JAPANESE ALPHABET, NEW.
Music is one of the most cultivated of the fine arts of Japan, and Japanese tradition accords it a divine origin. The Japanese have many stringed, wind, and percussion instruments, but the general favorite is the sam-sin or guitar with three strings. There are also the lutes, several kinds of drums and tambourines, fifes, clarionets, and flageolets. The Japanese have no idea of harmony. A number of them will often perform together, but they are never in tune. They are not more advanced in melody; their airs recall neither the savage strains of the forest nor the scientific music of the west. In spite of this their music has the power of charming them for hours together, and it is only among the utterly uneducated classes that a young girl is to be found unable to accompany herself in a song on the sam-sin.
In the department of jurisprudence great progress has been made. Scarcely any nation on earth can show a more revolting list of horrible methods of punishment and torture in the past, and none can show greater improvement in so short a time. The cruel and blood-thirsty code was mostly borrowed from China. Since the restoration, revised statutes and regulations have greatly decreased the list of capital punishments, reformed the condition of prisons, and made legal processes more in harmony with mercy and justice. The use of torture to obtain testimony is now entirely abolished. Law schools have also been established and lawyers are allowed to plead, thus giving the accused the assistance of counsel for his defense.
JAPANESE ALPHABET, OLD.
The Japanese tongue has for a long time been regarded merely as an offshoot of the Chinese language, or at any rate as being very nearly connected with it. Study however, and the comparison of the two languages has rectified this error. Japanese understand Chinese writing because the Chinese characters form part of the numerous kinds in use in Japan. This is easily understood when it is remembered that Chinese characters represent neither letters nor meaningless sounds, which are only the constituent parts of a word, but are words themselves, or rather the ideas that these words express; consequently the same ideas can be communicated although expressed by different words to any one who is acquainted with the signification of the characters. The Japanese language is very soft and agreeable to the ear, but travelers declare that no one born out of the country could possibly pronounce some of the words. They have a system of forty-eight syllabic signs, which can be doubled by means of signs added to the consonants, which modify the sound, and render it harder or softer. This system, it is said, dates from the eighth century and can be written in four different series of characters.
Japanese literature comprises books on science, biography, geography, travels, philosophy, and natural history, as well as poetry, dramatic works, romances, and encyclopedias. The latter seem to be little more than picture books, with explanatory notes, arranged like other Japanese dictionaries, sometimes alphabetically, but more often quite fancifully and without any attempt at scientific classification. The poets of Japan strive to express the most comprehensive ideas in the fewest possible words, and to employ words with double meanings for the sake of typical allusions. They also delight in descriptions or similes furnished by the scenery, or the rich variety of natural productions with which they are surrounded.
Of their older books on science none are of any value but those which treat of astronomy. The proof of their progress in this science is afforded by the fact that almanacs, which were at first brought from China, have now become very general and are composed in Japan. The Japanese, until western education began to have its influence over them, had only a slight knowledge of mathematics, trigonometry, mechanics, or engineering. History and geography are very fairly cultivated. Reading is the favorite recreation of both sexes in Japan. The women confine themselves to the perusal of romances, and those works on etiquette and kindred subjects prepared for them. Every young girl who can afford it has her subscription to a library, which for the sum of a few copper coins per month furnishes her with as many books, ancient and modern, as she can devour. Except for their titles, these productions seem all formed on one pattern. In the choice of their characters and their subjects the authors seem by no means desirous of breaking through the narrow limits within which prejudice and custom have confined them.
