Tokio by rows of houses
built after glaring European models. Surely there is no need to discard
your own architecture, I said.

"Ha," snorted the chief of the _Public Opinion_. "You call it
picturesque. I call it too. Wait till he light up--incendiate. A
Japanese house then is one only fire box. _That_ is why we think good to
build in European fashion. I tell you, and you must believe, that we
take up no change without thinking upon it. Truth, indeed, it is not
because we are curious children, wanting new things, as some people have
said. We have done with that season of picking up things and throwing
them down again. You see?"

"Where did you pick up your Constitution, then?"

I did not know what the question would bring forth, yet I ought to have
been wise. The first question that a Japanese on the railway asks an
Englishman is: "Have you got the English translation of our
Constitution?" All the book-stalls sell it in English and Japanese, and
all the papers discuss it. The child is not yet three months old.

"Our Constitution?--That was promised to us--promised twenty years ago.
Fourteen years ago the provinces they have been allowed to elect their
big men--their heads. Three years ago they have been allowed to have
assemblies, and thus Civil Liberty was assured."

I was baffled here for some time. In the end I thought I made out that
the municipalities had been given certain control over police funds and
the appointment of district officials. I may have been entirely wrong,
but the editor bore me along on a torrent of words, his body rocking and
his arms waving with the double agony of twisting a foreign tongue to
his service and explaining the to-be-taken-seriouslyness of Japan. Whack
come the little hand on the little table, and the little tea-cups jumped
again.

"Truly, and indeed, this Constitution of ours has _not_ come too soon.
It proceeded step-by. You understand that? Now your Constitution, the
Constitutions of the foreign nations, are all bloody--bloody
Constitutions. Ours has come step-by. We did not fight as the barons
fought with King John at Runnymede."

This was a quotation from a speech delivered at Otsu, a few days
previously, by a member of the Government. I grinned at the brotherhood
of editors all the world over. Up went the hand anew.

"We shall be happy with this Constitution and a people civilised among
civilisations."

"Of course. But what will you actually do with it? A Constituti