoshi's Final Attitude towards Christianity.

For ten years after his unlooked-for order of expulsion, Hideyoshi
preserved a tolerant mien. But in 1597 his forbearance gave place to a
mood of uncompromising severity. The reasons of this second change are
very clear, though diverse accounts have been transmitted. Up to 1593
the Portuguese had possessed a monopoly of religious propagandism and
over-sea commerce in Japan. The privilege was secured to them by
agreement between Spain and Portugal and by a papal bull. But the
Spaniards in Manila had long looked with somewhat jealous eyes on this
Jesuit reservation, and when news of the disaster of 1587 reached the
Philippines, the Dominicans and Franciscans residing there were fired
with zeal to enter an arena where the crown of martyrdom seemed to be
the least reward within reach. The papal bull, however, demanded
obedience, and to overcome that difficulty a ruse was necessary: the
governor of Manila agreed to send a party of Franciscans as ambassadors
to Hideyoshi. In that guise the friars, being neither traders nor
propagandists, considered that they did not violate either the treaty or
the bull. It was a technical subterfuge very unworthy of the object
contemplated, and the friars supplemented it by swearing to Hideyoshi
that the Philippines would submit to his sway. Thus they obtained
permission to visit Kioto, Osaka and Fushimi, but with the explicit
proviso that they must not preach. Very soon they had built a church in
Kioto, consecrated it with the utmost pomp, and were preaching sermons
and chaunting litanies there in flagrant defiance of Hideyoshi's veto.
Presently their number received an access of three friars who came
bearing gifts from the governor at Manila, and now they not only
established a convent in Osaka, but also seized a Jesuit church in
Nagasaki and converted the circumspect worship hitherto conducted there
by the fathers into services of the most public character. Officially
checked in Nagasaki, they charged the Jesuits in Kioto with having
intrigued to impede them, and they further vaunted the courageous
openness of their own ministrations as compared with the clandestine
timidity of the methods which wise prudence had induced the Jesuits to
adopt. Retribution would have followed quickly had not Hideyoshi's
attention been engrossed by an attempt to invade China through Korea. At
this stage, however, a memorable incident occurred. Driven out of her
course by a storm, a great and richly laden Spanish galleon, bound for
Acapulco from Manila, drifted to the coast of Tosa province, and
running--or being purposely run--on a sand-bank as she was being towed
into port by Japanese boats, broke her back. She carried goods to the
value of some 600,000 crowns, and certain officials urged Hideyoshi to
confiscate her as derelict, conveying to him at the same time a detailed
account of the doings of the Franciscans and their open flouting of his
orders. Hideyoshi, much incensed, commanded the arrest of the
Franciscans and despatched officers to Tosa to confiscate the "San
Felipe." The pilot of the galleon sought to intimidate these officers by
showing them on a map of the world the vast extent of Spain's dominions,
and being asked how one country had acquired such extended sway,
replied: "Our kings begin by sending into the countries they wish to
conquer missionaries who induce the people to embrace our religion, and
when they have made considerable progress, troops are sent who combine
with the new Christians, and then our kings have not much trouble in
accomplishing the rest."

The First Execution of Christians.

On learning of this speech Hideyoshi was overcome with fury. He
condemned the Franciscans to have their noses and ears cut off, to be
promenaded through Kioto, Osaka and Sakai, and to be crucified at
Nagasaki. "I have ordered these foreigners to be treated thus, because
they have come from the Philippines to Japan, calling themselves
ambassadors, although they were not so; because they have remained here
far too long without my permission; because, in defiance of my
prohibition, they have built churches, preached their religion and
caused disorders." Twenty-six suffered under this sentence--six
Franciscans, three Japanese Jesuits and seventeen native Christians,
chiefly domestic servants of the Franciscans.[31] They met their fate
with noble fortitude. Hideyoshi further issued a special injunction
against the adoption of Christianity by a feudal chief, and took steps
to give practical effect to his expulsion edict of 1587. The governor of
Nagasaki received instructions to send away all the Jesuits, permitting
only two or three to remain for the service of the Portuguese merchants.
But the Jesuits were not the kind of men who, to escape personal peril,
turn their back upon an unaccomplished work of grace. There were 125 of
them in Japan at that time. In October 1597 a junk sailed out of
Nagasaki harbour, her decks crowded with seeming Jesuits. In reality she
carried 11 of the company, the apparent Jesuits being disguised sailors.
It is not to be supposed that such a manoeuvre could be hidden from the
local authorities. They winked at it, until rumour became insistent that
Hideyoshi was about to visit Kiushiu in person, and all Japanese in
administrative posts knew how Hideyoshi visited disobedience and how
hopeless was any attempt to deceive him. Therefore, early in 1598,
really drastic steps were taken. Churches to the number of 137 were
demolished in Kiushiu, seminaries and residences fell, and the governor
of Nagasaki assembled there all the fathers of the company for
deportation to Macao by the great ship in the following year. But while
they waited, Hideyoshi died. It is not on record that the Jesuits openly
declared his removal from the earth to have been a special dispensation
in their favour. But they pronounced him an execrable tyrant and
consigned his "soul to hell for all eternity." Yet no impartial reader
of history can pretend to think that a 16th-century Jesuit general in
Hideyoshi's place would have shown towards an alien creed and its
propagandists even a small measure of the tolerance exercised by the
Japanese statesman towards Christianity and the Jesuits.

Foreign Policy of the Tokugawa Rulers.

Hideyoshi's death occurred in 1598. Two years later, his authority as
administrative ruler of all Japan had passed into the hands of Iyeyasu,
the Tokugawa chief, and thirty-nine years later the Tokugawa potentates
had not only exterminated Christianity in Japan but had also condemned
their country to a period of international isolation which continued
unbroken until 1853, an interval of 214 years. It has been shown that
even when they were most incensed against Christianity, Japanese
administrators sought to foster and preserve foreign trade. Why then did
they close the country's doors to the outside world and suspend a
commerce once so much esteemed? To answer that question some retrospect
is needed. Certain historians allege that from the outset Iyeyasu shared
Hideyoshi's misgivings about the real designs of Christian potentates
and Christian propagandists. But that verdict is not supported by facts.
The first occasion of the Tokugawa chief's recorded contact with a
Christian propagandist was less than three months after Hideyoshi's
death. There was then led into his presence a Franciscan, by name Jerome
de Jesus, originally a member of the fictitious embassy from Manila.
This man's conduct constitutes an example of the invincible zeal and
courage inspiring a Christian priest in those days. Barely escaping the
doom of crucifixion which overtook his companions, he had been deported
from Japan to Manila at a time when death seemed to be the certain
penalty of remaining. But no sooner had he been landed at Manila than he
took passage in a Chinese junk, and, returning to Nagasaki, made his way
secretly from the far south of Japan to the province of Kii. There
arrested, he was brought into the presence of Iyeyasu, and his own
record of what ensued is given in a letter subsequently sent to
Manila:--

"When the Prince saw me he asked how I had managed to escape the
previous persecution. I answered him that at that date God had
delivered me in order that I might go to Manila and bring back new
colleagues from there--preachers of the divine law--and that I had
returned from Manila to encourage the Christians, cherishing the
desire to die on the cross in order to go to enjoy eternal glory like
my former colleagues. On hearing these words the Emperor began to
smile, whether in his quality of a pagan of the sect of Shaka, which
teaches that there is no future life, or whether from the thought that
I was frightened at having to be put to death. Then, looking at me
kindly, he said, 'Be no longer afraid and no longer conceal yourself,
and no longer change your habit, for I wish you well; and as for the
Christians who every year pass within sight of the Kwanto where my
domains are, when they go to Mexico with their ships, I have a keen
desire for them to visit the harbours of this island, to refresh
themselves there, and to take what they wish, to trade with my vassals
and to teach them how to develop silver mines; and that my intentions
may be accomplished before my death, I wish you to indicate to me the
means to take to realize them.' I answered that it was necessary that
Spanish pilots should take the soundings of his harbours, so that
ships might not be lost in future as the 'San Felipe' had been, and
that he should solicit this service from the governor of the
Philippines. The Prince approved of my advice, and accordingly he has
sent a Japanese gentleman, a native of Sakai, the bearer of this
message.... It is essential to oppose no obstacle to the complete
liberty offered by the Emperor to the Spaniards and to our holy order,
for the preaching of the holy gospel.... The same Prince (who is about
to visit the Kwanto) invites me to accompany him to make choice of a
house, and to visit the harbour which he promises to open to us; his
desires in this respect are keener than I can express."

The above version of the Tokugawa chief's mood is confirmed by events,
for not only did he allow the contumelious Franciscan to build a
church--the first--in Yedo and to celebrate Mass there, but also he sent
three embassies to the Philippines, proposing reciprocal freedom of
commerce, offering to open ports in the Kwanto and asking for competent
naval architects. He never obtained the architects, and though the trade
came, its volume was small in comparison with the abundance of friars
that accompanied it. There is just a possibility that Iyeyasu saw in
these Spanish monks an instrument of counteracting the influence of the
Jesuits, for he must have known that the Franciscans opened their
mission in Yedo by "declaiming with violence against the fathers of the
company of Jesus." In short, the Spanish monks assumed towards the
Jesuits in Japan the same intolerant and abusive tone that the Jesuits
themselves had previously assumed towards Buddhism.

At that time there appeared upon the scene another factor destined
greatly to complicate events. It was a Dutch merchant ship, the
"Liefde." Until the Netherlands revolted from Spain, the Dutch had been
the principal distributors of all goods arriving at Lisbon from the Far
East; but in 1594 Philip II. closed the port of Lisbon to these rebels,
and the Dutch met the situation by turning their prows to the Orient to
invade the sources of Portuguese commerce. One of the first expeditions
despatched for that purpose set out in 1598, and of the five vessels
composing it one only was ever heard of again. This was the "Liefde."
She reached Japan during the spring of 1600, with only four-and-twenty
alive out of her original crew of 110. Towed into the harbour at Funai,
the "Liefde" was visited by Jesuits, who, on discovering her
nationality, denounced her to the local authorities as a pirate and
endeavoured to incense the Japanese against them. The "Liefde" had on
board in the capacity of "pilot major" an Englishman, Will Adams of
Gillingham in Kent, whom Iyeyasu summoned to Osaka, where there
commenced between the rough British sailor and the Tokugawa chief a
curiously friendly intercourse which was not interrupted until the death
of Adams twenty years later. The Englishman became master ship-builder
to the Yedo government; was employed as diplomatic agent when other
traders from his own country and from Holland arrived in Japan,
received in perpetual gift a substantial estate, and from first to last
possessed the implicit confidence of the shogun. Iyeyasu quickly
discerned the man's honesty, perceived that whatever benefits foreign
commerce might confer would be increased by encouraging competition
among the foreigners, and realized that English and Dutch trade
presented the wholesome feature of complete dissociation from religious
propagandism. On the other hand, he showed no intolerance to either
Spaniards or Portuguese. He issued (1601) two official patents
sanctioning the residence of the fathers in Kioto, Osaka and Nagasaki;
he employed Father Rodriguez as interpreter to the court at Yedo; and in
1603 he gave munificent succour to the Jesuits who were reduced to dire
straits owing to the capture of the great ship from Macao by the Dutch
and the consequent loss of several years' supplies for the mission in
Japan.

