eat shops are now common throughout the land--a thing
unknown in pre-Meiji times--and rice, which used to be the luxury of
the wealthy few, has become the staple necessity of the many.

Postal and telegraph facilities are quite complete. Macadamized roads
and well-built railroads have replaced the old footpaths, except in
the most mountainous districts. Factories of many kinds are appearing
in every town and city. Business corporations, banks, etc., which
numbered only thirty-four so late as 1864 are now numbered by the
thousand, and trade flourishes as in no previous period of Japanese
history. Instead of being a country of farmers and soldiers, Japan is
to-day a land of farmers and merchants. Wealth is growing apace.
International commerce, too, has sprung up and expanded phenomenally.
Japanese merchant steamers may now be seen in every part of the world.

All these changes have taken place within about three decades, and so
radical have they been,--so productive of new life in Japan,--that
some have urged the re-writing of Japanese history, making the first
year of Meiji (1868) the year one of Japan, instead of reckoning from
the year in which Jimmu Tenno is said to have ascended the throne,
2560 years ago (B.C. 660).

The way in which Japanese regard the transformations produced by the
"restoration" of the present Emperor, upon the overthrow of the
"Bakufu," or "Curtain Government," may be judged from the following
graphic paragraph from _The Far East_:

"The Restoration of Meiji was indeed the greatest of revolutions
that this island empire ever underwent. Its magic wand left
nothing untouched and unchanged. It was the Restoration that
overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate, which reigned supreme for over
two centuries and a half. It was the Restoration that brought us
face to face with the Occidentals. It was the Restoration that
pulled the demigods of the Feudal lords down to the level of the
commoners. It was the Restoration that deprived the samurai of
their fiefs and reduced them to penury. It was the Restoration that
taught the people to build their houses of bricks and stones and to
construct ships and bridges of iron instead of wood. It was the
Restoration that informed us that eclipses and comets are not to be
feared, and that earthquakes are not caused by a huge cat-fish in
the bottom of the earth. It was the Restoration that taught the