puts it, " the whole being of man " into con- | put to death and the fief confiscated. No sideration, to arrange a given dispute in the doubt a jealousy of the power of this large most expedient way, to sacrifice legal prin fief was one of the elements in this particu ciple to present expediency. This is the lar decision. first notable characteristic. The spirit of feudalism entered largely The second is that Japanese justice was also into procedure. There was a great deal essentially feudal in its spirit. At every of learning as to summons, writs, and ap step this quality shows itself. Chiefly affected pearances; and in these matters the military by it, of course, was the criminal law. The gentry (and the priesthood shared these pri common people necessarily came in for a vileges in part ) were exempted from some of meagre amount of respect in the feudal pol the ordinary requirements. The commoners ity, except as wealth-producing instruments, were to assume the most abject attitudes in on whose effectiveness the subsistence of the august presence of the judge. I have the military class depended. They were re been told that one of the reasons why the stricted and punished with a severity char mercantile classes resorted little to the acteristic of feudalism everywhere. The courts in their disputes was the necessity features of their status, and the kinds of of humiliating themselves so deeply in their punishments were not substantially different quest for justice, — of crawling, for instance, from those of European nations at similar on hands and knees from the door of the stages of social development. On the civil court to the judgment-room. This is some side the result of feudalism was that the what overdrawn, however, and was probably dispensing of justice between disputants true only of the haughtier merchant-princes appeared as a boon from the lord to his sup or money-lenders, who could have bought pliant subjects. The first duty of the faith out a daintyo, had their birth permitted ful commoner was not to disturb his lord's them, and could not bring themselves to peace and waste his own time by becoming cringe to men in petty authority. Another involved in a dispute. A litigious commu consequence of the same spirit was the dis nity was the worst of evils. An obstinate couragement of appeals. Appeals there plaintiff, even with a just cause, might fare in were, to be sure; but the generally indis the end not much better than the defendant. pensable ground was that of corruption, A good example of this, in high life, was prejudice, or delay on the part of the infe the dispute over the succession to the fief of rior judge; and it must be confessed that Echigo. The incumbent daintyo, Mitsu- such appeals were dangerous for the poor maye, was childless, and one of the two sen peasant, for it went hard with him if he did eschals intrigued with the lord's brother, not make out a clear case against the ob Nogayashi, to have the son of the latter noxious judge, and the many difficulties of adopted as heir to the title and the fief; accomplishing this rendered such appeals while the other seneschal used his efforts infrequent. These being two of the noticeable features against this step, and to gain his purpose brought the matter to the attention of the of Japanese justice, it must be remembered Shogun. The latter looked upon the inabil that none the less was there a real legal sys ity to come to an agreement as seditious and tem in existence, similar in form and history dangerous in its tendencies, especially in a to that wrought out by the Anglo-Saxon. I quarter where only the example of peace mean by this a body of legal notions, estab lishing relationships of right under given and smoothness should be set; and the de cision was that the daimyo and his brother circumstances, and applied in systematic fashion by political authorities to disputes should be exiled, with the complaining sene schal, while the other intriguer was to be brought before the tribunals. These notions
