Part 20

--'To detail the matter a little further,' I continued, 'when Saigo retired to Kagoshima in 1873, many of his admirers and followers, especially those in the army, also resigned their offices, and retired to Satsuma, whilst many others, including Saigo the younger, namely the brother of the elder Saigo, remained in the service of the Government with Okubo. Thus Satsuma men were practically divided into two parties, many near relatives and friends having taken different sides. As time went on the distance between them became greater and greater. In Satsuma the so-called private schools were organised in different parts of the province by the chief followers of Saigo the elder, though he himself mostly indulged in hunting. Those schools in reality were utilised for gathering together young men to serve latent designs of the organisers. It is a doubtful point of history how far Saigo himself was cognisant of those matters, but one thing is certain, that he did not exactly discourage them. When some time back Yamagata mooted the proposal for the universal service system, Saigo, who was then fulfilling an important position in the army, was persuaded to agree. Again, when the final abolition of the feudal system was decided upon, he joined the cabinet almost for that special purpose, and his weight went a long way in achieving that aim. It has always remained doubtful whether Shimazu Saburo was in accord with the scheme, but the matter was carried out by Okubo and Saigo in conjunction with influential statesmen of other clans. Hence we can see that Saigo was also in the main on the lines of progressive policy. It may, however, be presumed that, intelligent and well educated as he was in the Oriental sense, he had not any deep insight into the European civilisation. Besides, his personal character and proclivity were not exactly fit to appreciate radical changes, which to him must have appeared somewhat frivolous. Then, too, after his retirement to Kagoshima, many governmental measures were often misrepresented to him as the result of thoughtless actions of Okubo and others, and it was also possible that many personal scandalous misrepresentations were made about those in power. Hence it is to be presumed that Saigo also felt some desirability of modifying the trend of the national policy. When, therefore, his followers committed an act which was irreconcilable with the peaceful observation of the laws of the land and which soon assumed attitudes of revolt, Saigo became their head without any overt action and almost as a result of the natural course of events. The revolters numbered forty-five thousand. Individually, Saigo was the most popular man in the whole empire. The Imperial army at the time did not number much more than the revolters. It was a most critical time for the Government, which only succeeded in suppressing the rebels after many sanguinary battles. It is well worth remembering that in the case of the Satsuma men, many near relatives and close friends had to fight one against the other, because a large number of them was on the side of the Government as well. Casual observers of the outside world may say it was barbarous that such people should fight one against the other, but such is often the case when a nation undergoes a great change. I may reiterate that it was a very critical time for Japan, for if the rebels had been victorious, there was a grave fear that the progressive policy would have been seriously hindered and a military despotism would have reigned in the country. It was absolutely necessary to crush the rebels at the point of the bayonet, however great and popular Saigo might have been and however meritorious his antecedents. I for one have some consolation in saying that I have done some little service to my country by being the first to formulate and publish the views of the situation I have just spoken of, and to lead the public opinion in that direction, before any other dared to do so. I received several threatening letters at the time, but suffered no actual attack. Towards the latter part of that war I was on the battlefield, and was one of the few who assisted at the last hour in washing Saigo's head, which had been found and dug up. The head had been buried hastily in a small ditch by one of his captains, who, when Saigo had been fatally wounded in the last battle, cut it off at his own request, while the fray was still raging, to prevent it falling into the hands of the enemy. I remember there were present Marshal Yamagata, Marshal Oyama, and General Nozu.'

--'What had become of Shimazu Saburo at the time of the war?' asked another.

--'He was in Kagoshima,' I answered, 'but he kept aloof together with some devoted followers: the rebels also seem to have preferred to leave him alone. In the course of years he died a natural and honourable death, to the great regret of the emperor and the nation. Okubo was assassinated a few years after the war by a small group of young men who had been zealous supporters of Saigo. Taking into consideration all that I have related, you will clearly see that the present-day Japan has by no means been built upon a bed of roses.'

--'How does the social condition of Japan stand at present?' asked another; 'from the political point of view, for instance, who is the ruling class?'