It is thus seen that each of the great trio of Japan's 16th-century
statesmen--Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu--adopted at the outset a most
tolerant demeanour towards Christianity. The reasons of Hideyoshi's
change of mood have been set forth. We have now to examine the reasons
that produced a similar metamorphosis in the case of Iyeyasu. Two causes
present themselves immediately. The first is that, while tolerating
Christianity, Iyeyasu did not approve of it as a creed; the second, that
he himself, whether from state policy or genuine piety, strongly
encouraged Buddhism. Proof of the former proposition is found in an
order issued by him in 1602 to insure the safety of foreign merchantmen
entering Japanese ports: it concluded with the reservation, "but we
rigorously forbid them" (foreigners coming in such ships) "to promulgate
their faith." Proof of the latter is furnished by the facts that he
invariably carried about with him a miniature Buddhist image which he
regarded as his tutelary deity, and that he fostered the creed of Shaka
as zealously as Oda Nobunaga had suppressed it. There is much difficulty
in tracing the exact sequence of events which gradually educated a
strong antipathy to the Christian faith in the mind of the Tokugawa
chief. He must have been influenced in some degree by the views of his
great predecessor, Hideyoshi. But he did not accept those views
implicitly. At the end of the 16th century he sent a trusted emissary to
Europe for the purpose of directly observing the conditions in the home
of Christianity, and this man, the better to achieve his aim, embraced
the foreign faith, and studied it from within as well as from without.
The story that he had to tell on his return could not fail to shock the
ruler of a country where freedom of conscience had existed from time
immemorial. It was a story of the inquisition and of the stake; of
unlimited aggression in the name of the cross; of the pope's
overlordship which entitled him to confiscate the realm of heretical
sovereigns; of religious wars and of well-nigh incredible fanaticism.
Iyeyasu must have received an evil impression while he listened to his
emissary's statements. Under his own eyes, too, were abundant evidences
of the spirit of strife that Christian dogma engendered in those times.
From the moment when the Franciscans and Dominicans arrived in Japan, a
fierce quarrel began between them and the Jesuits; a quarrel which even
community of suffering could not compose. Not less repellent was an
attempt on the part of the Spaniards to dictate to Iyeyasu the expulsion
of all Hollanders from Japan, and on the part of the Jesuits to dictate
the expulsion of the Spaniards. The former proposal, couched almost in
the form of a demand, was twice formulated, and accompanied on the
second occasion by a scarcely less insulting offer, namely, that Spanish
men-of-war would be sent to Japan to burn all Dutch ships found in the
ports of the empire. If in the face of proposals so contumelious of his
sovereign authority Iyeyasu preserved a calm and dignified mien, merely
replying that his country was open to all comers, and that, if other
nations had quarrels among themselves, they must not take Japan for
battle-ground, it is nevertheless unimaginable that he did not strongly
resent such interference with his own independent foreign policy, and
that he did not interpret it as foreshadowing a disturbance of the
realm's peace by sectarian quarrels among Christians. These
experiences, predisposing Iyeyasu to dislike Christianity as a creed and
to distrust it as a political influence, were soon supplemented by
incidents of an immediately determinative character. The first was an
act of fraud and forgery committed in the interests of a Christian
feudatory by a trusted official, himself a Christian. Thereupon Iyeyasu,
conceiving it unsafe that Christians should fill offices at his court,
dismissed all those so employed, banished them from Yedo and forbade any
feudal chief to harbour them. The second incident was an attempted
survey of the coast of Japan by a Spanish mariner and a Franciscan
friar. Permission to take this step had been obtained by an envoy from
New Spain, but no deep consideration of reasons seems to have preluded
the permission on Japan's side, and when the mariner (Sebastian) and the
friar (Sotelo) hastened to carry out the project, Iyeyasu asked Will
Adams to explain this display of industry. The Englishman replied that
such a proceeding would be regarded in Europe as an act of hostility,
especially on the part of the Spaniards or Portuguese, whose aggressions
were notorious. He added, in reply to further questions, that "the Roman
priesthood had been expelled from many parts of Germany, from Sweden,
Norway, Denmark, Holland and England, and that although his own country
preserved the pure form of the Christian faith from which Spain and
Portugal had deviated, yet neither English nor Dutch considered that
that fact afforded them any reason to war with, or to annex, States
which were not Christian solely for the reason that they were
non-Christian." Iyeyasu reposed entire confidence in Adams. Hearing the
Englishman's testimony, he is said to have exclaimed, "If the sovereigns
of Europe do not tolerate these priests, I do them no wrong if I refuse
to tolerate them." Japanese historians add that Iyeyasu discovered a
conspiracy on the part of some Japanese Christians to overthrow his
government by the aid of foreign troops. It was not a widely ramified
plot, but it lent additional importance to the fact that the sympathy of
the fathers and their converts was plainly with the only magnate in the
empire who continued to dispute the Tokugawa supremacy, Hideyori, the
son of Hideyoshi. Nevertheless Iyeyasu shrank from proceeding to
extremities in the case of any foreign priest, and this attitude he
maintained until his death (1616). Possibly he might have been not less
tolerant towards native Christians also had not the Tokugawa authority
been openly defied by a Franciscan father--the Sotelo mentioned
above--in Yedo itself. Then (1613) the first execution of Japanese
converts took place, though the monk himself was released after a short
incarceration. At that time, as is still the case even in these more
enlightened days, insignificant differences of custom sometimes induced
serious misconceptions. A Christian who had violated the secular law was
crucified in Nagasaki. Many of his fellow-believers kneeled around his
cross and prayed for the peace of his soul. A party of converts were
afterwards burned to death in the same place for refusing to apostatize,
and their Christian friends crowded to carry off portions of their
bodies as holy relics. When these things were reported to Iyeyasu, he
said, "Without doubt that must be a diabolic faith which persuades
people not only to worship criminals condemned to death for their
crimes, but also to honour those who have been burned or cut in pieces
by the order of their lord" (feudal chief).

Suppression of Christianity.

The fateful edict ordering that all foreign priests should be collected
in Nagasaki preparatory to removal from Japan, that all churches should
be demolished, and that the converts should be compelled to abjure
Christianity, was issued on the 27th of January 1614. There were then in
Japan 122 Jesuits, 14 Franciscans, 9 Dominicans, 4 Augustins and 7
secular priests. Had these men obeyed the orders of the Japanese
authorities by leaving the country finally, not one foreigner would have
suffered for his faith in Japan, except the 6 Franciscans executed at
Nagasaki by order of Hideyoshi in 1597. But suffering and death counted
for nothing with the missionaries as against the possibility of winning
or keeping even one convert. Forty-seven of them evaded the edict, some
by concealing themselves at the time of its issue, the rest by leaving
their ships when the latter had passed out of sight of the shore of
Japan, and returning by boats to the scene of their former labours.
Moreover, in a few months, those that had actually crossed the sea
re-crossed it in various disguises, and soon the Japanese government had
to consider whether it would suffer its authority to be thus flouted or
resort to extreme measures.

During two years immediately following the issue of the anti-Christian
decree, the attention of the Tokugawa chief and indeed of all Japan was
concentrated on the closing episode of the great struggle which assured
to Iyeyasu final supremacy as administrative ruler of the empire. That
episode was a terrible battle under the walls of Osaka castle between
the adherents of the Tokugawa and the supporters of Hideyori. In this
struggle fresh fuel was added to the fire of anti-Christian resentment,
for many Christian converts threw in their lot with Hideyori, and in one
part of the field the Tokugawa troops found themselves fighting against
a foe whose banners were emblazoned with the cross and with images of
the Saviour and St James, the patron saint of Spain. But the Christians
had protectors. Many of the feudatories showed themselves strongly
averse from inflicting the extreme penalty on men and women whose
adoption of an alien religion had been partly forced by the feudatories
themselves. As for the people at large, their liberal spirit is attested
by the fact that five fathers who were in Osaka castle at the time of
its capture made their way to distant refuges without encountering any
risk of betrayal. During these events the death of Iyeyasu took place
(June 1, 1616), and pending the dedication of his mausoleum the
anti-Christian crusade was virtually suspended.

In September 1616 a new anti-Christian edict was promulgated by
Hidetada, son and successor of Iyeyasu. It pronounced sentence of exile
against all Christian priests, including even those whose presence had
been sanctioned for ministering to the Portuguese merchants: it forbade
the Japanese, under the penalty of being burned alive and of having all
their property confiscated, to have any connexion with the ministers of
religion or to give them hospitality. It was forbidden to any prince or
lord to keep Christians in his service or even on his estates, and the
edict was promulgated with more than usual solemnity, though its
enforcement was deferred until the next year on account of the obsequies
of Iyeyasu. This edict of 1616 differed from that issued by Iyeyasu in
1614, since the latter did not prescribe the death penalty for converts
refusing to apostatize. But both agreed in indicating expulsion as the
sole manner of dealing with the foreign priests. As for the shogun and
his advisers, it is reasonable to assume that they did not anticipate
much necessity for recourse to violence. They must have known that a
great majority of the converts had joined the Christian church at the
instance or by the command of their local rulers, and nothing can have
seemed less likely than that a creed thus lightly embraced would be
adhered to in defiance of torture and death. It is moreover morally
certain that had the foreign propagandists obeyed the Government's edict
and left the country, not one would have been put to death. They
suffered because they defied the laws of the land. Some fifty
missionaries happened to be in Nagasaki when Hidetada's edict was
issued. A number of these were apprehended and deported, but several of
them returned almost immediately. This happened under the jurisdiction
of Omura, who had been specially charged with the duty of sending away
the _bateren_ (_padres_). He appears to have concluded that a striking
example must be furnished, and he therefore ordered the seizure and
decapitation of two fathers, De l'Assumpcion and Machado. The result
completely falsified his calculations, and presaged the cruel struggle
now destined to begin.

