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RESULT OF METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS AT HAKODATE (1859-1874), LATITUDE 41° 46′ 0′′ N., LONGITUDE 140° 46′ 30′′ E.

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The observations of rain and snow were made during twelve years; of the hygrometer, two and a half years; cloudy and overcast weather, for four years; of velocity of wind, one year; of fog and wind, eleven years.

See detailed tables in reports of General Capron and his foreign assistants, Tōkiō, 1875. Printed by the Kai Takŭ Shi.

POSTAL STATISTICS.

From the Postmaster-general's Report for the Seventh Year of Meiji (1874–’75). Number of newspapers transmitted in the mails, 1873....

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514,610

2,629,648

-showing an increase of 411 per cent., "a fact which speaks volumes for the progress of civilization."

Letters, ordinary..

46 registered..

Newspapers.....

Books and patterns.

Free mails..

STATISTICS OF 1875.

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STATISTICS OF THE SIX MONTHS FROM JANUARY 1ST TO JUNE 30TH, 1875.

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The mail routes in operation throughout the empire, during this half-year, aggregated 10,650 ri (26,625 English miles) in length. The increase over those in

operation in the preceding year was 563 ri (1408 miles), and 5273 ri (13,183 miles), or 98.1 per cent. over those of the sixth year of Meiji (1873).

The total annual transportation for the half-year was 2,423,737 ri (6,059,343 miles), an increase of 135,530 ri (338,825 miles) over that of half of the preceding year.

During this half-year there have been established 205 post-offices, 86 stamp agencies, and 37 street letter-boxes; and there are, therefore, now in operation 3449 post-offices, 703 stamp agencies, and 513 street letter-boxes.

The postal money-order system was established on the 2d of January of the eighth year of Meiji (1875). During that month the number of money orders issued was only 4120, amounting to yen 72,243.10. During the month of March 6384 orders were issued, amounting to yen 111,913.69; and the number of orders issued in June was 8393, amounting to yen 147,056.43, thus showing an increase, in the number issued in the latter month, over those issued in January, of 103.6 per cent. One yen is equal to a dollar.

The total number of orders issued during the half-year was 39,398, amounting to yen 690,617.48. The total number of money-orders paid was 37,768, amounting in value to yen 671,624.98; and 1630 orders, amounting to yen 18,992.50, have not yet been presented for payment. The fees from money - orders were yen 3722.49.

The number of letters sent to the section for detaining those insufficiently addressed, and finding the means for delivering them, was 39,185, or a little more than 3-10ths per cent. of the whole number transmitted through the mails dur ing the half-year.

The number of letters stolen during the half-year was 6305. Of these, 5633 were regained and have been delivered intact; 380 were broken and defaced so that they could not be returned; and 292 were actually lost. Of the latter number, 9 contained currency to the amount of yen 39.37, of which yen 36.50 were restored, the person who stole them having confessed and returned the money. The balance, yen 2.87, was lost. Eighty-two letters were lost in the course of delivery or transmission. Of these, 71 were regained and delivered, and 11 were actually lost. One hundred and sixty-nine letters were carelessly detained by letter-carriers, but were, after some delay, delivered to their addresses.

The department manufactures its own postal cards, stamps, and envelopes. The post-offices are well equipped with New England clocks, Fairbanks' scales, American leather bags with iron tops and locks, fire-arms, and furniture. The postmaster is H. Mayéshima. The Superintendent of Foreign Mails is Samuel W. Bryan, formerly of the United States Postal Service, "to whose energy and experience the present prosperous condition of the [Japanese mail] service is due."

The United States Government was the first to recognize the right of Japan to control the transport of her own foreign mails; and on the 6th day of August, 1873, a postal convention was concluded between the two countries. It is hoped that, from the general satisfaction given by the Japanese Postal Service, the European nations will likewise grant to Japan the right to control her own postal affairs. During the first half of the year 1875, 242,862 articles, weighing 9,314,149 grammes of mail matter, were sent or received, the postage amounting to $21,732.63. Postal savings-banks have also been established in several cities, as experiment. The educational power of this national postal enterprise, in teaching book-keeping, punctuality, the Arabic numerals, Roman letters, political economy, the triumphs of civilization, and the diffusion of information, can not be overestimated.

THE BOMBARDMENT OF KAGOSHIMA.

