'These are only specimens of much that has for years flooded our Western newspapers about Japan. Not a great while ago I saw an article in which it was said that Japanese babies never cried, and if a dog barked at night he was taken off next day and killed. It is high time that Western people were beginning to have a few sane thoughts about Japan, and stop speaking of it as "an Oriental puzzle, a nation of recluses, a land of fabulous wealth, of universal licentiousness, or of Edenic purity, the fastness of a treacherous and fickle crew, a Paradise of guileless children, a Utopia of artists and poets." Japan has some superficial oddities, but what country is there that has not? To be a bit humorous, if people wish to say ludicrous things about Japan, it may not be so bad, but to put such things out as sober truth makes a false impression and does the people an injustice. 'Imagine a Japanese going to America, for example, and writing back something like this: "America is a queer country. The people clothe themselves with the hair and skins of animals. They fasten their clothing on by means of little knobs hung in holes; the women go about with the arms and upper part of the body nude. Owing to the peculiar make of their shoes, they all walk on tiptoe. The people eat dead pigs, and drink a white, thick fluid called chichi, which they squeeze out of the body of a large animal. When eating they stick long iron instruments in their mouths. When moving about they are obliged constantly to set one foot out in front in order to keep from falling on their noses. Sometimes when there is a company of them together they open their mouths very wide at each other, utter loud, inarticulate cries, and jump about in a very curious manner, shaking from head to foot." 'Now what would the Japanese people think of such a story, and what kind of impression would they get of the American people? But this is a fair specimen of the style in which many have written about this country. We cannot quite speak of it as lying, yet it amounts to the same in that it deceives and makes a false impression. The people of Japan are much the same as the world at large.