We will now endeavour to compare the morale of the Japanese with that of the Chinese.
In thinking of the Japanese one's mind involuntarily turns to the wars against China and Russia, but it will be safer to go to facts that happen-before Japan had learnt anything from the West, in order to shut Europe out of the equation. Let us take the first of Mitford's "Tales of Old Japan," translated in 1871, "The Forty-seven Ronis," a well-authenticated record of waiting, the forty-seven attack Kotsuke's house in winter during a heavy fall of snow at midnight, after a desperate fight kill all his guards and drag him from his place of hiding. Although in hot blood they do not despatch him, but their leader addressing Kotsuke respectfully says "My lord,, we are retainers of Takumi no Kami. Last year your lordship and our master quarrelled in the palace, and our master was sentenced to hara-kiri. We come to-night to avenge him, as is the duty of faithful and loyal men. I pray your lordship to acknowledge the justice of our purpose. And now, my lord, we beseech you to commit hara-kiri, I myself shall have the honour to act as your second, and when with all humility I shall have received your lordship's head, it is my intention to lay it as an offering upon the mi no Kami." Seeing that it was vain to urge him to die the death of a nobleman, the Ronins cut off his head with the same dirk with which Takumi had killed himself, they carry the head and dirk and them on the grave of Takumi. fore the attack on the hou: leader addresses the Ronins saying: "To-night we shall attack our enemy in his palace; his retainers will certainly resist us and we shall have to kill them, But to slay old men and women and children is a pitiful thing; therefore I pray you each one to take great heed lest you kill a single helpless person." Before leaving the house for the grave, they carefully extinguished all the lights and fires in the place, lest by accident a fire should break out and the neighbours suffer. The forty-seven, whose ages ranged from facts that happened at the begin-sixteen to seventy years, knew their ning of the 18th century, which may inevitable fate and only wait the or-be summarized as follows:—der of the government to commit A Daimio named Takumi no hi in. They lie buried round i was appointed to receive an their lord; and their grave is one 1 Ambassador, and a high of the most sacred places in Japan. official named Kotsuke no Suke The above is a very inadequate was named to teach him summary, and the tale itself should the proper ceremony to be read by those who wish to get observed on the occasion. Kotsuke in!
lets on Takumi a deep 4 a Ed conception of those moral iti in which the Japanese and deliberate insult; whereupon excel. Those quality it the latter unable to control himself, Ity, discipline, obedience, self-draws his dirk and wounds Kotsuke, sacrifice, endurance, perseverance, intending to kill him, within the straint and punctilious per-Palace precincts, and is thereupon formance of duty. ordered to commit hara-kiri, To digress a moment, this story castle being confiscated and his throws light on a remark one often family ruined. His retainers behears, that the Japanese are less came Ronins, some of them taking trustworthy in commerce than the service with other Daimios and Chinese. A Ronin is explained to others becoming merchants. Forty-be a person of gentle blood—en-seven of these retainers form a titled to bear arms—who has be-league to avenge their lord's death, come separated from his feudal lord To achieve this they have to pre-and who wanders about the country, pare for twenty months, their leader or who falling in the social scale discards his wife and children, in becomes a merchant. The mer-order to make the enemy think he chant in old Japan was a low-class is steeped in debauchery and thus man, and his morality corresponded to put him off his guard, and one of to his social position. But the big them marries a girl merely to get a merchant in China with whom for-plan of the enemy's house, designed eigners used to do business and by her father. After months of whose word was found to be his al fr
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.