The bodies, placed in different coffins, were interred in the same
grave. Guards were placed over it, but the concourse was immense. The
sick were carried to the sepulchre to be restored to health. The
Christians found new strength in this martyrdom; the pagans themselves
were full of admiration for it. Numerous conversions and numerous
returns of apostates took place everywhere.

In the midst of all this, Navarette, the vice-provincial of the
Dominicans, and Ayala, the vice-provincial of the Augustins, came out of
their retreat, and in full priestly garb started upon an open
propaganda. The two fanatics--for so even Charlevoix considers them to
have been--were secretly conveyed to the island Takashima and there
decapitated, while their coffins were weighted with big stones and sunk
in the sea. Even more directly defiant was the attitude of the next
martyred priest, an old Franciscan monk, Juan de Santa Martha. He had
for three years suffered all the horrors of a medieval Japanese prison,
when it was proposed to release him and deport him to New Spain. His
answer was that, if released, he would stay in Japan and preach there.
He laid his head on the block in August 1618. But from that time until
1622 no other foreign missionary suffered capital punishment in Japan,
though many of them arrived in the country and continued their
propagandism there. During that interval, also, there occurred another
incident eminently calculated to fix upon the Christians still deeper
suspicion of political designs. In a Portuguese ship captured by the
Dutch a letter was found instigating the Japanese converts to revolt,
and promising that, when the number of these disaffected Christians was
sufficient, men-of-war would be sent to aid them. Not the least potent
of the influences operating against the Christians was that pamphlets
were written by apostates attributing the zeal of the foreign
propagandists solely to political motives. Yet another indictment of
Spanish and Portuguese propagandists was contained in a despatch
addressed to Hidetada in 1620 by the admiral in command of the British
and Dutch fleet then cruising in Far-Eastern waters. In that document
the friars were flatly accused of treacherous practices, and the
Japanese ruler was warned against the aggressive designs of Philip of
Spain. In the face of all this evidence the Japanese ceased to hesitate,
and a time of terror ensued for the fathers and their converts. The
measures adopted towards the missionaries gradually increased in
severity. In 1617 the first two fathers put to death (De l'Assumpcion
and Machado) were beheaded, "not by the common executioner, but by one
of the first officers of the prince." Subsequently Navarette and Ayala
were decapitated by the executioner. Then, in 1618, Juan de Santa Martha
was executed like a common criminal, his body being dismembered and his
head exposed. Finally, in 1622, Zuñiga and Flores were burnt alive. The
same year was marked by the "great martyrdom" at Nagasaki when 9 foreign
priests went to the stake with 19 Japanese converts. The shogun seems to
have been now labouring under vivid fear of a foreign invasion. An
emissary sent by him to Europe had returned on the eve of the "great
martyrdom" after seven years abroad, and had made a report more than
ever unfavourable to Christianity. Therefore Hidetada deemed it
necessary to refuse audience to a Philippine embassy in 1624 and to
deport all Spaniards from Japan. Further, it was decreed that no
Japanese Christian should thenceforth be suffered to go abroad for
commerce, and that though non-Christians or men who had apostatized
might travel freely, they must not visit the Philippines. Thus ended all
intercourse between Japan and Spain. It had continued for 32 years and
had engendered a widespread conviction that Christianity was an
instrument of Spanish aggression.

Iyemitsu, son of Hidetada, now ruled in Yedo, though Hidetada himself
remained the power behind the throne. The year (1623) of the former's
accession to power had been marked by the re-issue of anti-Christian
decrees, and by the martyrdom of some 500 Christians within the Tokugawa
domains, whither the tide of persecution now flowed for the first time.
Thenceforth the campaign was continuous. The men most active and most
relentless in carrying on the persecution were Mizuno and Takenaka,
governors of Nagasaki, and Matsukura, feudatory of Shimabara. By the
latter were invented the punishment of throwing converts into the
solfataras at Unzen and the torture of the _fosse_, which consisted in
suspension by the feet, head downwards, in a pit until blood oozed from
the mouth, nose and ears. Many endured this latter torture for days,
until death came to their relief, but a few--notably the Jesuit
provincial Ferreyra--apostatized. Matsukura and Takenaka were so
strongly obsessed by the Spanish menace that they contemplated the
conquest of the Philippines in order to deprive the Spaniards of a
Far-Eastern base. But timid counsels then prevailed in Yedo, where the
spirit of a Nobunaga, a Hideyoshi or an Iyeyasu no longer presided. Of
course the measures of repression grew in severity as the fortitude of
the Christians became more obdurate. It is not possible to state the
exact number of victims. Some historians say that, down to 1635, no
fewer than 280,000 were punished, but that figure is probably
exaggerated, for the most trustworthy records indicate that the converts
never aggregated more than 300,000, and many of these, if not a great
majority, having accepted the foreign faith very lightly, doubtless
discarded it readily under menace of destruction. Every opportunity was
given for apostatizing and for escaping death. Immunity could be secured
by pointing out a fellow-convert, and when it is observed that among the
seven or eight feudatories who embraced Christianity only two or three
died in that faith, we must conclude that not a few cases of recanting
occurred among the commoners. Remarkable fortitude, however, is said to
have been displayed. If the converts were intrepid their teachers showed
no less courage. Again and again the latter defied the Japanese
authorities by coming to the country or returning thither after having
been deported. Ignoring the orders of the governors of Macao and Manila
and even of the king of Spain himself, they arrived, year after year, to
be certainly apprehended and sent to the stake after brief periods of
propagandism. In 1626 they actually baptized over 3000 converts. Large
rewards were paid to anyone denouncing a propagandist, and as for the
people, they had to trample upon a picture of Christ in order to prove
that they were not Christians.

Meanwhile the feuds between the Dutch, the Spaniards and the Portuguese
never ceased. In 1636, the Dutch found on a captured Portuguese vessel a
report of the governor of Macao describing a two days' festival which
had been held there in honour of Vieyra, the vice-provincial whose
martyrdom had just taken place in Japan. This report the Dutch handed to
the Japanese authorities "in order that his majesty may see more clearly
what great honour the Portuguese pay to those he has forbidden his realm
as traitors to the state and to his crown." Probably the accusation
added little to the resentment and distrust already harboured by the
Japanese against the Portuguese. At all events the Yedo government took
no step distinctly hostile to Portuguese laymen until 1637, when an
edict was issued forbidding any foreigners to travel in the empire, lest
Portuguese with passports bearing Dutch names might enter it. This was
the beginning of the end. In the last month of 1637 a rebellion broke
out, commonly called the "Christian revolt of Shimabara," which sealed
the fate of Japan's foreign intercourse for over 200 years.

The Shimabara Revolt.

The promontory of Shimabara and the island of Amakusa enclose the gulf
of Nagasaki on the west. Among all the fiefs in Japan, Shimabara and
Amakusa had been the two most thoroughly christianized in the early
years of Jesuit propagandism. Hence in later days they were naturally
the scene of the severest persecutions. Still the people would probably
have suffered in silence had they not been taxed beyond all endurance to
supply funds for an extravagant chief who employed savage methods of
extortion. Japanese annals, however, relegate the taxation grievance to
an altogether secondary place, and attribute the revolt solely to the
instigation of five samurai who led a roving life to avoid persecution
for their adherence to Christianity. Whichever version be correct, it is
certain that the outbreak ultimately attracted all the Christians from
the surrounding regions, and was regarded by the authorities as in
effect a Christian rising. The Amakusa insurgents passed over to
Shimabara, and on the 27th of January 1638 the whole body--numbering,
according to some authorities, 20,000 fighting men with 17,000 women and
children; according to others, little more than one-half of these
figures--took possession of the dilapidated castle of Hara, which stood
on a plateau with three sides descending perpendicularly to the sea, a
hundred feet beneath, and with a swamp on its fourth front. There the
insurgents, who fought under flags with red crosses and whose battle
cries were "Jesus," "Maria" and "St Iago," successfully maintained
themselves against the repeated assaults of strong forces until the 12th
of April, when, their ammunition and their provisions alike exhausted,
they were overwhelmed and put to the sword, with the exception of 105
prisoners. During the siege the Dutch were enabled to furnish a vivid
proof of enmity to the Christianity of the Spaniards and the Portuguese.
For the guns in possession of the besiegers being too light to
accomplish anything, Koeckebacker, the factor at Hirado, was invited to
send ships carrying heavier metal. He replied with the "de Ryp" of 20
guns, which threw 426 shot into the castle in 15 days. Probably the
great bulk of the remaining Japanese Christians perished at the massacre
of Hara. Thenceforth there were few martyrs.[32]

Foreign Trade in the 17th Century.

It has been clearly shown that Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Iyeyasu were all
in favour of foreign intercourse and trade, and that the Tokugawa chief,
even more than his predecessor Hideyoshi, made strenuous efforts to
differentiate between Christianity and commerce, so that the latter
might not be involved in the former's fate. In fact the three objects
which Iyeyasu desired most earnestly to compass were the development of
foreign commerce, the acquisition of a mercantile marine and the
exploitation of Japan's mines. He offered the Spaniards, Portuguese,
English and Dutch a site for a settlement in Yedo, and had they accepted
the offer the country might never have been closed. In his time Japan
was virtually a free-trade country. Importers had not to pay any duties.
It was expected, however, that they should make presents to the
feudatory into whose port they carried their goods, and these presents
were often very valuable. Naturally the Tokugawa chief desired to
attract such a source of wealth to his own domains. He sent more than
one envoy to Manila to urge the opening of commerce direct with the
regions about Yedo, and to ask the Spaniards for competent naval
architects. Perhaps the truest exposition of his attitude is given in a
law enacted in 1602:--

"If any foreign vessel by stress of weather is obliged to touch at any
principality or to put into any harbour of Japan, we order that,
whoever these foreigners may be, absolutely nothing whatever that
belongs to them or that they may have brought in their ship, shall be
taken from them. Likewise we rigorously prohibit the use of any
violence in the purchase or the sale of any of the commodities brought
by their ship, and if it is not convenient for the merchants of the
ship to remain in the port they have entered, they may pass to any
other port that may suit them, and therein buy and sell in full
freedom. Likewise we order in a general manner that foreigners may
freely reside in any part of Japan they choose, but we rigorously
forbid them to promulgate their faith."

