Their graves remain to this day in the grove of Siba, and it is one of the first places visited by country people who come to Tokio. Devout hands keep the modest little tombstones supplied with wreaths of fresh flowers. And thus the forty-seven Ronins have become the most popular heroes of the nation, because their offence and expiation interpret one of the most salient features characteristic of the race, which, judged from a national standard, shines in a different light as we can see from the following passage:-- "We have thus seen the Bushido institution of suicide; we will now see whether its sister institution of revenge has its mitigating features. I hope I can dispose of the question in a few words, since a similar institution--or call it custom, as you will--prevailed among all peoples, and has not yet become entirely obsolete, as attested by the continuance of duelling and lynching. Among a savage tribe which has no marriage, adultery is not a sin, so in a period which has no criminal court murder is not a crime, and only the vigilant vengeance of the victim's people preserves social order. 'What is the most beautiful thing on earth?' said Osiris to Horus. The reply was, 'To avenge a parent's wrongs.' To which a Japanese would have added 'and a nearer's.' In revenge there is something which satisfies one's sense of justice. The avenger reasons: 'My good father did not deserve death--he who killed him did great evil. My father, if he were alive, would not tolerate a deed like this. Heaven itself hates wrong-doing. It is the will of my father, it is the will of heaven, that the evil-doer should cease from his work. He must perish by my hand, because he shed my father's blood; I who am his flesh and blood must shed the murderer's. The same heaven shall not shelter him and me.' The logic is simple and childish, but it shows an innate sense of exact balance and equal justice. Our sense of revenge is as exact as our mathematical faculty, and until both terms of the equation are satisfied we cannot get over the sense of something undone. Both of these institutions of suicide and revenge lost their _raison d'etre_ at the promulgation of the criminal code. The sense of justice satisfied, there is no need of Kataki-uchi. As to Hara-kiri, though it, too, has no existence _de jure_, we still hear of it from time to time, and shall continue to hear I am afraid, as long as the past is remembered."