Let it be our task to suppress the evil and develop the good. Let us surround the practice of hypnotism with those precautions which the welfare of society demands, and suffer it to be employed by qualified men only, who may be trusted to use it as they use other curative agents, without any affectation of mystery or occultism. Let us put down degrading exhibitions of unhealthy psychical experiments, as they have been put down in Holland, Switzerland, and other countries; and let no one allow himself to be psychically influenced by a stranger, nor by any person in whom he has not well-founded confidence. Stories of men and women being hypnotised against their will by strangers, are, I am inclined to believe, mostly mythical—the general experience of experts being that no person can hypnotise another for the first time without his or her consent. The hypnotiser is able to guard even his most susceptible patients against being so affected by another than himself, by suggesting during the sleep that they shall obey no hypnotic influence except his own. Of this Dr. Bernheim gives an interesting example. A very susceptible patient, whom he had formerly hypnotised with ease, put herself under his care. Judging that she was again a fit case for the psycho-therapeutical treatment, he endeavoured to induce the sleep, but, to his surprise, found her absolutely unsusceptible. He presently called in Dr. Liébault, who in a few seconds put her in a deep sleep, and, while she was in that condition, asked her why she had resisted Dr. Bernheim. She replied that Dr. Beaunis, whose patient she had recently been, had suggested to her during sleep that she must be susceptible only to his influence and that of Dr. Liébault. Of this order she had no recollection in her waking moments.

The continental physicians who practise this system, are wisely careful to protect themselves and their patients with such precautions as they would use in administering anæsthetics :-never hypnotising any patient without his own free consent, or that of his natural or legal guardians, and insisting on some third person being present-if possible a relation or friend of the patient. The more cultured and broad-minded of them regard the treatment, not as a universal specific, to be used against all diseases and with all patients to the exclusion of other means of healing, but rather as a valuable adjunct to these in certain cases. They choose not to be innovators but improvers not to take away but to add; and they work with a firm conviction that it should be the aim of medical science and of its exponents to press all remedial agents into the service of humanity.

C. LLOYD TUCKEY.

AN AUTUMN VISIT TO JAPAN.

FOR centuries a halo of mystery surrounded Japan. It was less known than the centre of Africa is at present. But with Commodore Perry's expedition in 1854 all this has passed away. Since then no country has been more studied by foreigners-especially by English men and women. We have decorated our walls with its papers, furnished our rooms with its porcelain, filled our gardens with its flowers and shrubs, and even dramatised its institutions on the stage. And yet, with all the information about this wonderful country and people that has flooded our libraries and drawing-rooms for years past, the interest in it shows no signs of waning. Announce your intention of going to Japan, and every one that hears you instantly remarks that it has long been the darling wish of his or her heart. For one reason, it is at the other end of the earth (somewhere in the South Sea Islands, as an inquisitive but not too-well-informed friend observed), and there is always something fascinating in doing what other people cannot do whether you go to the North Pole, to the centre of Africa, or only to Japan. For another reason, the country and people have no exact resemblance to any known race in the ancient or modern world, although points of resemblance may be found to the Chinaman, the North American Indian, and the Malay. As with the parlourmaid who announced to her master, who was expecting some Japanese guests to dinner, that she had just sent away some Christy Minstrels, so doubts in higher quarters may be reasonably entertained as to their origin and colour. Marco Polo indeed tells us that in the thirteenth century they were 'white, civilised, and wellfavoured; but then he never left the shores of China. After all, the question to those who live in the nineteenth century, and who read and don't travel, is, Is there anything fresh to learn from these white, civilised, and well-favoured' people who live at the other side of the world? I think so, and I propose shortly to say why.

The most serious obstacle to a better acquaintance is undoubtedly the long sea-voyage. By Suez and Hongkong it takes six weeks, and though it may be a few days shorter by Liverpool and New York, there is none the less a great gulf fixed of five thousand miles between San Francisco and Yokohama across a dreary waste of waters,

often as stormy as the Atlantic, and unrelieved by the sight of a single passing ship. Purgatory of this sort has, however, one advantage. It conduces to that frame of mind which thoroughly appreciates Paradise when reached. And the traveller must be hard to please if he does. not view everything on landing with rose-coloured spectacles.

The first thing that strikes him-fresh, it may be, from the indiscriminating rudeness of the American Far West-is the exceeding civility of everybody, custom-house officers included. Cheerfulness, good temper, and politeness are universal. The mothers smile, the children chatter without quarrelling in the streets, and it is a pleasure to watch the ordinary work people as they meet and go through the prescribed etiquette of bowing and shaking hands with each other. Differences over the carriage of your person and effects-if they exist-are speedily settled without the use of bad language and angry oaths, and in less time than it takes to write, the traveller and his baggage are put into 'jinrikishas' (or light carriages drawn by one or more men scantily dressed, with funny white hats shaped like mushrooms), and are trotted off to the Grand Hotel, famous for its English comfort and French cuisine. These 'jinrikishas,' or manpower carriages, deserve a word or two in passing. Of modern invention, they have been improvised to supply the want of horses and flys, and it is marvellous to see what power of endurance and capacity for toil is to be found amongst the little broad-shouldered coolies who draw them. It is quite a common thing for them to keep up a good steady pace of six or seven miles an hour, on a diet of rice, fish, or tea, for as many hours in the day, and all this for the scanty wage of 1d. a mile. These are stubborn facts, which, by comparison, make one tremble for the future of the English working classes, unless they make up their minds to gird themselves up for the coming struggle. The bitter cry of employers at home increases yearly with the increasing dislike of the rising generation to hard manual labour. Throughout Europe and Asia it is the same story -Germans and Japanese beat us with our own weapons, because they work harder, longer, and for less wage. It was not always so; but education has softened us, and philanthropy with the best intentions is doing all it can to destroy the sturdy feeling of self-dependence, once the pride of the British workman.