It was in that mood that he granted (1605) a licence to the Dutch to
trade in Japan, his expectation doubtless being that the ships which
they promised to send every year would make their dépôt at Uraga or in
some other place near Yedo. But things were ordered differently. The
first Hollanders that set foot in Japan were the survivors of the
wrecked "Liefde." Thrown into prison for a time, they were approached by
emissaries from the feudatory of Hirado, who engaged some of them to
teach the art of casting guns and the science of gunnery to his vassals,
and when two of them were allowed to leave Japan, he furnished them with
the means of doing so, at the same time making promises which invested
Hirado with attractions as a port of trade, though it was then and
always remained an insignificant fishing village. The Dutch possessed
precisely the qualifications suited to the situation then existing in
Japan: they had commercial potentialities without any religious
associations. Fully appreciating that fact, the shrewd feudatory of
Hirado laid himself out to entice the Dutchmen to his fief, and he
succeeded. Shortly afterwards, an incident occurred which clearly
betrayed the strength of the Tokugawa chief's desire to exploit Japan's
mines. The governor-general of the Philippines (Don Rodrigo Vivero y
Velasco), his ship being cast away on the Japanese coast on a voyage to
Acapulco, was received by Iyeyasu, and in response to the latter's
request for fifty miners, the Spaniard formulated terms to which Iyeyasu
actually agreed: that half the produce of the mines should go to the
miners; that the other half should be divided between Iyeyasu and the
king of Spain; that the latter might send commissioners to Japan to look
after his mining interests, and that these commissioners might be
accompanied by priests who would be entitled to have public churches for
holding services. This was in 1609, when the Tokugawa chief had again
and again imposed the strictest veto on Christian propagandism. There
can be little doubt that he understood the concession made to Don
Rodrigo in the sense of Hideyoshi's mandate to the Jesuits in Nagasaki,
namely, that a sufficient number might remain to minister to the
Portuguese traders frequenting the port. Iyeyasu had confidence in
himself and in his countrymen. He knew that emergencies could be dealt
with when they arose and he sacrificed nothing to timidity. But his
courageous policy died with him and the miners did not come. Neither did
the Spaniards ever devote any successful efforts to establishing trade
with Japan. Their vessels paid fitful visits to Uraga, but the
Portuguese continued to monopolize the commerce.

Opening of Dutch and English Trade.

In 1611 a Dutch merchantman (the "Brach") reached Hirado with a cargo of
pepper, cloth, ivory, silk and lead. She carried two envoys, Spex and
Segerszoon, and in the very face of a Spanish embassy which had just
arrived from Manila expressly for the purpose of "settling the matter
regarding the Hollanders," the Dutchmen obtained a liberal patent from
Iyeyasu. Twelve years previously, the merchants of London, stimulated
generally by the success of the Dutch in trade with the East, and
specially by the fact that "these Hollanders had raised the price of
pepper against us from 3 shillings per pound to 6 shillings and 8
shillings," organized the East India Company which immediately began to
send ships eastward. Of course the news that the Dutch were about to
establish a trading station in Japan reached London speedily, and the
East India Company lost no time in ordering one of their vessels, the
"Clove," under Captain Saris, to proceed to the Far-Eastern islands. She
carried a quantity of pepper, and on the voyage she endeavoured to
procure some spices at the Moluccas. But the Dutch would not suffer any
poaching on their valuable monopoly. The "Clove" entered Hirado on the
11th of June 1613. Saris seems to have been a man self-opinionated, of
shallow judgment and suspicious. Though strongly urged by Will Adams to
make Uraga the seat of the new trade, though convinced of the excellence
of the harbour there, and though instructed as to the great advantage of
proximity to the shogun's capital, he appears to have conceived some
distrust of Adams, for he chose Hirado. From Iyeyasu Captain Saris
received a most liberal charter, which plainly displayed the mood of the
Tokugawa shogun towards foreign trade:--

1. The ship that has now come for the first time from England over the
sea to Japan may carry on trade of all kinds without hindrance. With
regard to future visits (of English ships) permission will be given in
regard to all matters.

2. With regard to the cargoes of ships, requisition will be made by
list according to the requirements of the shogunate.

3. English ships are free to visit any port in Japan. If disabled by
storms they may put into any harbour.

4. Ground in Yedo in the place which they may desire shall be given to
the English, and they may erect houses and reside and trade there.
They shall be at liberty to return to their country whenever they wish
to do so, and to dispose as they like of the houses they have erected.

5. If an Englishman dies in Japan of disease, or any other cause, his
effects shall be handed over without fail.

6. Forced sales of cargo, and violence, shall not take place.

7. If one of the English should commit an offence, he should be
sentenced by the English General according to the gravity of his
offence.

(Translated by Professor Riess.)

The terms of the 4th article show that the shogun expected the English
to make Yedo their headquarters. Had Saris done so, he would have been
free from all competition, would have had an immense market at his very
doors, would have economized the expense of numerous overland journeys
to the Tokugawa court, and would have saved the payment of many
"considerations." The result of his mistaken choice and subsequent bad
management was that, ten years later (1623), the English factory at
Hirado had to be closed, having incurred a total loss of about £2000. In
condonation of this failure it must be noted that a few months after the
death of Iyeyasu, the charter he had granted to Saris underwent serious
modification. The original document threw open to the English every port
in Japan; the revised document limited them to Hirado. But this
restriction may be indirectly traced to the blunder of not accepting a
settlement in Yedo and a port at Uraga. For the Tokugawa's foreign
policy was largely swayed by an apprehension lest the Kiushiu
feudatories, over whom the authority of Yedo had never been fully
established, might, by the presence of foreign traders, come into
possession of such a fleet and such an armament as would ultimately
enable them to wrest the administration of the empire from Tokugawa
hands. Hence the precaution of confining the English and the Dutch to
Hirado, the fief of a _daimyo_ too petty to become formidable, and to
Nagasaki which was an imperial city.[33] But evidently an English
factory in Yedo and English ships at Uraga would have strengthened the
Tokugawa ruler's hand instead of supplying engines of war to his
political foes. It must also be noted that the question of locality had
another injurious outcome. It exposed the English--and the Dutch
also--to crippling competition at the hands of a company of rich Osaka
monopolists, who, as representing an Imperial city and therefore being
pledged to the Tokugawa interests, enjoyed Yedo's favour and took full
advantage of it. These shrewd traders not only drew a ring round Hirado,
but also sent vessels on their own account to Cochin China, Siam,
Tonkin, Cambodia and other places, where they obtained many of the
staples in which the English and the Dutch dealt. Still the closure of
the English factory at Hirado was purely voluntary. From first to last
there had been no serious friction between the English and the Japanese.
The company's houses and godowns were not sold. These as well as the
charter were left in the hands of the daimyo of Hirado, who promised to
restore them should the English re-open business in Japan. The company
did think of doing so on more than one occasion, but no practical step
was taken until the year 1673, when a merchantman, aptly named the
"Return," was sent to seek permission. The Japanese, after mature
reflection, made answer that as the king of England was married to a
Portuguese princess, British subjects could not be permitted to visit
Japan. That this reply was suggested by the Dutch is very probable; that
it truly reflected the feeling of the Japanese government towards Roman
Catholics is certain.

The Last Days of the Portuguese in Japan.

The Spaniards were expelled from Japan in 1624, the Portuguese in 1638.
Two years before the latter event, the Yedo government took a signally
retrogressive step. They ordained that no Japanese vessel should go
abroad; that no Japanese subject should leave the country, and that, if
detected attempting to do so, he should be put to death, the vessel that
carried him and her crew being seized "to await our pleasure"; that any
Japanese resident abroad should be executed if he returned; that the
children and descendants of Spaniards together with those who had
adopted such children should not be allowed to remain on pain of death;
and that no ship of ocean-going dimensions should be built in Japan.
Thus not only were the very children of the Christian propagandists
driven completely from the land, but the Japanese people also were
sentenced to imprisonment within the limits of their islands, and the
country was deprived of all hope of acquiring a mercantile marine. The
descendants of the Spaniards, banished by the edict, were taken to Macao
in two Portuguese galleons. They numbered 287 and the property they
carried with them aggregated 6,697,500 florins. But if the Portuguese
derived any gratification from this sweeping out of their much-abused
rivals, the feeling was destined to be short-lived. Already they were
subjected to humiliating restrictions.

"From 1623 the galleons and their cargoes were liable to be burnt and
their crews executed if any foreign priest was found on board of them.
An official of the Japanese government was stationed in Macao for the
purpose of inspecting all intending passengers, and of preventing any
one that looked at all suspicious from proceeding to Japan. A complete
list and personal description of every one on board was drawn up by
this officer, a copy of it was handed to the captain and by him it had
to be delivered to the authorities who met him at Nagasaki before he
was allowed to anchor. If in the subsequent inspection any discrepancy
between the list and the persons actually carried by the vessel
appeared, it would prove very awkward for the captain. Then in the
inspection of the vessel letters were opened, trunks and boxes
ransacked, and all crosses, rosaries or objects of religion of any
kind had to be thrown overboard. In 1635 Portuguese were forbidden to
employ Japanese to carry their umbrellas or their shoes, and only
their chief men were allowed to bear arms, while they had to hire
fresh servants every year. It was in the following year (1636) that
the artificial islet of Deshima was constructed for their special
reception, or rather imprisonment. It lay in front of the former
Portuguese factory, with which it was connected by a bridge, and
henceforth the Portuguese were to be allowed to cross this bridge only
twice a year--at their arrival and at their departure. Furthermore,
all their cargoes had to be sold at a fixed price during their fifty
days' stay to a ring of licensed merchants from the imperial
towns."[34]

The imposition of such irksome conditions did not deter the Portuguese,
who continued to send merchandise-laden galleons to Nagasaki. But in
1638 the bolt fell. The Shimabara rebellion was directly responsible.
Probably the fact of a revolt of Christian converts, in such numbers and
fighting with such resolution, would alone have sufficed to induce the
weak government in Yedo to get rid of the Portuguese altogether. But the
Portuguese were suspected of having instigated the Shimabara
insurrection, and the Japanese authorities believed that they had proof
of the fact. Hence, in 1638, an edict was issued proclaiming that as, in
defiance of the government's order, the Portuguese had continued to
bring missionaries to Japan; as they had supplied these missionaries
with provisions and other necessaries, and as they had fomented the
Shimabara rebellion, thenceforth any Portuguese ship coming to Japan
should be burned, together with her cargo, and every one on board of her
should be executed. Ample time was allowed before enforcing this edict.
Not only were the Portuguese ships then at Nagasaki permitted to close
up their commercial transactions and leave the port, but also in the
following year when two galleons arrived from Macao, they were merely
sent away with a copy of the edict and a stern warning. But the
Portuguese could not easily become reconciled to abandon a commerce from
which they had derived splendid profits prior to the intrusion of the
Spaniards, the Dutch and the English, and from which they might now hope
further gains, since, although the Dutch continued to be formidable
rivals, the Spaniards had been excluded, the English had withdrawn, and
the Japanese, by the suicidal policy of their own rulers, were no longer
able to send ships to China. Therefore they took a step which resulted
in one of the saddest episodes of the whole story. Four aged men, the
most respected citizens of Macao, were despatched (1640) to Nagasaki as
ambassadors in a ship carrying no cargo but only rich presents. They
bore a petition declaring that for a long time no missionaries had
entered Japan from Macao, that the Portuguese had not been in any way
connected with the Shimabara revolt, and that interruption of trade
would injure Japan as much as Portugal. These envoys arrived at Nagasaki
on the 1st of July 1640, and 24 days sufficed to bring from Yedo,
whither their petition had been sent, peremptory orders for their
execution as well as executioners to carry out the orders. There was no
possibility of resistance. The Japanese had removed the ship's rudder,
sails, guns and ammunition, and had placed the envoys, their suite and
the crews under guard in Deshima. On the 2nd of August they were all
summoned to the governor's hall of audience, where, after their protest
had been heard that ambassadors should be under the protection of
international law, the sentence written in Yedo 13 days previously was
read to them. The following morning the Portuguese were offered their
lives if they would apostatize. Every one rejected the offer, and being
then led out to the martyrs' mount, the heads of the envoys and of 57 of
their companions fell. Thirteen were saved to carry the news to Macao.
These thirteen, after witnessing the burning of the galleon, were
conducted to the governor's residence who gave them this message:--