--'The social condition of Japan,' I answered, 'is satisfactory. We have aristocracy and commons, as you know, but no class animosity. The distance between them is not great. The commercial class also is making its influence felt: many people who formerly belonged to a class which despised business occupation are now engaged in business. The official positions are occupied almost all by men of ability belonging mostly to the middle class. Almost none of the old nobles occupy any official positions. You must have heard many statesmen and generals called by some titles of nobility, but they are only new nobility, given by the emperor for meritorious services rendered to the new Imperial Government, and therefore their modes of thought and their inclinations are not far different from that of the ordinary people at large. All the Government officials and officers of the army and navy are taken by examination without any distinction of class or locality, and therefore young men belonging to any class of society or to any province have equal chance. It is true that immediately after the restoration some powerful clans, especially that of Satcho, exercised more influence in political circles, but it was only natural as the results of the great change. Even at this moment there are several statesmen, who originally belonged to those clans, who exercise great influence: it is because their services to the country have been great, and consequently they enjoy greater prestige. In the army and navy, also, the majority of the generals of the higher class are in a similar manner men who have risen from those clans. With the rest, the clannish landmarks are already almost indistinguishable; even amongst those of the highest positions the disappearance of the clannish traces must be only a question of time, for most of the personages occupying those positions are already far advanced in age. It is not, therefore, fair for some foreigners to say that the Satcho men placed themselves in the place of the Shogunate. As a matter of fact, the Satcho statesmen themselves have introduced many important regulations for giving equal chances to every class and province. Then, again, what is most worth noticing is perhaps the fact that all public affairs are governed by laws and regulations, and not by any arbitrary will; so much so, that in some instances people think that there are too many laws and regulations. On the whole, I approve the present system, as every one must, because it leaves no room for class or bureaucratic oppression.'

--'Can you explain,' said one, 'how all those psychological changes have been brought about? People in the West have always thought that the Orientals little cared for laws and regulations, their modes of government being based upon customs and traditions.'

--'You may think so,' I answered; 'if you take the generality of the Orientals, but it is not the case with Modern Japan. Even in China the matter was never exactly as you have just said. China has always been wanting in the matter of civil law. But there is one particular feature worth noticing. In the same way as the Romans were rich in the notions of civil law, the Chinese were rich in the ideas of criminal law. I do not, of course, say their system was good from the Western point of view, but in its way it had very good jurisprudence and codes, which were handed down with some necessary modifications from dynasty to dynasty. They knew the importance of separating ethics from jurisprudence for more than a dozen centuries, namely, from the Tang dynasty, when a very good criminal code, which was an improvement and enlargement upon that o£ the preceding dynasty, was enacted. Thus, for instance, torture is looked upon by the Occidentals simply as barbarous, but it has its _raison d'être_ in the Chinese jurisprudence. According to that jurisprudence, no person is to be punished on mere circumstantial evidence, or on the words of witnesses, unless the prisoner himself makes confession of his guilt. The act of confession is technically called the "completion of self-acknowledgment." The object of this is to make sure that no innocent person shall ever be punished. In some cases, if punishments be inflicted, despite the prisoner's strong protest of innocence, on mere circumstantial evidence, or on the evidence of witnesses, great injustice may be done, as was well illustrated in the Beck incident, which recently created so great a sensation in England. Torture is resorted to only in the case where, although the evidence is conclusive, yet the prisoner obstinately refuses to acknowledge his guilt. In other words, the application of torture is only to be resorted to in order that a prisoner whose guilt is quite evident might not be allowed to escape unpunished merely because he obstinately refuses to confess. The _raison d'être_ of the torture, therefore, is not so bad as casual observers imagine. The blame of the method lies in its abuse. We Japanese once followed that jurisprudence, but have given it up because it is liable to misapplication, and we have adopted the European system of judgment by evidence, not because we believed in the infallibility of that system, but because we believed that less injustice would be committed by that system than the other. China has also been very rich in codes of governmental organisation, not indeed in the Western style of constitutional laws; but still, from a literary point of view, they are all very good. Now to return to our subject. If Japan were a country which had not known the usefulness of laws and regulations, and yet had begun to imitate the methods of European legislation with success as she has done, such a result might indeed be a matter of some amazement. She had, however, had much experience in making laws and regulations during the ancient Imperial régime when we had frequent intercourse with the Tang dynasty of China, and therefore, when we began to formulate new legislation on Western lines, it was only necessary to grasp the spirit as to the method, and to make some modification in form of what we had done previously. And besides, scholars well acquainted with the Chinese codes were not wanting, and their ability was ready to be utilised for new legislation.'

--'It would be very interesting,' said one, 'if we could obtain a new book which would scientifically treat of the history of the evolution of all those great changes which have taken place. Really, we know little concerning Japan.'