In Japan, man certainly wants but little here below.' With cotton clothes, a diet of rice and fish, and a house of wattle and daub, domestic bills are not high. An ordinary coolie or labourer in the fields is content with 2s. 6d. a week. A clerk in a government office is well paid with 50l. a year, and a cabinet minister with 1,000l. The so-called necessities of life in all classes are at least one third of what they would be in the United States or in Europe. My inquiries did not extend so far as rent, rates, and taxes; but, whatever they may be, there is a good deal to show for them.

The streets and roads in and about the capital are good, clean, fairly lighted, and admirably policed, and the railroad of eighteen miles to Tokyio-built, like all the railroads of the country, after the English model-leaves little to be desired. The capital itself extends over a large area, and is said to contain a million inhabitants. The area it covers is enormous, embracing as it does numerous temples surrounded by groves of evergreen trees, and parks laid out in European fashion. Amongst the finest buildings were the Sheba temple and gardens, and the old palace of the Shōguns. These are characteristic of an order of things which is fast passing away. The gardens were prettily laid out in the ancient style, with gigantic stone lanterns surrounding a lake devoted to fish and waterfowl; the latter, when required, being ingeniously caught by keepers with long nets concealed behind hedges planted for the purpose.

The sight of these old temples and gardens is full of interest to the antiquarian and philosopher. They speak of a form of government and a state of society which it is impossible for Englishmen to realise without going back to the middle ages, but which existed in Japan not a quarter of a century ago. The Shogun and his court, the daimios' or great feudal chiefs, and the samurai' or military retainers, have vanished into limbo with a rapidity unexampled in history. Their vices did not differ from those of all oligarchical governments, and so far they deserved to perish. It is rather of their virtues, their courage, and their devotion to their feudal chiefs that one would wish to speak, in the hope that the faith, loyalty, and patriotism of the past will not be lost in the future. But the recent reforms have not yet had time to bear fruit, and the issue is still doubtful. In Japan, more than in any other country in the world, the new ideas of society are making the most rapid progress, and it may be that this marvellous people is destined to find the philosopher's stone in politics of combining liberty with empire without destroying what is worth preserving of the past.

It was refreshing at least to find, amongst much that was a mere copy of European taste and fashions, that the new palace of the Mikado at Tokyio is being built entirely of wood after the old models. It covered a great space, being only one story high, and was roofed with the peculiar long overlapping tiles introduced from China. The rooms were wellproportioned, especially the hall of audience and the banqueting rooms; and the wooden ceilings, with square panels decorated with paper and silk on which flowers and animals had been beautifully worked, were unique of their kind. Costly as the estimate of the building and its decorations was reported to be-over a million sterling-one felt thankful that the new ideas of progress which rigidly put utility before beauty had not prevailed in this instance, and that a copy of Buckingham Palace had not been substituted for the old Japanese architecture.

From Tokyio to Nikko-the Canterbury of Japan-is only a day's journey, half of which is accomplished by rail, and the other half in jinrikishas along a level road at the rate of six miles an hour-the men keeping time by singing a monotonous chant. Tall cryptomerias over a hundred feet high border the road, which passes through a country of paddy fields, gradually changing to evergreen jungle and wood as the road ascends higher and higher to the town of Nikko. A Japanese inn built of lath and plaster is certainly not replete with comfort. The rooms are very draughty, for the sliding doors never thoroughly shut, and paper is substituted for glass in the windows. As for bedsteads, washing-stands, and other conveniences they simply do not exist, so travellers have to improvise such articles or sleep on the floor. The people, however, are delightfully civil. Good-looking girls with raven hair and dark eyes wait upon you, and are so winning and willing to oblige you that discomfort becomes quite a secondary consideration.

The scenery improves as the ascent continues. Not so the road, so the jinrikishas are exchanged for cagos or palanquins along a rugged mountain tract, till the Chinsenji lake (literally, the lake between the mountains) is reached, where luncheon is served in a Shinto temple. Recollections of Scotland and Switzerland come back as the eye looks above, around, and below. The water might have belonged to the celebrated pool of the Red Fisherman, so quiet and still is it.

And nearer he came, and still more near,

To a pool in whose recess

The water had slept for many a year,

Unchanged and motionless.

No wonder this spot has been chosen for the site of a temple, for the mountain sides, the red autumn tints of the overhanging woods, and the glassy stillness of the lake speak of peace and harmony, of solitude, inward communion, and worship. But the face of nature is more changeful here than elsewhere. Earthquakes and tempests, the former especially, are far from uncommon, and on the return journey a windy corner was shown where a Buddhist saint is said to have tempered the violence of the constant hurricanes in these valleys by selfmortification and prayer. Nikko itself is the most hallowed spot in Japan, and curiously enough is equally reverenced by both Shinto and Buddhist devotees. Here it was that a temple was erected by Shodo Shonin, the Buddhist St. Augustine of Japan, in A.D. 767, on the site of another ancient temple. Here too it was that, in 1616-nearly nine hundred years afterwards the second Shogun of the Tokingawa dynasty did honour to the saint by building a mausoleum to the memory of his father, the celebrated Iyeasu-the Henry the Seventh of Japan-who in the name of the Mikado gave peace, prosperity, and laws to his distracted country after centuries of civil war.