"Do not fail to inform the inhabitants of Macao that the Japanese wish
to receive from them neither gold nor silver, nor any kind of presents
or merchandise; in a word, absolutely nothing which comes from them.
You are witnesses that I have caused even the clothes of those who
were executed yesterday to be burned. Let them do the same with
respect to us if they find occasion to do so; we consent to it without
difficulty. Let them think no more of us, just as if we were no longer
in the world."

Finally the thirteen were taken to the martyrs' mount where, set up
above the heads of the victims, a tablet recounted the story of the
embassy and the reasons for the execution, and concluded with the
words:--

"So long as the sun warms the earth, let no Christian be so bold as to
come to Japan, and let all know that if King Philip himself, or even
the very God of the Christians, or the great Shaka contravene this
prohibition, they shall pay for it with their heads."

Had the ministers of the shogun in Yedo desired to make clear to future
ages that to Christianity alone was due the expulsion of Spaniards and
Portuguese from Japan and her adoption of the policy of seclusion they
could not have placed on record more conclusive testimony. Macao
received the news with rejoicing in that its "earthly ambassadors had
been made ambassadors of heaven," but it did not abandon all hope of
overcoming Japan's obduracy. When Portugal recovered her independence in
1640, the people of Macao requested Lisbon to send an ambassador to
Japan, and on the 16th of July 1647 Don Gonzalo de Siqueira arrived in
Nagasaki with two vessels. He carried a letter from King John IV.,
setting forth the severance of all connexion between Portugal and Spain,
which countries were now actually at war, and urging that commercial
relations should be re-established. The Portuguese, having refused to
give up their rudders and arms, soon found themselves menaced by a force
of fifty thousand samurai, and were glad to put out of port quietly on
the 4th of September. This was the last episode in the medieval history
of Portugal's intercourse with Japan.

The Dutch at Deshima.

When (1609) the Dutch contemplated forming a settlement in Japan,
Iyeyasu gave them a written promise that "no man should do them any
wrong and that he would maintain and defend them as his own subjects."
Moreover, the charter granted to them contained a clause providing that,
into whatever ports their ships put, they were not to be molested or
hindered in any way, but, "on the contrary, must be shown all manner of
help, favour and assistance." They might then have chosen any port in
Japan for their headquarters, but they had the misfortune to choose
Hirado. For many years they had no cause to regret the choice. Their
exclusive possession of the Spice Islands and their own enterprise and
command of capital gave them the leading place in Japan's over-sea
trade. Even when things had changed greatly for the worse and when the
English closed their books with a large loss, it is on record that the
Dutch were reaping a profit of 76% annually. Their doings at Hirado were
not of a purely commercial character. The Anglo-Dutch "fleet of defence"
made that port its basis of operations against the Spaniards and the
Portuguese. It brought its prizes into Hirado, the profits to be equally
divided between the fleet and the factories, Dutch and English, which
arrangement involved a sum of a hundred thousand pounds in 1622. But
after the death of Iyeyasu there grew up at the Tokugawa court a party
which advocated the expulsion of all foreigners on the ground that,
though some professed a different form of Christianity from that of the
Castilians and Portuguese, it was nevertheless one and the same creed.
This policy was not definitely adopted, but it made itself felt in a
discourteous reception accorded to the commandant of Fort Zelandia when
he visited Tokyo in 1627. He attempted to retaliate upon the Japanese
vessels which put into Zelandia in the following year, but the Japanese
managed to seize his person, exact reparation for loss of time and
obtain five hostages whom they carried to prison in Japan. The Japanese
government of that time was wholly intolerant of any injury done to its
subjects by foreigners. When news of the Zelandia affair reached Yedo,
orders were immediately issued for the sequestration of certain Dutch
vessels and for the suspension of the Hirado factory, which veto was not
removed for four years. Commercial arrangements, also, became less
favourable. The Dutch, instead of selling their silk--which generally
formed the principal staple of import--in the open market, were required
to send it to the Osaka gild of licensed merchants at Nagasaki, by which
means, Nagasaki and Osaka being Imperial cities, the Yedo government
derived advantage from the transaction. An attempt to evade this onerous
system provoked a very stern rebuke from Yedo, and shortly afterwards
all Japanese subjects were forbidden to act as servants to the Dutch
outside the latter's dwellings. The co-operation of the Hollanders in
bombarding the castle of Hara during the Shimabara rebellion (1638) gave
them some claim on the shogun's government, but in the same year the
Dutch received an imperious warning that the severest penalties would be
inflicted if their ships carried priests or any religious objects or
books. So profound was the dislike of everything relating to
Christianity that the Dutch nearly caused the ruin of their factory and
probably their own destruction by inscribing on some newly erected
warehouses the date according to the Christian era. The factory happened
to be then presided over by Caron, a man of extraordinary penetration.
Without a moment's hesitation he set 400 men to pull down the
warehouses, thus depriving the Japanese of all pretext for recourse to
violence. He was compelled, however, to promise that there should be no
observance of the Sabbath hereafter and that time should no longer be
reckoned by the Christian era. In a few months, further evidence of
Yedo's ill will was furnished. An edict appeared ordering the Dutch to
dispose of all their imports during the year of their arrival, without
any option of carrying them away should prices be low. They were thus
placed at the mercy of the Osaka gild. Further, they were forbidden to
slaughter cattle or carry arms, and altogether it seemed as though the
situation was to be rendered impossible for them. An envoy despatched
from Batavia to remonstrate could not obtain audience of the shogun, and
though he presented, by way of remonstrance, the charter originally
granted by Iyeyasu, the reply he received was:--

"His Majesty charges us to inform you that it is of but slight
importance to the Empire of Japan whether foreigners come or do not
come to trade. But in consideration of the charter granted to them by
Iyeyasu, he is pleased to allow the Hollanders to continue their
operations, and to leave them their commercial and other privileges,
on the condition that they evacuate Hirado and establish themselves
with their vessels in the port of Nagasaki."

The Dutch did not at first regard this as a calamity. During their
residence of 31 years at Hirado they had enjoyed full freedom, had been
on excellent terms with the feudatory and his samurai, and had prospered
in their business. But the pettiness of the place and the inconvenience
of the anchorage having always been recognized, transfer to Nagasaki
promised a splendid harbour and much larger custom. Bitter, therefore,
was their disappointment when they found that they were to be imprisoned
in Deshima, a quadrangular island whose longest face did not measure 300
yds., and that, so far from living in the town of Nagasaki, they would
not be allowed even to enter it. Siebold writes:--

"A guard at the gate prevented all communications with the city of
Nagasaki; no Dutchman without weighty reasons and without the
permission of the governor might pass the gate; no Japanese (unless
public women) might live in a Dutchman's house. As if this were not
enough, even within Deshima itself our state prisoners were keenly
watched. No Japanese might speak with them in his own language unless
in the presence of a witness (a government spy) or visit them in their
houses. The creatures of the governor had the warehouses under key and
the Dutch traders ceased to be masters of their property."

There were worse indignities to be endured. No Dutchman might be buried
in Japanese soil: the dead had to be committed to the deep. Every Dutch
ship, her rudder, guns and ammunition removed and her sails sealed, was
subjected to the strictest search. No religious service could be held.
No one was suffered to pass from one Dutch ship to another without the
governor's permit. Sometimes the officers and men were wantonly
cudgelled by petty Japanese officials. They led, in short, a life of
extreme abasement. Some relaxation of this extreme severity was
afterwards obtained, but at no time of their sojourn in Deshima, a
period of 217 years, were the Dutch relieved from irksome and
humiliating restraints. Eleven years after their removal thither, the
expediency of consulting the national honour by finally abandoning an
enterprise so derogatory was gravely discussed, but hopes of improvement
supplementing natural reluctance to surrender a monopoly which still
brought large gains, induced them to persevere. At that time this
Nagasaki over-sea trade was considerable. From 7 to 10 Dutch ships used
to enter the port annually, carrying cargo valued at some 80,000 lb. of
silver, the chief staples of import being silk and piece-goods, and the
government levying 5% by way of customs dues. But this did not represent
the whole of the charges imposed. A rent of 459 lb. of silver had to be
paid each year for the little island of Deshima and the houses standing
on it; and, further, every spring, the Hollanders were required to send
to Yedo a mission bearing for the shogun, the heir-apparent and the
court officials presents representing an aggregate value of about 550
lb. of silver. They found their account, nevertheless, in buying gold
and copper--especially the latter--for exportation, until the Japanese
authorities, becoming alarmed at the great quantity of copper thus
carried away, adopted the policy of limiting the number of vessels, as
well as their inward and outward cargoes, so that, in 1790, only one
ship might enter annually, nor could she carry away more than 350 tons
of copper. On the other hand, the formal visits of the captain of the
factory to Yedo were reduced to one every fifth year, and the value of
the presents carried by him was cut down to one half.

Loss to Japan by adopting the Policy of Exclusion.