ONE of the agents most prominent in bringing about the restoration, under the plea of "the renovation of the institutions created by the founder of the Tokugawa line," was Shimadzu Saburo (now Sa Dai Jin), brother of the next to the last, and father of the last daimiō of Satsuma. On his way from Yedo, while his train was passing along the Tōkaidō, led by Saigō (afterward commander of the army in Formosa, and President of the Japanese Centennial Commission), "some English people came riding through the head of the train at a place called Namamugi" (Kinsé Shiriakŭ-Satow's translation, p. 33). A native who would attempt to cross, walk, or ride into a daimiō's procession would, according to invariable custom, meet with instant death. The Yedo authorities had previously requested foreigners not to go on the Tōkaidō that day; but they contemptuously, and with no waste of courteous language or sympathy for national troubles, refused. Two American gentlemen, Messrs. E. Van Reed and F. Schoyer, while out riding on the same afternoon (September 14th, 1862), met Shimadzu's train, and, by filing aside, passed on without hinderance. Soon after, three English gentlemen and a lady, one of the former being Mr. Richardson, who had lived several years in China, and "knew how to deal with these people," disregarded the warnings of the discreet members of the party, and impatiently urged their horses into the procession. Some Satsuma retainers, taking this as a direct and intentional insult, drew their swords, and fell like butchers on the unarmed men. The lady was untouched. The three men were all wounded, Richardson to death. There is no proof that either Shimadzŭ Saburo or the train-leader gave the order to kill, as is alleged. Such heated fictions are at par with the statement that the captain of the Bombay, after sinking the Oneida, willingly allowed her crew to perish.

In the "Richardson affair" were, on the one hand, arrogant people, who despised all Asiatics as an inferior order of beings, disregarded their rights, and were utterly ignorant of the misery their coming had wrought on Japan. On the other hand were proud men, who considered the foreigners as sordid and cruel invaders, and the men before them as having purposely insulted them and their master. This affair led to the extortion, in presence of cannon-muzzles, of one hundred thousand pounds sterling from the bakufu, twenty-five thousand pounds from the Satsuma clan, the capture of three Satsuma steamers, and the bombardment of Kagoshima.

The English fleet of seven men-of-war arrived off Kagoshima, August 11th, 1863, and, while deliberations were pending, began hostilities by seizing the three steamers belonging to the clan. In the British official report this hostile act is called "a reprisal;" and the sentence following declares that "suddenly and unexpectedly" hostilities were begun [assumed] by the Japanese!! The squadron then, forming in line of battle, bombarded the forts and city. The net result of two days' bombardment were the explosion of magazines, partial destruction of the batteries, a conflagration which reduced factories, foundries, mills-the beginnings of a new civilization-to ashes, the sinking of five Liu Kiu junks, the firing of the palace of the prince, besides the slaughter of human beings, whose number Japanese pride has never divulged. "Having accomplished every act of retribution and punishment within the scope" of their force, and believing "that the entire town of Kagoshima" was "a mass of ruins," the fleet, after severe loss, having fully vindicated the Asiatic policy of England, left the bay. The twentyfive thousand pounds indemnity was shortly afterward paid. Both parties fought with equal bravery.

The effect of this act of savage vengeance was salutary, in opening the eyes of the yet unconvinced Satsuma men to the power of the foreigners, their rifled cannon and steamers. In England, by press and Parliament, the wanton act was bitterly denounced, and by French and German writers stigmatized as a horrible act of vengeance, justified neither by international law nor even by the laws of It is a pity that such a storm of righteous indignation could not prevent an act of almost equal barbarity in the year following at Shimonoseki.

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For a thorough study of the case, see Adams's "History of Japan," vol. i., London, 1874; Kinsé Shiriaku, translated by E. Satow, Esq., Yokohama, 1873; "Kagoshima," E. H. House, Tōkiō, 1875. I have also had the advantage of hearing the story from the Japanese samurai, in Shimadzu's train, from others who were in Kagoshima during the bombardment, from Mr. E. Van Reed, and from English friends.

THE SHIMONOSÉKI AFFAIR.

On the 25th of June, 1863, the American steamer Pembroke, on her way from Yokohama to Shanghae, anchored near the town of Shimonoséki, and was warned off by a blank discharge. The next day two Chōshiu steamers attacked her, but she escaped without injury. On hearing of this (July 11th), the American minister directed Captain McDougall of the U. S. S. Wyoming, of four twelve-pounders and two pivot-guns, to proceed to Shimonoséki. Arriving there on the 16th, Captain McDougall ran his ship between the two Chōshiu men-of-war, receiving their fire and that of six batteries. An eleven-inch shell from the Wyoming, exploding in her boiler, blew up the steamer. The brig was sunk, and the batteries shelled. After an hour and ten minutes, having been hulled eleven times, and receiving about thirty shots in masts, rigging, and smoke-stack, and having five men killed and six wounded, the brave captain withdrew from such overwhelming odds, and returned to Yokohama.

