The average Japanese train has three classes of coaches. The first class corresponds to the ordinary first-class day-coach at home; second class corresponds to our smoking-cars; while third class is poorer still. The fares are just about one half what they are in America, and one can travel in first-class style for a cent and a half per mile. Third-class fare is only a little over half a cent, and most of the people travel in this class. The trains do not have the conveniences to which my readers are accustomed. There are no sleeping- and dining-cars, no provision for heating in winter, and no water. The average running speed is about 20 miles per hour--a rate which would not at all suffice for the high-tensioned, nervous, always-in-a-hurry civilization of the West, but which meets all the demands of the slower, quieter life of the East. Running at this rate, accidents are comparatively rare, and the trains easily make their scheduled time. There is one main trunk-line running throughout the length of the land, besides numerous shorter lines. All of the more prominent towns and cities are connected by rail. At present a railroad-construction craze has seized Japan. Many are being constructed, others are being surveyed, and the papers daily contain accounts of new ones projected. So far, Japanese railway stocks have yielded good dividends. That the {99} more important lines are owned and operated by the government is not the result of any political or economic theory, but simply because at first private individuals had neither the means nor the energy to inaugurate such huge and hitherto untried enterprises. Many of the smaller roads are now owned and controlled by private corporations, and most of those in process of construction are private enterprises. Some months ago a private corporation made a proposition to the government to buy its main railway, but the offer was rejected. STEAMERS.--Steamboat service in Japan is good. As the country is only a range of islands, the largest of which are very narrow, and as all the more important towns are on the sea-coast or only a short distance inland, it is possible to go nearly everywhere by boat. Travel by water is very popular. There are fairly good steamers plying daily between the most important ports, but foreigners generally prefer to travel only on those officered by Europeans or Americans. There are a number of native steamers, comfortable and speedy, which are officered by foreigners, and differ but little from the transpacific liners. These were nearly all built in England, but in recent years they are building very good ones in Japan. The facilities for travel in this empire leave little to be desired.