Well-informed historians have contended that, by thus segregating
herself from contact with the West, Japan's direct losses were small.
Certainly it is true that she could not have learned much from European
nations in the 17th century. They had little to teach her in the way of
religious tolerance; in the way of international morality; in the way of
social amenities and etiquette; in the way of artistic conception and
execution; or in the way of that notable shibboleth of modern
civilization, the open door and equal opportunities. Yet when all this
is admitted, there remains the vital fact that Japan was thus shut off
from the atmosphere of competition, and that for nearly two centuries
and a half she never had an opportunity of warming her intelligence at
the fire of international rivalry or deriving inspiration from an
exchange of ideas. She stood comparatively still while the world went
on, and the interval between her and the leading peoples of the Occident
in matters of material civilization had become very wide before she
awoke to a sense of its existence. The sequel of this page of her
history has been faithfully summarized by a modern writer:--

"A more complete metamorphosis of a nation's policy could scarcely be
conceived. In 1541 we find the Japanese celebrated, or notorious,
throughout the whole of the Far East for exploits abroad; we find them
known as the 'kings of the sea'; we find them welcoming foreigners
with cordiality and opposing no obstacles to foreign commerce or even
to the propagandism of foreign creeds; we find them so quick to
recognize the benefits of foreign trade and so apt to pursue them
that, in the space of a few years, they establish commercial relations
with no less than twenty over-sea markets; we find them authorizing
the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English to trade at every port in
the empire; we find, in short, all the elements requisite for a career
of commercial enterprise, ocean-going adventure and industrial
liberality. In 1641 everything is reversed. Trade is interdicted to
all Western peoples except the Dutch, and they are confined to a
little island 200 yards in length by 80 in width; the least symptom of
predilection for any alien creed exposes a Japanese subject to be
punished with awful rigour; any attempt to leave the limits of the
realm involves decapitation; not a ship large enough to pass beyond
the shadow of the coast may be built. However unwelcome the admission,
it is apparent that for all these changes Christian propagandism was
responsible. The policy of seclusion adopted by Japan in the early
part of the 17th century and resolutely pursued until the middle of
the 19th, was anti-Christian, not anti-foreign. The fact cannot be too
clearly recognized. It is the chief lesson taught by the events
outlined above. Throughout the whole of that period of isolation,
Occidentals were not known to the Japanese by any of the terms now in
common use, as _gwaikoku-jin_, _seiyo-jin_, or _i-jin_, which embody
the simple meanings 'foreigner,' 'Westerner' or 'alien': they were
popularly called _bateren_ (_padres_). Thus completely had foreign
intercourse and Christian propagandism become identified in the eyes
of the people. And when it is remembered that foreign intercourse,
associated with Christianity, had come to be synonymous in Japanese
ears with foreign aggression, with the subversal of the mikado's
ancient dynasty, and with the loss of the independence of the 'country
of the gods,' there is no difficulty in understanding the attitude of
the nation's mind towards this question."

Dutch and Russian Influence.

_Foreign Intercourse in Modern Times._--From the middle of the 17th
century to the beginning of the 19th, Japan succeeded in rigorously
enforcing her policy of seclusion. But in the concluding days of this
epoch two influences began to disturb her self-sufficiency. One was the
gradual infiltration of light from the outer world through the narrow
window of the Dutch prison at Deshima; the other, frequent apparitions
of Russian vessels on her northern coasts. The former was a slow
process. It materialized first in the study of anatomy by a little group
of youths who had acquired accidental knowledge of the radical
difference between Dutch and Japanese conceptions as to the structure of
the human body. The work of these students reads like a page of romance.
Without any appreciable knowledge of the Dutch language, they set
themselves to decipher a Dutch medical book, obtained at enormous cost,
and from this small beginning they passed to a vague but firm conviction
that their country had fallen far behind the material and intellectual
progress of the Occident. They laboured in secret, for the study of
foreign books was then a criminal offence; yet the patriotism of one of
their number outweighed his prudence, and he boldly published a brochure
advocating the construction of a navy and predicting a descent by the
Russians on the northern borders of the empire. Before this prescient
man had lain five months in prison, his foresight was verified by
events. The Russians simulated at the outset a desire to establish
commercial relations by peaceful means. Had the Japanese been better
acquainted with the history of nations, they would have known how to
interpret the idea of a Russian quest for commercial connexions in the
Far East a hundred years ago. But they dealt with the question on its
superficial merits, and, after imposing on the tsar's envoys a wearisome
delay of several months at Nagasaki, addressed to them a peremptory
refusal together with an order to leave that port forthwith. Incensed by
such treatment, and by the subsequent imprisonment of a number of their
fellow countrymen who had landed on the island of Etorofu in the
Kuriles, the Russians resorted to armed reprisals. The Japanese
settlements in Sakhalin and Etorofu were raided and burned, other places
were menaced and several Japanese vessels were destroyed. The lesson
sank deep into the minds of the Yedo officials. They withdrew their veto
against the study of foreign books, and they arrived in part at the
reluctant conclusion that to offer armed opposition to the coming of
foreign ships was a task somewhat beyond Japan's capacity. Japan ceased,
however, to attract European attention amid the absorbing interest of
the Napoleonic era, and the shogun's government, misinterpreting this
respite, reverted to their old policy of stalwart resistance to foreign
intercourse.

American Enterprise.

Meanwhile another power was beginning to establish close contact with
Japan. The whaling industry in Russian waters off the coast of Alaska
and in the seas of China and Japan had attracted large investments of
American capital and was pursued yearly by thousands of American
citizens. In one season 86 of these whaling vessels passed within easy
sight of Japan's northern island, Yezo, so that the aspect of foreign
ships became quite familiar. From time to time American schooners were
cast away on Japan's shores. Generally the survivors were treated with
tolerable consideration and ultimately sent to Deshima for shipment to
Batavia. Japanese sailors, too, driven out of their route by hurricanes
and caught in the stream of the "Black Current," were occasionally
carried to the Aleutian Islands, to Oregon or California, and in several
instances these shipwrecked mariners were taken back to Japan with all
kindness by American vessels. On such an errand of mercy the "Morrison"
entered Yedo Bay in 1837, proceeding thence to Kagoshima, only to be
driven away by cannon shot; and on such an errand the "Manhattan" in
1845 lay for four days at Uraga while her master (Mercater Cooper)
collected books and charts. It would seem that his experience induced
the Washington government to attempt the opening of Japan. A ninety-gun
ship and a sloop were sent on the errand. They anchored off Uraga (July
1846) and Commodore Biddle made due application for trade. But he
received a positive refusal, and having been instructed by his
government to abstain from any act calculated to excite hostility or
distrust, he quietly weighed anchor and sailed away.

Great Britain reappears upon the scene.

In this same year (1846) a French ship touched at the Riukiu (Luchu)
archipelago and sought to persuade the islanders that their only
security against British aggression was to place themselves under the
protection of France. In fact Great Britain was now beginning to
interest herself in south China, and more than one warning reached Yedo
from Deshima that English war-ships might at any moment visit Japanese
waters. The Dutch have been much blamed for thus attempting to prejudice
Japan against the Occident, but if the dictates of commercial rivalry,
as it was then practised, do not constitute an ample explanation, it
should be remembered that England and Holland had recently been enemies,
and that the last British vessel,[35] seen at Nagasaki had gone there
hoping to capture the annual Dutch trading-ship from Batavia. Deshima's
warnings, however, remained unfulfilled, though they doubtless
contributed to Japan's feeling of uneasiness. Then, in 1847, the king of
Holland himself intervened. He sent to Yedo various books, together with
a map of the world and a despatch advising Japan to abandon her policy
of isolation. Within a few months (1849) of the receipt of his Dutch
majesty's recommendation, an American brig, the "Preble," under
Commander J. Glynn, anchored in Nagasaki harbour and threatened to
bombard the town unless immediate delivery were made of 18 seamen who,
having been wrecked in northern waters, were held by the Japanese
preparatory to shipment for Batavia. In 1849 another despatch reached
Yedo from the king of Holland announcing that an American fleet might be
expected in Japanese waters a year later, and that, unless Japan agreed
to enter into friendly commercial relations, war must ensue. Appended to
this despatch was an approximate draft of the treaty which would be
presented for signature, together with a copy of a memorandum addressed
by the Washington government to European nations, justifying the
contemplated expedition on the ground that it would inure to the
advantage of Japan as well as to that of the Occident.

Commodore Perry.

In 1853, Commodore Perry, with a squadron of four ships-of-war and 560
men, entered Uraga Bay. So formidable a foreign force had not been seen
in Japanese waters since the coming of the Mongol Armada. A panic ensued
among the people--the same people who, in the days of Hideyoshi or
Iyeyasu, would have gone out to encounter these ships with assured
confidence of victory. The contrast did not stop there. The shogun,
whose ancestors had administered the country's affairs with absolutely
autocratic authority, now summoned a council of the feudatories to
consider the situation; and the Imperial court in Kioto, which never
appealed for heaven's aid except in a national emergency such as had
never been witnessed since the creation of the shogunate, now directed
that at the seven principal shrines and at all the great temples special
prayers should be offered for the safety of the land and for the
destruction of the aliens. Thus the appearance of the American squadron
awoke in the cause of the country as a whole a spirit of patriotism
hitherto confined to feudal interests. The shogun does not seem to have
had any thought of invoking that spirit: his part in raising it was
involuntary and his ministers behaved with perplexed vacillation. The
infirmity of the Yedo Administration's purpose presented such a strong
contrast to the single-minded resolution of the Imperial court that the
prestige of the one was largely impaired and that of the other
correspondingly enhanced. Perry, however, was without authority to
support his proposals by any recourse to violence. The United States
government had relied solely on the moral effect of his display of
force, and his countrymen had supplied him with a large collection of
the products of peaceful progress, from sewing machines to miniature
railways. He did not unduly press for a treaty, but after lying at
anchor off Uraga during a period of ten days and after transmitting the
president's letter to the sovereign of Japan, he steamed away on the
17th of July, announcing his return in the ensuing spring. The conduct
of the Japanese subsequently to his departure showed how fully and
rapidly they had acquired the conviction that the appliances of their
old civilization were powerless to resist the resources of the new.
Orders were issued rescinding the long-enforced veto against the
construction of sea-going ships; the feudal chiefs were invited to build
and arm large vessels; the Dutch were commissioned to furnish a ship of
war and to procure from Europe all the best works on modern military
science; every one who had acquired any expert knowledge through the
medium of Deshima was taken into official favour; forts were built;
cannon were cast and troops were drilled. But from all this effort there
resulted only fresh evidence of the country's inability to defy foreign
insistence, and on the 2nd of December 1853, instructions were issued
that if the Americans returned, they were to be dealt with peacefully.
The sight of Perry's steam-propelled ships, their powerful guns and all
the specimens they carried of western wonders, had practically broken
down the barriers of Japan's isolation without any need of treaties or
conventions. Perry returned in the following February, and after an
interchange of courtesies and formalities extending over six weeks,
obtained a treaty pledging Japan to accord kind treatment to shipwrecked
sailors; to permit foreign vessels to obtain stores and provisions
within her territory, and to allow American ships to anchor in the ports
at Shimoda and Hakodate. On this second occasion Perry had 10 ships with
crews numbering two thousand, and when he landed to sign the treaty, he
was escorted by a guard of honour mustering 500 strong in 27 boats. Much
has been written about his judicious display of force and his sagacious
tact in dealing with the Japanese, but it may be doubted whether the
consequences of his exploit have not invested its methods with
extravagant lustre. Standing on the threshold of modern Japan's
wonderful career, his figure shines by the reflected light of its
surroundings.

