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to their reputation. Still, as I have already observed, honesty is a virtue easiest learned in commercial transactions; for its reward is not laid so far off as heaven nor after death, but at the counter or else at the court, when the bills are due. Already in the last two decades we notice in our industrial circles a considerable improvement in this particular respect.

Bushido, being the morality of a certain class, had a circumscribed sphere, and so its precepts were strained to a higher pitch than would have been the case had its compass been more extensive. For instance, as they troubled themselves but little with the morality of the trades-people, they were the more strict in demanding honesty from their votaries. The punishment awaiting those who violated their code of Honour was terribly severe. Take hara-kiri as a type of what was expected of a Samurai when he disgraced himself. It is not unusual to hear this word, which, by the way, is more usually called by us seppuku or kappuku, jeeringly mentioned by foreign writers, and certainly the practice is in itself a revolting one. It is unjust, however, to look upon a practice like this from an altogether realistic point of view. To one who has never heard of the world tragedy of Mount Calvary what a disgusting sight Tissot’s picture of that scene presents! Death scenes even of the best are not always dramatic or picturesque. It is the story which casts a halo round a martyr’s livid death; it is the life the dead have lived which steals from death the pangs and ignominy. Were it not so, who would associate a cup of hemlock with philosophy, or a cross with the Gospel? If seppuku were a form of execution confined to robbers and pickpockets, well might it deserve its literal translation, ‘splitting the belly,’ and then be politely dispensed with in polite society. We may say of body-ripping what Carlyle said of religious mendicancy, that ‘it was no beautiful business, nor an honourable one in any eye, till the nobleness of those who did so had made it honoured of some.’ Seppuku does literally and actually mean cutting the abdomen. It was a form of death confined to the two-sworded order. Sometimes it was a punishment imposed by authority, or it might be self-imposed; sometimes it was a sacrifice (can I call it symbolical?) of life for a cause; sometimes, also, the last resort wherein honour could find refuge. When it was administered as a punishment it amounted to this: that the guilty one admitted his own crime; it was as though he said: ‘I have done wrong; I am ashamed before my own conscience. I punish myself with my own hand, for I judge myself.’ If the accused were innocent he would nevertheless often commit seppuku, the idea in this case being: ‘I am not guilty; I will show you my soul, that you may judge for yourself.’ The very natural