108 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



or higher rank, the same code prescribed that, " in respect to 

 revenging injury done to master or father, it is granted by 

 the wise and virtuous (that is, Confucius) that you and the 

 injurer cannot live together under the canopy of heaven." 



Such was the legal foundation of the vendetta in Japan ; 

 yet this right of private redress Avas exercised upon a higher 

 ])asis and under wiser restrictions than was the vendetta or 

 blood-feud among the early Greeks, the European tribes of 

 the middle ages, the modern Bedouins and Corsicans, or the 

 relic of similar barbarism still existing in some of our own 

 south-western States ; for the public peace was not to be 

 endangered, nor were riotous proceedings to attend its 

 execution. 



But they who live by the sword perchance must die by 

 the sword, and in no feature were the rules of the code more 

 formal or complete than in that wonderful ceremony of self- 

 dispatch, vulgarly called hara-lciri, or "belly-cut," but 

 more properly termed seppuhu. 



The short sword of the Samurai, guided by his own hand, 

 secured to him lasting honor, whatever the turn of fickle 

 fortune that compelled him to end his life. It rescued his 

 name from the iniquity of defeat, was a fit antidote for 

 blasted hopes and ambitions, and even secured to him honor- 

 able death under condemnation of his prince to capital pun- 

 ishment. To the weapon upon which he relied for renown 

 in life, he turned for a meed of grim glory in death. 



The honorable penalty of self-disembowelment in capital 

 execution latterly gave way to the custom of striking off the 

 head while the victim went through the preliminary cere- 

 monies of self-dispatch, such as reaching forward to receive 

 his short sword from a second or assistant in front of him. 



The person appointed to inflict the death-blow in such 

 cases was considered to act in the capacity of, and even was, 

 a dear friend or faithful servant of the prisoner, using for 

 this purpose his own sword, or that of the victim. 



Christ said, " Greater love hath no man than this, that a 

 man lay down his life for his friend." But where, save in 

 the land of that human paradox, the Japanese, were youth 

 ever taught that the last tribute of affection which one may 

 have to pay his best friend may be to act as his executioner ? 