First Treaty of Commerce.

Russia, Holland and England speedily secured for themselves treaties
similar to that concluded by Commodore Perry in 1854. But Japan's doors
still remained closed to foreign commerce, and it was reserved for
another citizen of the great republic to open them. This was Townsend
Harris (1803-1878), the first U.S. consul-general in Japan. Arriving in
August 1856, he concluded, in June of the following year, a treaty
securing to American citizens the privilege of permanent residence at
Shimoda and Hakodate, the opening of Nagasaki, the right of consular
jurisdiction and certain minor concessions. Still, however, permission
for commercial intercourse was withheld, and Harris, convinced that this
great goal could not be reached unless he made his way to Yedo and
conferred direct with the shogun's ministers, pressed persistently for
leave to do so. Ten months elapsed before he succeeded, and such a
display of reluctance on the Japanese side was very unfavourably
criticized in the years immediately subsequent. Ignorance of the
country's domestic politics inspired the critics. The Yedo
administration, already weakened by the growth of a strong public
sentiment in favour of abolishing the dual system of government--that of
the mikado in Kioto and that of the shogun in Yedo--had been still
further discredited by its own timid policy as compared with the
stalwart mien of the throne towards the question of foreign intercourse.
Openly to sanction commercial relations at such a time would have been
little short of reckless. The Perry convention and the first Harris
convention could be construed, and were purposely construed, as mere
acts of benevolence towards strangers; but a commercial treaty would not
have lent itself to any such construction, and naturally the shogun's
ministers hesitated to agree to an apparently suicidal step. Harris
carried his point, however. He was received by the shogun in Yedo in
November 1857, and on the 29th of July 1858 a treaty was signed in Yedo,
engaging that Yokohama should be opened on the 4th of July 1859 and that
commerce between the United States and Japan should thereafter be freely
carried on there. This treaty was actually concluded by the shogun's
Ministers in defiance of their failure to obtain the sanction of the
sovereign in Kioto. Foreign historians have found much to say about
Japanese duplicity in concealing the subordinate position occupied by
the Yedo administration towards the Kioto court. Such condemnation is
not consistent with fuller knowledge. The Yedo authorities had power to
solve all problems of foreign intercourse without reference to Kioto.
Iyeyasu had not seen any occasion to seek imperial assent when he
granted unrestricted liberty of trade to the representatives of the East
India Company, nor had Iyemitsu asked for Kioto's sanction when he
issued his decree for the expulsion of all foreigners. If, in the 19th
century, Yedo shrank from a responsibility which it had unhesitatingly
assumed in the 17th, the cause was to be found, not in the shogun's
simulation of autonomy, but in his desire to associate the throne with a
policy which, while recognizing it to be unavoidable, he distrusted his
own ability to make the nation accept. But his ministers had promised
Harris that the treaty should be signed, and they kept their word, at a
risk of which the United States' consul-general had no conception.
Throughout these negotiations Harris spared no pains to create in the
minds of the Japanese an intelligent conviction that the world could no
longer be kept at arm's length, and though it is extremely problematical
whether he would have succeeded had not the Japanese themselves already
arrived at that very conviction, his patient and lucid expositions
coupled with a winning personality undoubtedly produced much impression.
He was largely assisted, too, by recent events in China, where the Peiho
forts had been captured and the Chinese forced to sign a treaty at
Tientsin. Harris warned the Japanese that the British fleet might be
expected at any moment in Yedo Bay, and that the best way to avert
irksome demands at the hands of the English was to establish a
comparatively moderate precedent by yielding to America's proposals.

Effects of the Treaty.

This treaty could not be represented, as previous conventions had been,
in the light of a purely benevolent concession. It definitely provided
for the trade and residence of foreign merchants, and thus finally
terminated Japan's traditional isolation. Moreover, it had been
concluded in defiance of the Throne's refusal to sanction anything of
the kind. Much excitement resulted. The nation ranged itself into three
parties. One comprised the advocates of free intercourse and progressive
liberality; another, while insisting that only the most limited
privileges should be accorded to aliens, was of two minds as to the
advisability of offering armed resistance at once or temporizing so as
to gain time for preparation; the third advocated uncompromising
seclusion. Once again the shogun convoked a meeting of the feudal
barons, hoping to secure their co-operation. But with hardly an
exception they pronounced against yielding. Thus the shogunate saw
itself compelled to adopt a resolutely liberal policy: it issued a
decree in that sense, and thenceforth the administrative court at Yedo
and the Imperial court in Kioto stood in unequivocal opposition to each
other, the Conservatives ranging themselves on the side of the latter,
the Liberals on that of the former. It was a situation full of
perplexity to outsiders, and the foreign representatives misinterpreted
it. They imagined that the shogun's ministers sought only to evade their
treaty obligations and to render the situation intolerable for foreign
residents, whereas in truth the situation threatened to become
intolerable for the shogunate itself. Nevertheless the Yedo officials
cannot be entirely acquitted of duplicity. Under pressure of the
necessity of self-preservation they effected with Kioto a compromise
which assigned to foreign intercourse a temporary character. The
threatened political crisis was thus averted, but the enemies of the
dual system of government gained strength daily. One of their devices
was to assassinate foreigners in the hope of embroiling the shogunate
with Western powers and thus either forcing its hand or precipitating
its downfall. It is not wonderful, perhaps, that foreigners were
deceived, especially as they approached the solution of Japanese
problems with all the Occidental's habitual suspicion of everything
Oriental. Thus when the Yedo government, cognisant that serious dangers
menaced the Yokohama settlement, took precautions to guard it, the
foreign ministers convinced themselves that a deliberate piece of
chicanery was being practised at their expense; that statecraft rather
than truth had dictated the representations made to them by the Japanese
authorities; and that the alarm of the latter was simulated for the
purpose of finding a pretext to curtail the liberty enjoyed by
foreigners. Therefore a suggestion that the inmates of the legations
should show themselves as little as possible in the streets of the
capital, where at any moment a desperado might cut them down, was
treated almost as an insult. Then the Japanese authorities saw no
recourse except to attach an armed escort to the person of every
foreigner when he moved about the city. But even this precaution, which
certainly was not adopted out of mere caprice or with any sinister
design, excited fresh suspicions. The British representative, in
reporting the event to his government, said that the Japanese had taken
the opportunity to graft upon the establishment of spies, watchmen and
police-officers at the several legations, a mounted escort to accompany
the members whenever they moved about.

Attacks upon Foreigners and their Consequences.

Just at this time (1861) the Yedo statesmen, in order to reconcile the
divergent views of the two courts, negotiated a marriage between the
emperor's sister and the shogun. But in order to bring the union about,
they had to placate the Kioto Conservatives by a promise to expel
foreigners from the country within ten years. When this became known, it
strengthened the hands of the reactionaries, and furnished a new weapon
to Yedo's enemies, who interpreted the marriage as the beginning of a
plot to dethrone the mikado. Murderous attacks upon foreigners became
more frequent. Two of these assaults had momentous consequences. Three
British subjects attempted to force their way through the _cortège_ of
the Satsuma feudal chief on the highway between Yokohama and Yedo. One
of them was killed and the other two wounded. This outrage was not
inspired by the "barbarian-expelling" sentiment: to any Japanese subject
violating the rules of etiquette as these Englishmen had violated them,
the same fate would have been meted out. Nevertheless, as the Satsuma
daimyo refused to surrender his implicated vassals, and as the shogun's
arm was not long enough to reach the most powerful feudatory in Japan,
the British government sent a squadron to bombard his capital,
Kagoshima. It was not a brilliant exploit in any sense, but its results
were invaluable; for the operations of the British ships finally
convinced the Satsuma men of their impotence in the face of Western
armaments, and converted them into advocates of liberal progress. Three
months previously to this bombardment of Kagoshima another puissant
feudatory had thrown down the gauntlet. The Choshu chief, whose
batteries commanded the entrance to the inland sea at Shimonoseki,
opened fire upon ships flying the flags of the United States, of France
and of Holland. In thus acting he obeyed an edict obtained by the
extremists from the mikado without the knowledge of the shogun, which
edict fixed the 11th of May 1863 as the date for practically
inaugurating the foreigners-expulsion policy. Again the shogun's
administrative competence proved inadequate to exact reparation, and a
squadron, composed chiefly of British men-of-war, proceeding to
Shimonoseki, demolished Choshu's forts, destroyed his ships and
scattered his samurai. In the face of the Kagoshima bombardment and the
Shimonoseki expedition, no Japanese subject could retain any faith in
his country's ability to oppose Occidentals by force. Thus the year 1863
was memorable in Japan's history. It saw the "barbarian-expelling"
agitation deprived of the emperor's sanction; it saw the two principal
clans, Satsuma and Choshu, convinced of their country's impotence to
defy the Occident; it saw the nation almost fully roused to the
disintegrating and weakening effects of the feudal system; and it saw
the traditional antipathy to foreigners beginning to be exchanged for a
desire to study their civilization and to adopt its best features.

Ratification of the Treaties.

