1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 109 



Indeed, it is hard to conceive that these meek and cour- 

 teous people of to-day were actors in the many sublime 

 tragedies which color their history, inspire their drama, in- 

 vigorate their literature, and point countless tales current 

 among their professional story-tellers. 



A former secretary of the British legation recounts the 

 case of a young Samurai, twenty years old, who, not con- 

 tent with inflicting the one conventional cut across the abdo- 

 men, with an upward twist of the blade at the finish, with 

 fierce determination slashed himself thrice across and twice 

 vertically, then, with unfailing resolution, plunged the blade 

 full through his neck in front of the spinal column, with its 

 keen edge to the front, and, setting his teeth, in one su- 

 preme efibrt with both hands drove the weapon forward, and 

 fell dead, an object of admiration. 



The debasing influence of our luxurious civilization upon 

 this heroic custom is perhaps shown in an event marking the 

 close of the public career of the last Taikun or Shogun in 

 1868. Defeated on every side, he fled to Yedo, ignomini- 

 ously resolved to yield everything and fight no more. 



A faithful councillor thereupon said to him : " My lord, 

 it only remains for you now to retrieve the honor of the 

 family of Tokugawa by committing seppuhi ; and, that you 

 may be assured of my sincerity and allegiance, I come to 

 disembowel myself with you." The Taikun, however, evi- 

 dently realized that the day had dawned in Japan in which 

 one might choose rather to live an enlightened coward than 

 to die a deluded hero, for he declared he would have no such 

 nonsense, and left the room, while his faithful retainer re- 

 tired to another part of the castle and solemnly performed 

 the hara-kiri. 



1 was told by one of his former followers, who ten years 

 before might himself have cut down a tradesman for refus- 

 ing to bend tlie knee and bump the ignoble head on the 

 ground, that the ex-Taikun had become a merchant. 



It was with peculiar interest that I called upon him (now 

 the Marquis Tokugawa) at Boston last winter, and heard 

 him express his views upon the cause of liberal Christianity 

 in Japan, in which he has become interested. 



Since the downfall of the Taikun and the restoration of the 



