Twenty-five years have now elapsed since the abolition of the old regime, and in the meantime the feudal system has been replaced, primarily by a centralized and absolute monarchy, and now by Parliamentary representation modelled on the European plan. The eighty odd historical provinces have become forty-five departments, each administered by a Prefect. The people are, however, still divided into three distinct classes: the aristocracy, or _kwazoku_, formed of a fusion of the ancient daimios with the _kuges_, or Court nobles, and of the _shinkwazoku_, or newly ennobled persons (in all 644 families, consisting of about 4,162 persons); the _shizoku_, or ancient _samurai_ (numbering 432,458 families, or 2,049,144 persons); and finally the _heimin_, or commoners; but apart from the predominance of the nobility in the composition of the Chamber of Peers[18] no privileges have been granted either to them or to the _shizoku_: their duties are exactly the same as those of any other members. From the social point of view we shall, however, very soon find that far less exclusiveness exists in this country, where feudalism was in full force only so recently as thirty years ago, than we should in many in Europe, where its abolition dates back in some instances several centuries. A Japanese gentleman recently said to me: ‘In Japan we never dream of asking a person the first time we see him to what class he belongs.’ I dare say some time-honoured privileges still linger in their inner circle, and that a few old-fashioned noblemen do consider themselves superior to the _heimin_, but they take great care not to display any such feeling. One meets members of the Japanese aristocracy in every public resort and place of amusement, and they mingle without the least hesitation with the rest of the public. I remember one day at Tokio being present at a wrestling match, a very favourite sport with the Japanese. Someone pointed out to me Prince K——, the President of the House of Peers, seated among the crowd on one of the steps of the ring. The Marquis H——, the descendent of a great family of daimios, was also present, as well as the Marquis Tokukawa, who is an ardent admirer of the sport and belongs to the family of the Shoguns, to have merely looked upon a member of which a generation or so back would have cost a man of the people his life. These gentlemen appeared to thoroughly enjoy the entertainment, and evidently thought very little or nothing at all of their former exclusiveness.