The treaty concluded between the shogun's government and the United
States in 1858 was of course followed by similar compacts with the
principal European powers. From the outset these states agreed to
co-operate for the assertion of their conventional privileges, and they
naturally took Great Britain for leader, though such a relation was
never openly announced. The treaties, however, continued during several
years to lack imperial ratification, and, as time went by, that defect
obtruded itself more and more upon the attention of their foreign
signatories. The year 1865 saw British interests entrusted to the charge
of Sir Harry Parkes, a man of keen insight, indomitable courage and
somewhat peremptory methods, learned during a long period of service in
China. It happened that the post of Japanese secretary at the British
legation in Yedo was then held by a remarkably gifted young Englishman,
who, in a comparatively brief interval, had acquired a good working
knowledge of the Japanese language, and it happened also that the
British legation in Yedo was already--as it has always been ever
since--the best equipped institution of its class in Japan. Aided by
these facilities and by the researches of Mr Satow (afterwards Sir
Ernest Satow) Parkes arrived at the conclusions that the Yedo government
was tottering to its fall; that the resumption of administrative
authority by the Kioto court would make for the interests not only of
the West but also of Japan; and that the ratification of the treaties by
the mikado would elucidate the situation for foreigners while being, at
the same time, essential to the validity of the documents. Two other
objects also presented themselves, namely, that the import duties fixed
by the conventions should be reduced from 15 to 5% _ad valorem_, and
that the ports of Hiogo and Osaka should be opened at once, instead of
at the expiration of two years as originally fixed. It was not proposed
that these concessions should be entirely gratuitous. When the
four-power flotilla destroyed the Shimonoseki batteries and sank the
vessels lying there, a fine of three million dollars (some £750,000) had
been imposed upon the daimyo of Choshu by way of ransom for his capital,
which lay at the mercy of the invaders. The daimyo of Choshu, however,
was in open rebellion against the shogun, and as the latter could not
collect the debt from the recalcitrant clansmen, while the four powers
insisted on being paid by some one, the Yedo treasury was finally
compelled to shoulder the obligation. Two out of the three millions were
still due, and Parkes conceived the idea of remitting this debt in
exchange for the ratification of the treaties, the reduction of the
customs tariff from 15 to 5% _ad valorem_ and the immediate opening of
Hiogo and Osaka. He took with him to the place of negotiation (Hiogo) a
fleet of British, French and Dutch war-ships, for, while announcing
peaceful intentions, he had accustomed himself to think that a display
of force should occupy the foreground in all negotiations with Oriental
states. This coup may be said to have sealed the fate of the shogunate.
For here again was produced in a highly aggravated form the drama which
had so greatly startled the nation eight years previously. Perry had
come with his war-ships to the portals of Yedo, and now a foreign fleet,
twice as strong as Perry's, had anchored at the vestibule of the
Imperial city itself. No rational Japanese could suppose that this
parade of force was for purely peaceful purposes, or that rejection of
the amicable bargain proposed by Great Britain's representative would be
followed by the quiet withdrawal of the menacing fleet, whose terrible
potentialities had been demonstrated at Kagoshima and Shimonoseki. The
seclusionists, whose voices had been nearly silenced, raised them in
renewed denunciation of the shogun's incompetence to guarantee the
sacred city of Kioto against such trespasses, and the emperor, brought
once more under the influence of the anti-foreign party, inflicted a
heavy disgrace on the shogun by dismissing and punishing the officials
to whom the latter had entrusted the conduct of negotiations at Hiogo.
Such procedure on the part of the throne amounted to withdrawing the
administrative commission held by the Tokugawa family since the days of
Iyeyasu. The shogun resigned. But his adversaries not being yet ready to
replace him, he was induced to resume office, with, however, fatally
damaged prestige. As for the three-power squadron, it steamed away
successful. Parkes had come prepared to write off the indemnity in
exchange for three concessions. He obtained two of the concessions
without remitting a dollar of the debt.

Final Adoption of Western Civilization.

The shogun did not long survive the humiliation thus inflicted on him.
He died in the following year (1866), and was succeeded by Keiki,
destined to be the last of the Tokugawa rulers. Nine years previously
this same Keiki had been put forward by the seclusionists as candidate
for the shogunate. Yet no sooner did he attain that distinction in 1866
than he remodelled the army on French lines, engaged English officers to
organize a navy, sent his brother to the Paris Exhibition, and altered
many of the forms and ceremonies of his court so as to bring them into
accord with Occidental fashions. The contrast between the politics he
represented when a candidate for office in 1857 and the practice he
adopted on succeeding to power in 1866 furnished an apt illustration of
the change that had come over the spirit of the time. The most bigoted
of the exclusionists were now beginning to abandon all idea of expelling
foreigners and to think mainly of acquiring the best elements of their
civilization. The Japanese are slow to reach a decision but very quick
to act upon it when reached. From 1866 onwards the new spirit rapidly
permeated the whole nation; progress became the aim of all classes, and
the country entered upon a career of intelligent assimilation which, in
forty years, won for Japan a universally accorded place in the ranks of
the great Occidental powers.

[Continued in volume XV slice III.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The highest rate of subscription to a daily journal is twelve
shillings per annum, and the usual charge for advertisement is from
7d. to one shilling per line of 22 ideographs (about nine words).

[2] It is first boiled in a lye obtained by lixiviating wood ashes;
it is next polished with charcoal powder; then immersed in plum
vinegar and salt; then washed with weak lye and placed in a tub of
water to remove all traces of alkali, the final step being to digest
in a boiling solution of copper sulphate, verdigris and water.

[3] This method is some 300 years old. It is by no means a modern
invention, as some writers have asserted.

[4] Obtained from the shell of the _Halictis_.

[5] In 1877 there were 120 English engineers, drivers and foremen in
the service of the railway bureau. Three years later only three
advisers remained.

[6] The largest is the mitsubishi at Nagasaki. It has a length of 722
ft. Next stands the kawasaki at Kobe, and in the third place is the
uraga.

[7] They were called _fuda-sashi_ (ticket-holders), a term derived
from the fact that rice-vouchers were usually held in a split bamboo
which was thrust into a pile of rice-bags to indicate their buyer.

[8] In 1725, when the population of Yedo was about three-quarters of
a million, the merchandise that entered the city was 861,893 bags of
rice; 795,856 casks of sake; 132,892 casks of soy (fish-sauce);
18,209,987 bundles of fire-wood; 809,790 bags of charcoal; 90,811
tubs of oil; 1,670,850 bags of salt and 3,613,500 pieces of cotton
cloth.

[9] Some derive this term from _mika_, an ancient Japanese term for
"great," and _to_, "place."

[10] The names given in italics are those more commonly used. Those
in the first column are generally of pure native derivation; those in
the second column are composed of the Chinese word _shu_, a
"province," added to the Chinese pronunciation of one of the
characters with which the native name is written. In a few cases both
names are used.

[11] The mayor of a town (_shicho_) is nominated by the minister for
home affairs from three men chosen by the town assembly.

[12] The term _hyaku-sho_, here translated "working man," means
literally "one engaged in any of the various callings" apart from
military service. In a later age a further distinction was
established between the agriculturist, the artisan, and the trader,
and the word _hyaku-sho_ then came to carry the signification of
"husbandman" only.

[13] A tent was simply a space enclosed with strips of cloth or silk,
on which was emblazoned the crest of the commander. It had no
covering.

[14] The Japanese never at any time of their history used poisoned
arrows; they despised them as depraved and inhuman weapons.

[15] The general term for commoners as distinguished from samurai.

[16] The privilege at first led to great abuses. It became a common
thing to employ some aged and indigent person, set him up as the head
of a "branch family," and give him for adopted son a youth liable to
conscription.

[17] Conscription without lot is thus the punishment for all failures
to comply with and attempts to evade the military laws.

[18] Sons of officers' widows, or of officers in reduced
circumstances, are educated at these schools either free or at
reduced charges, but are required to complete the course and to
graduate.

[19] Uniform does not vary according to regiments or divisions. There
is only one type for the whole of the infantry, one for the cavalry,
and so on (see UNIFORMS, NAVAL AND MILITARY). Officers largely obtain
their uniforms and equipment, as well as their books and technical
literature through the _Kai-ko-sha_, which is a combined officers'
club, benefit society and co-operative trading association to which
nearly all belong.

[20] The term _maru_ subsequently became applicable to merchantmen
only, war-ships being distinguished as _kan_.

[21] The reader should be warned that absolute accuracy cannot be
claimed for statistics compiled before the Meiji era.

[22] The _yen_ is a silver coin worth about 2s.: 10 _yen_ = £1.

[23] In addition to the above grant, the feudatories were allowed to
retain the reserves in their treasuries; thus many of the feudal
nobles found themselves possessed of substantial fortunes, a
considerable part of which they generally devoted to the support of
their former vassals.

[24] The Bank of Japan was established as a joint-stock company in
1882. The capital in 1909 was 30,000,000 _yen_. In it alone is vested
note-issuing power. There is no limit to its issues against gold or
silver coins and bullion, but on other securities (state bonds,
treasury bills and other negotiable bonds or commercial paper) its
issues are limited to 120 millions, any excess over that figure being
subject to a tax of 5% per annum.

[25] The amounts include the payments made in connexion with what may
be called the disestablishment of the Church. There were 29,805
endowed temples and shrines throughout the empire, and their estates
aggregated 354,481 acres, together with 1¾ million bushels of rice
(representing 2,500,000 _yen_). The government resumed possession of
all these lands and revenues at a total cost to the state of a little
less than 2,500,000 _yen_, paid out in pensions spread over a period
of fourteen years. The measure sounds like wholesale confiscation.
But some extenuation is found in the fact that the temples and
shrines held their lands and revenues under titles which, being
derived from the feudal chiefs, depended for their validity on the
maintenance of feudalism.

[26] This sum represents interest-bearing bonds issued in exchange
for fiat notes, with the idea of reducing the volume of the latter.
It was a tentative measure, and proved of no value.

[27] In this is included a sum of 110,000,000 _yen_ distributed in
the form of loan-bonds among the officers and men of the army and
navy by way of reward for their services during the war of 1904-5.

[28] When war broke out in 1904 the local administrative districts
took steps to reduce their outlays, so that whereas the expenditures
totalled 158,000,000 _yen_ in 1903-1904, they fell to 122,000,000 and
126,000,000 in 1904-1905 and 1905-1906 respectively. Thereafter
however, they expanded once more.

[29] This includes 22¼ millions of loans raised abroad.

[30] The problem was to induce the co-operation of a feudatory whose
castle served for frontier guard to the fief of a powerful chief, his
suzerain. The feudatory was a Christian. Nobunaga seized the Jesuits
in Kioto, and threatened to suppress their religion altogether unless
they persuaded the feudatory to abandon the cause of his suzerain.

[31] The mutilation was confined to the lobe of one ear. Crucifixion,
according to the Japanese method, consisted in tying to a cross and
piercing the heart with two sharp spears driven from either side.
Death was always instantaneous.

[32] See _A History of Christianity in Japan_ (1910), by Otis Cary.

[33] The Imperial cities were Yedo, Kioto, Osaka and Nagasaki. To
this last the English were subsequently admitted. They were also
invited to Kagoshima by the Shimazu chieftain, and, had not their
experience at Hirado proved so deterrent, they might have established
a factory at Kagoshima.

[34] _A History of Japan_ (Murdoch and Yamagata).

[35] H.M.S. "Phaeton," which entered that port in 1808.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 15, Slice 2 - "Jacobites" to "Japan" (part)" ***

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