Japan, as we noticed not many weeks ago, is really
going ahead, and giving up its stereotyped ideas for those which have long been the intellectual circulating medium of the West. We are told that the mint at Osaka was to be opened early in April, and that it would, when in full order, be able to coin 40,000 dollars and 160,000 subsidiary coins a day ; that the telegraph lines between Yokohama and Yedo and between Osaka and Kobe are established, and that a further telegraphic extension from Yedo to Osaka is projected. Again, "the lighthouse in the Akashi Straits, on the Island of Awaji, is ready to receive the light appa- ratus. This Akashi light is to be of the first order, one of those wonderful combinations of lenses that all who visited the London Exhibition of 1862 will remember." Certainly Japan does not seem inclined to undervalue either coin, news, or light.
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