The chief prison of the empire, in Tokio, as described by Mr. William M. Griffis, who visited it in 1875, was very different in its sanitary appointments and general condition from the prisons of Tokio to-day. A curious feature was a small roofed in structure in the prison yard, with open sides, where condemned men of rank were allowed to expiate their crimes by plunging the dirk into their own bodies, after which the executioner cut off their heads. The head, laid on a tray, was then inspected by an officer of justice. There were very few of such executions after 1871. The ordinary criminal was beheaded in the blood-pit, so-called, which was a pit surrounded with a much stained and slashed wooden curb, and kept covered by a sort of trap-door. In the pit were mats, one above the other, which had been soaked with the blood of many criminals. “The faint odour that ascended,” says Mr. Griffis, “was more horrible in the awful cloud of associations which it called up than the mere stench.” It was then April and twenty-five heads had fallen there since the year began. The criminal was led to the pit blindfolded and was beheaded with an ordinary sword, sharp as a razor. Death followed frequently on the day of sentence and never later than the day after. Tokio has now two prisons; the first and chief is situated upon the island of Oshikawa at the south of the city, and the second, the convict and female prison of Ichigawa, is in the centre of the city. The former is completely isolated, all communication with the mainland being by police ferry, and can accommodate two thousand men and boys, who are serving terms of ten years or less. The prison of Ichigawa usually contains fifteen hundred men and about one hundred women, among whom are many serving life sentences. Attached to the prison is a convict farm, and it is here that capital punishment is carried out. Otherwise the two prisons resemble each other closely and a description of one will answer for both, says Mr. Norman, who described them in 1892, and gives the following account: