28 HABIT OF SUICIDE. [1845- 



to succeed to his father's post. As with us, the graceful 

 performance of certain bodily exercises, is considered an 

 accomplishment essential to a liberal education, so among 

 them, it is indispensably necessary for all those who, by 

 their birth or rank, aspire to dignities, to understand the 

 art of ripping themselves up like gentlemen. To attain 

 a due proficiency in this operation, which requires a 

 practice of many years, is a principal point in the educa- 

 tion of youth. In a country where sometimes a whole 

 family is involved in the misconduct of one of its 

 members, and where the life of every individual fre- 

 quently depends on the error of a moment, it is abso- 

 lutely requisite to have the apparatus for suicide con- 

 stantly at hand, for the purpose of escaping disgrace 

 which they dread much more than death itself. The 

 details of the permanent troubles recorded in their annals, 

 and the accounts of the first conquests of the Dutch in 

 India, furnish the most complete proofs of the courage of 

 the Japanese. The law, which has since forbidden all 

 emigration, and closes their country against strangers, 

 may have taken away the food which nourished their in- 

 trepidity, but has not extinguished it : any critical event 

 would be sufficient to kindle their martial sentiments, 

 which danger would but serve to inflame, and the citizen 

 would soon be transformed into a hero. 



" The extirpation of the Catholic religion, and the ex- 

 pulsion of the Spaniards and Portuguese, caused dreadful 

 commotions in Japan for a number of years. The san- 

 guinary war which we (the Dutch) carried on with those 

 two nations, who were too zealous for the propagation of 

 Christianity, and the difference of our religion, procured 



