“MY LORD,—It becomes my painful duty once more to lay before your Lordship the details of the barbarous murder of another British subject, Mr C. L. Richardson, a merchant residing at Yokuhama, and the desperate wounding of two other merchants, Mr W. Marshall and Mr W. C. Clarke, both of Yokuhama; the latter gentleman is likely to lose his arm. Mr Richardson, nearly cut to pieces, fell from his horse; and while lying in a dying state, one of the high officials of the cortege, borne in a chair, is stated to have told his followers to cut the throat of the unfortunate gentleman. The lady (Mrs Borradaile), though cut at herself, miraculously escaped unwounded; never drawing rein, and in an exhausted and fainting state, she reached Yokuhama. The body of Mr Richardson was afterwards found, and brought here for interment.” And so for the present ends the bloody story: we have condensed it as much as possible, both for the reader’s sake and our own; but, considering the important interests we have at stake in Japan, we have felt it our duty to do all in our power to induce people to read the work before us. After they have gratified that morbid craving for excitement which seems to be the literary taste of the day, they may perhaps be induced seriously to think what is to be done under the circumstances. We have not recounted the efforts which our diplomatic agents in Japan have made to obtain redress, nor the success which has attended those efforts. They are to be found detailed at some length in the work before us. If the reader will take the trouble carefully to read Sir Rutherford’s account of the administrative system of Japan, and more especially of the feudal nobility, of the influence they exercise, and the material forces they control, he will perhaps be able to form some idea for himself of the best course to be pursued. If he makes up his mind—as he probably has done—on what he has read in this article, he will come to a totally wrong conclusion. We did not give him a list of horrors in order that he might get up and say dogmatically, “Oh, it’s clear the Japanese don’t want us, and we ought never to have gone there; and the best thing we can do now is to take ourselves off.” We have only recited these horrors to lure the superficial politician into the perusal of a work, the dry parts of which are the most important. He will learn in it under what circumstances we went to Japan in the first instance—how it happened that a treaty was as much forced upon us by circumstances as upon the Japanese—how we never compelled them to make one, as is generally supposed. He will also find how popular the foreigner is among the lower and middle classes of the Japanese, how great is the aptitude of the mass of the population for trade, how readily they enter into commercial pursuits, and how quickly they adopt the appliances and inventions of a more advanced and enlightened