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search and arrest the offender. For searching or arresting an offender there are stringent rules for preventing abuses of authority, but that is a matter to be discussed separately. When stating all this, it must, of course, be understood that no individual officer or man is expected to undertake them all. On the contrary, the division or rotation of the tasks is regulated by minute rules and regulations.

Fire brigades form a separate organization apart from the police, but they are also under the control of the police authorities.

In the eyes of the law in Japan, policemen, low as their position is, are regarded as a part of ‘Government officials,’ and not as mere servants. As a matter of fact, their social standing is comparatively higher than that of the Western nations. True, they are incessantly taught to be civil and obliging to all they come in contact with, and not to display any official arrogancy; but they are not expected, nor do they feel it their duty, to do some things which appear to me quite common among Western nations—I mean they would not oblige one by doing a thing which is, prima facie, inconsistent with their dignity, and, therefore, one would rather offend them if he were to expect some such thing to be done for him—say by offering them a ‘tip.’ For instance, they would not come officiously to your carriage and open the door for you if there were not some special reason for them to do so—say an apprehension of accident. This is a very important matter for foreign visitors to Japan to keep always in mind. It is desirable that foreign visitors should not judge our policemen hardly on account of that difference from the Western point of view. I do not in the least mean to say that our system is in any way better. The Western methods and habits have their good points. They are very useful and well adapted to the requirements of their countries. I only mean to say that our customs and habits differ in these respects.

In Japan the police force in its modern shape was formed only after the abolition of the feudal system, as one may well surmise, though it has gone through much evolution. There was a time when thousands of the young samurais had lost their employment, and it was chiefly those samurais who were enrolled in the police force. The standard of their social position and intellectual culture was of a rather higher degree than that of those with whom they had to come into daily contact. That condition has never been lost sight of. Even now only those who pass a certain special examination prescribed for them are taken, and the examination is not a very easy one. Such being the case, it will not be difficult to understand the cause of the difference which exists between the Western police and those of