had to withdraw from the
cabinet, owing to a difference of opinion between him and
the Prince with regard to the Corean problem then pending.
Returning to his native province, Saga, he tried to raise
troops against the government (to carry out, of course, his
own convictions in regard to the Corean problem), resulting
in the famous "Saga rebellion" of 1873. Defeated by the
government troops, he betook himself to the interior of the
country in disguise, was arrested, found guilty of treason,
and executed according to law. It is a familiar saying in
Japan that Mr. Yeto died a criminal at the hand of his own
Penal Code.

Thus, side by side there existed in Tokio two law schools in which two
distinct systems of law were taught--the English and the French. The
primary object of the Department of Justice in establishing the French
law school being to make it a training school of judicial officers,
the students of that school were, upon graduation, to render, for a
limited number of years, an obligatory service to the government in
the various capacities of judges, magistrates, and prosecuting
attorneys. On the other hand, the University of Tokio being a strictly
independent institution in which learning is pursued for the sake of
learning, the graduates of the university or English law school were
at entire liberty in their choice of professions. Naturally enough the
majority of these did not wish to enter the same service which the
graduates of the other school were obliged to enter as a matter of
fulfilment of contract. Thus it happened that the bench was recruited
from the French law school, while the bar was recruited from the
English law school. This state of affairs lasted for about twenty
years, during which time there was also established a German law
school in the University of Tokio. Those who know something about the
rivalry that existed in ancient times between the Sabinians and the
Proculians, or even about the rivalry which exists to-day between the
Yale method and the Harvard method, between the Waylandians and the
Langdellians, can readily imagine what intellectual competition was
carried on between these three Japanese law schools representing three
distinct systems of law.

After twenty years of assiduous labor the Code Commission submitted a
draft of a Civil Code to the two Houses of Parliament i