--'That may be,' I answered, 'but there are several books, especially in English, from which one can gather a good deal of information on Japan, though they are not always correct to our eyes. The French are the people who interest themselves the least in such matters, and yet complain that they are without any information.'

--'I do not care,' he replied, 'for those unscientific books. I am anxious that a good, scientific, and authentic book on those points should be written at first hand by some competent Japanese.'

Here a compatriot of mine turned to me, and said privately that the gentleman who had just made the above remark was one who could not be persuaded to believe that Western civilisation had taken root in Japan, and who did not until recently believe that Japan could cope with the Russians. His reason was not on account of any bias against Japan, but because he could not believe Western civilisation could be transplanted to an exotic soil in so short a time, as in the case of Japan. He had only recently begun to think otherwise, after close observation of the progress of the war, and therefore wished to know the true history of the evolution of all the important changes which had taken place in our country.

--'Now you gentlemen have had enough time,' said a lady. 'It is our turn now. I suppose, baron, you will be going home before long, when the war comes to an end. Shall you also be like some of the Japanese I have had the pleasure of knowing? I mean to say that the Japanese are, as a rule, pleasant enough and friendly enough while with us, but after they have gone back to their country we seldom hear from them. But when they happen to revisit this part of the world, they return to us and are as pleasant and friendly as before, as though nothing had happened in the interval.'

--'Ah! I understand. I am afraid I shall be like them. We Japanese are not good correspondents. In that respect I think the English are the best. It seems writing letters is a part of their pleasure. They write so many letters even in the midst of hasty travelling. Our heads somehow seem heavy when it comes to the task of letter-writing. When we go back to Japan, unless we are engaged in some offices where foreign languages are needed, we have no occasion to think or to write in them, and we soon forget the thread of the foreign style of thought and tongue, and, therefore, it is difficult even to find good dicta for writing a simple letter. Remember, moreover, there is nothing so difficult as writing simple letters; especially is it so with us Japanese. Then, again, the paper, ink, and pens which we use for our own writing are totally different from yours, and they are useless for writing Occidental characters. Therefore, when we think of writing a letter to an Occidental friend, we might find the ink-bottle quite dry, nibs quite rotten, and the sheets of writing paper may be wanting, and perhaps we should have to send for them all anew. The spelling of quite common words may not be at our command, and if we just wished to refer to a dictionary, we should perhaps find that it had been mislaid somewhere among the heaps of Japanese books, or perhaps had been taken away altogether by a young student. Such being the case, you can well imagine that the Japanese cannot be very good correspondents if they wished. The fact that they do not write letters does not show that they do not remember old friendships, and therefore, if they happen to revisit the West, they would be, as you say, as friendly and pleasant as though nothing had happened in the interval.'

--'That explains the matter very well,' said she. 'I am sure you will be like one of those, especially as you will have so much to do for your country, perhaps in some busy office in the Government.'

--'You are quite right in the first part of your observation. I have no reputation for being a good correspondent. Perhaps you know that the great Marlborough always felt much difficulty in writing letters. He used to say that he would sooner fight a great battle, and with more ease, than write a letter of fifteen lines to his wife, so you will see I have some consolation, because even amongst the English there are those who are not particularly fond of writing letters. As to the second part of your observation, you are wrong. I have no desire to seek office. I do not care for the hustle and bustle of the world. I prefer to spend my time calmly and quietly in the midst of nature, and therefore, after my return to Japan, you will hear of me no more. If you ever happen to hear of me, it will only be when some grave and exceptional circumstance of my country requires my service, whereby I may be obliged to sacrifice my own inclination. But I must now say "exit."'

So saying, I left the group. On my way back home, I dropped into the coffee-room of an hotel and met there accidentally a rich young Scandinavian artist, whom I had met before, when once staying at that hotel. He was with two ladies, an operatic singer and her mother, both of whom were American by birth. From their appearance, and from what I have since heard, they belonged to a well-to-do family. She had taken to her present profession rather on account of a natural gift for singing than from any necessity. Her mother had come over to Paris for a short time to visit her daughter and was staying at the hotel. Through the Scandinavian we soon came to know each other, and as we took coffee together we had some conversation, which naturally turned on the Japanese stage. In the course of the conversation, I furnished them with a number of details in connection with the subject in answer to their questions:

'On our stage some actors act female parts, as was the case with the European stage from the Greeks down to recent centuries in Modern Europe. With us, however, unlike your ancient stage, grown-up actors, not necessarily youths, act all important female parts, and yet they imitate real females so well, that it is regarded as almost a marvel. They have a peculiar method of making use of certain muscles and bones which make their movements resemble those of women. It requires much training from boyhood, and that is the reason why the female characters of the new school, of which I shall speak presently, are not so realistic as those of the old school. Our best actors are those who can act well both male and female characters, but naturally there are some who are more fitted than others for acting female parts. Shikwan is one of the best actors at this moment. I read recently a letter written by a New York lady, while on a visit to Japan, who is reputed a great patron of the stage. It was addressed to Shikwan, and sent, together with a bouquet. In it she says that it was almost amazing to her to have seen him acting the part of a great warrior and soon after the part of a delicate and noble lady, and that she considered him the first actor in the world. I think there is a great deal of truth in her remarks. Most foreigners who first visit our theatre can hardly be made to believe that the female characters are actually acted by males. The architectural peculiarities of our stage are:--_First_, the greater part of it is a large, round, movable platform on pivots, and is used to great advantage for "decorative properties" as well as for the acting. _Secondly_, we have the so-called "flower ways" on both sides of the stalls. They can also be used with great effectiveness for some kinds of acting, though it would be rather difficult to have them in the European style of stage building. It is, however, a very common mistake of most Europeans to think we have no actresses. We have actresses as well as actors, only they form different and separate companies, and it is only seldom and of recent date that they act together. Danjiuro was the greatest actor we have had in recent centuries. Kikugoro and then Sadanji came next They were regarded as "the trio," but all three have died within the last few years. We do not think we shall have the same talent again for many years to come. A Garrick, a Henry Irving, or a Sarah Bernhardt is not a production of every generation. Danjiuro in particular was accounted, even by Occidental visitors, among the few of the greatest actors of the world. Curiously enough there was much resemblance between the personal character and style of acting of Danjiuro and Sir Henry Irving. The _forte_ of Danjiuro was historical representations, and so it was with Irving. Danjiuro acted more in spirit, that is to say, with as little action and rhetoric as possible, but with more suppressed but visible emotion. When he began this style of acting in his younger days, he was not popular at first: people thought he lacked theatrical display, but he soon succeeded in manifesting his great ability. Not only did he work out his own way, but he elevated the public taste. He also much improved the social and moral tone of his profession by the force of his character. In all these respects, I think there was much resemblance between him and Sir Henry Irving. The old stage, however, is hampered by much conventionality which is not entirely suited to modern taste. This has brought forward the new school. Oto Kawakami, the husband of Sada-Yakko, was the pioneer of that school. Sada-Yakko, who is known very well to the Occidentals, and is highly appreciated by them, is no more than a gifted amateur, who joined her husband's company through his influence. In Japan it is called the "student plays," because actors belonging to that school are mostly students. In the early days of that school, plays acted by its actors were little else than mere charades, of the most comical nature, even when the meaning was grave. As time went on, they have become more and more skilful, so that eventually something has been produced worth seeing, more especially because they are not hampered by any old conventionality or tradition. They can produce on the stage any incident which they deem worth showing, and they can introduce any innovation which the old school would not dare to do. Besides, these actors being students themselves, they have one advantage of having more educational intelligence than the greater number of the actors belonging to the old school. There is, therefore, much hope for the future in the new school, and it is making rapid progress, so much so, that its influence is being reflected on the old school.'

During the conversation, I was asked by the gentleman to witness the young singer's performance, in which request the ladies joined. I had no other course than to accept. Time in Dreamland flies fast, and I soon found myself at one of the Operas together with the Scandinavian gentleman; and there, to my surprise, I found the young singer was a _prima donna_. The act was _Maritana_; she acted the male part of Don Cæsar. The performance went on splendidly, and Act II. was reached. I happened to know the following declamation by Don Cæsar, and when she sang it I was thrilled, because each word sounded as though uttered by our own heroes of times gone by:

'Ah! per pietà, signor, non raddoppiate L'aspro mio duol! Almen mi fosse dato Per grazia di morir come un soldato! Come sul campo il milite Pugnando suol morir, Concedi a me da libero Soldato i di finir! Tosto l'acciar fulmineo Decida omai di me! Dirà ciascuno, il misero Da prode morto egli è, Dirà ciascuno, il misero Da prode morto egli è Da prode morto egli è.