For His People. Retold by Viscount Hayashi. (Harper and Brothers.
3s. 6d.)—This is so far fiction that a true story is filled out with various imaginary characters; and a very curious story it is, another proof of how marvellously Japan has changed. The tale is but two centuries old, but it discloses a condition of things for which in the West one would have to go back more than two millenniums. The despotism of the feudal lords of the country was tempered by a possible appeal to the Shogun, or supreme ruler; there is nothing uncommon about that. But then the appeal was a very serious matter. It might be successful ; the Shogun might interfere and order the grievance to be re- moved. But the man who made the appeal was, or anyhow might be, crucified, for he was still in the power of the feudal lord. In For His People we have poetical justice administered in a very liberal way. The lord's wife becomes delirious and he follows the example, kills a maid-of-honour and the doctor, and gets generally into such trouble as must have satisfied the spirits of his injured victims. The book gives a glimpse of thoughts and ways very remote from ours.
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