Refined by from twelve to fifteen centuries of civilization, the subjects of the Mikado are much better educated than were those of Peter the Great, and therefore can march with far greater assurance on the road to progress. While the smallness of the country and the density of its population, concentrated for the most part on the coast-line, are likewise aids to the rapid penetration of new ideas, still further assisted by a well-organized system of primary instruction and a military service, it is, however, rather from the material point of view that the change has been most striking and rapid. Without returning to the matter of the extraordinary rapidity of the increase of industry, there is one subject connected with it which I cannot forbear dwelling upon, and that is the excessive ability with which the Japanese have succeeded in organizing certain public services introduced from the West in such a manner as to place them within the reach of even the poorest. In many European colonies the high tariff of the rail and postal services deters the natives from using them; but in Japan it is otherwise. There you pay on the railway ¾d. a mile first class, ½d. second, and ¼d. third, which latter is used by the majority of the people, and the total returns for 2,290 miles of Japanese rail, notwithstanding these low rates, reached in 1895 £1,878,600 (of which £1,179,600 were paid by travellers), as against £766,300 for expenses, the profits being £1,112,300, or about 10 per cent. upon the outlay capital, which was £11,649,200. The post is also extremely cheap in Japan, ½d. being charged for letters and ¼d. for post-cards. In 1896–97 503,000,000 objects passed through the post-office, of which 263,000,000 were post-cards, 122,000,000 letters, and 87,000,000 newspapers. The preponderating number of post-cards, which surpasses that of letters, is strikingly in contradistinction to what one observes in every other country, and is a proof of the economical habits of the people and of their appreciation of this cheap method of correspondence. The enthusiasm with which the population profits by all the innovations introduced from the West is a convincing proof of the very slight resistance which the implanting of our civilization receives. Yet another favourable sign is the exceptional number of students in the new universities and public schools of all descriptions. Practical science, law, and medicine attract the majority of the students, and already many of them have attained marked success in their several careers. As an example, I may mention that it was a Japanese who discovered the microbe of the bubonic plague. The Japanese are sometimes, and possibly with some truth, accused of lacking the inventive faculty; but those peoples who are from many points of view at the head of civilization at the present day, the English and the Americans, are not those among whom the power of invention is exceptionally prominent. It is in France or in