empire was redivided and the 68 Ken, or Prefectures, were reduced in number to 35. It was to be expected that the progressive course of the Mikado’s Ministers would excite some disaffection. There were during this year some insurrections on the part not only of discontented Samurai, but also of the farmers on whom the burdens of taxation mainly fell. It was to redress the grievances of the agricultural class that, in January, 1877, the national land tax was reduced from 3 to 2½ per cent, while the local tax, which had formerly amounted to one-third of the land tax, was cut down to one-fifth. About the same time, the salaries of nearly all the government officers were diminished, several thousand office-holders were discharged, the Department of Revision and the Prefecture of Police were abolished, and their functions were transferred to the Home Department. An annual saving of about eight million dollars was thus effected, and the loss to the Treasury from the curtailment of land taxation was made good. In 1877, however, a great rebellion broke out in Satsuma, instigated by Saigo Takamori, who had been formerly a marshal of the empire. After a contest of some months, the imperial authority was everywhere re-established, and Saigo, at his own request, was beheaded by one of his friends. This insurrection represented the final struggle between the forces of feudalism and misrule against order and unity. The contest cost Japan $50,000,000 and many thousands of lives. In the ultimate treatment of the rebels, the government displayed a spirit of leniency worthy of an enlightened state. Of upward of 38,000 persons tried in Kiushiu, only twenty were decapitated, about 1,800 were condemned to imprisonment, and some 36,000 were pardoned. During the same year, 1877, the cholera broke out in Japan, but, owing to the enforcement of sanitary measures, there were but 6,297 deaths.