uch of his popularity, and as
involving him in a controversy with the spiritual emperor, who, as
Pontifex maximus, has exclusive authority over religious edifices.
Yielding to pressure from above and below, the tycoon begged the
ambassadors to consent to the removal of the buildings to some other
site in the metropolis less obnoxious to the mikado and to the populace,
all the expense of which the Japanese Government offered to pay. Only
one of the buildings had been completed, that for the British legation.
Colonel Neal, H. B. M. _charge d'affaires_, was solicited to give his
consent, which he refused. Time was precious. The mikado's envoy was
about to return with a final answer; it was necessary that something
should be done to save the tycoon from the consequences of his
disobedience. The knot was cut, as we have seen, by the torch and by
gunpowder.

In the use of firearms the prejudices of the natives have been
needlessly offended. Shooting game is not generally allowed to the
people, yet foreigners here often been reckless in the pursuit of sport,
regardless where they sought it, and terrifying the people. Again,
riding on horseback is allowed only to the nobles, and it is a source of
provocation to all classes to witness the equestrian performances of
foreigners of every station in life, whose amusement at times consists
in making pedestrians scatter as they gallop through crowded streets.
Moreover, the Chinese servants in the employ of foreigners habitually
insult and oppress the natives, presuming on immunity as retainers of
the privileged stranger. As the Japanese hold the Celestials in supreme
contempt, and as that feeling is fully reciprocated, collisions are the
consequence, and it is pretty certain that the 'servants' of the
legation who were murdered were offending Chinamen.

Guizot remarks, in his 'History of Civilization,' 'of all systems of
government, it may be asserted, without fear of contradiction, that the
most difficult to establish and render effectual, is the federative
system--which eminently requires the greatest maturity of reason, of
morality, and of civilization, in which it is applied. The very nature
itself of feudalism is opposed to order and legality.' It was with the
executive of a feudal federative system that European and American
governments negotiated these treaties, a duplicate sovereign over six
hundred and twenty feudal barons, commanding above two hundred thousand
armed retain