[30] Tokugawa Shōguns were the military rulers of the Tokugawa family, who held the power in Japan for a period of two hundred and fifty years. They are better known to Americans, perhaps, under the title of _Tycoon_ (Great Prince), a name assumed, or rather revived, to impress the foreigners when Commodore Perry was negotiating in regard to treaties. The Shōgun held the daimiōs in forced subjection,--a subjection that was shaken in 1862, and broken at last in the year 1868, when, by the fall of the Shōgunate, the Emperor was restored to direct power over his people. Some years ago, when the castle in Tōkyō was burned, and the Emperor and Empress were obliged to take refuge in an old daimiō's house, a place entirely lacking in luxuries and considerably out of repair, some one expressed to her the grief that all her people felt, that she should have to put up with so many inconveniences. Her response was a graceful little poem, in which she said that the narrowness of her abode would not limit her love for her people, and that for them she would endeavor to explore wisely the unlimited fields of knowledge. Upon another occasion, when Prince Iwakura, one of the leaders of Japan in the early days of the crisis through which the country is still passing, lay dying at his home, the Empress sent him word that she was coming to visit him. The prince, afraid that he could not do honor to such a guest, sent her word back that he was very ill, and unable to make proper preparation to entertain an Empress. To this the Empress replied that he need make no preparations for her, for she was coming, not as an Empress, but as the daughter of Ichijō, his old friend and colleague, and as such he could receive her. And then, setting aside imperial state and etiquette, she visited the dying statesman, and brightened his last hours with the thought of how lovely a woman stood as an example before the women of his beloved country. Many of the charities and schools of new Japan are under the Empress's special patronage; and this does not mean simply that she allows her name to be used in connection with them, but it means that she thinks of them, studies them, asks questions about them, and even practices little economies that she may have the more money to give to them. There is a charity hospital in Tōkyō, having in connection with it a training school for nurses, that is one of the special objects of her care. Last year she gave to it, at the end of the year, the savings from her own private allowance, and concerning this act an editorial from the "Japan Mail" speaks as follows:--