The French ship Kien Chang, and the Dutch corvette Medusa (July 11th), were also fired on after blank warnings. The French men-of-war Semiramis and Tancrede (July 19th), and the Medusa (July 11th), also shelled the Shimonoséki batteries. The Dutch ship was struck thirty-four and hulled seventeen times. Three eightinch shells bursting on board, four men were killed and five wounded. The French landed a force and destroyed a battery, with a loss of only three men wounded. Ample vengeance was thus taken by Dutch, French, and Americans. No British vessel was injured. After the failure of negotiations, the allied squadron made rendezvous at Himéshima, in the Inland Sea, and on the 5th of September, 1864, at 2 P.M., began the bombardment of the batteries. The combined squadron consisted of nine British ships of war, and a battalion of marines, three French, and four Dutch ships of war. It being the time of our civil war, and our vessels being all engaged in blockade service, or on looking for the Alabama and other Confederate privateers, the United States was represented by the Takiang, a small chartered steamship, commanded by Lieutenant Pearson, with a party of marines and one Parrot gun, from the U. S. corvette Jamestown. There were engaged in the action:

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After a battle (September 5th and 6th) bravely contested on both sides, the batteries were silenced by the ships, and captured and destroyed by landing, and the guns removed.

The total expenses incurred by the United States in this expedition were less than twenty-five thousand dollars. The Pembroke is still doing service in one of the rivers in China. In a memorandum drawn up at a convention held in Yokohama, October 22d, 1864, the representatives of the four treaty powers, Sir Rutherford Alcock (England), Léon Roches (France), Hon. Robert H. Pruyn (United States), D. D. von Polsbroek (Holland), demanded three million dollars "indemnities and expenses for hostile acts of the Prince of Nagato." Four hundred and twenty thousand dollars were claimed as compensation for injuries to the vessels, American, French, and Dutch, first fired on, or one hundred and forty thousand dollars apiece. "Such a sum, or a much larger one, may be justly claimed," is the official language. Hence Great Britain would receive somewhat less of the partition of the indemnity than any of the other Powers. The share of each nation, not including interest, was:

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All the installments have been paid over to the respective powers, in part by the bakufu, and the remainder by the mikado's Government, the last being in 1873. In dividing the money, the French principle was to apportion it according to the numerical forces of each power engaged; the American principle was that the general co-operation of the four powers had equal weight, and contributed in equal degree to effect the result.

So far, the bare facts. Let us look into the justice of the case. As matter of international law, the Japanese had perfect right to close the Straits of Shimonoséki, since the right to use it was not stipulated by treaty, and each nation has the right to a league of marine territory along its shores, and to the straits and water passages commanded by cannon-shot. Further, no British ship was in any way injured or fired upon. Ample vengeance was taken in each case by American, French, and Dutch men-of-war; but the British minister, Alcock, ever ready to shed blood, collected all the available British naval force, and was the leading spirit in organizing this bombarding expedition. Orders from Her Majesty's Government, forbidding British participation in the needless and wicked act of war, arrived after the squadron had sailed. Sir R. Alcock was then recalled to explain the situation.

The part taken by the United States is the least enviable. In the first place, the Pembroke had no right to be where she was. She disregarded the warning of blank cartridge. It might be supposed that the American envoy, on hearing of the matter, recognized the Japanese right to close the strait, gave the Japanese officials the benefit of his legal knowledge, and helped to mitigate some of the impending horrors of civil war. On the contrary, he sent the Wyoming down to take all possible retribution, and then presented the bill of damages ($10,000!!!) of the owners of the Takiang. The items of this document were, "Five days' loss of time, at $300 per diem;" "loss of freight and passengers, at not being able to visit Nagasaki, whither she was bound, estimated at $6500;" "consideration for deadly peril for officers and crew, $2000." Five minutes' study of a good map of Japan will show the first two items to be pure fabrications. The Shimonoséki route is not the shortest to Nagasaki. Into the "deadly peril" they knowingly went, and remained till driven away. Strange to say, the successor

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