Japanese Girls and Women, Alice Mabel Bacon [ebook reader library TXT] 📗

[38] Kurushima, who attempted to take the life of Okuma, the late Minister of Foreign Affairs, as recently as 1889, committed suicide immediately after throwing the dynamite bomb which caused the minister the loss of his leg. This was the more remarkable in that, at the time of his death, the assassin supposed that his victim had escaped all injury.

The great héimin class includes not only the peasants of Japan, but also the artisans and merchants; artisans ranking below farmers, and merchants below artisans, in the social structure. It includes the whole of the common people, except such as were in former times altogether below the level of respectability, the éta and hinin,[39]—outcasts who lived by begging, slaughtering animals, caring for dead bodies, tanning skins, and other employments which rendered them unclean according to the old notions. From very early times the agricultural class has been sharply divided from the samurai or military. Here and there one from the peasantry mounts by force of his personal qualities into the higher ranks, for there is no caste system that prevents the passing from one class into another,—only a class prejudice that serves very nearly the same purpose, in keeping samurai and héimin in their places, that the race prejudice in this country serves in confining the negroes, North and South, to certain positions and occupations. The first division of the military from the peasantry occurred in the eighth century, and since then the peculiar circumstances of each class have tended to produce quite different characteristics in persons originally of the same stock. To the soldier class have fallen learning, skill in arms and horsemanship, opportunities to rise to places of honor and power, lives free from sordid care in regard to the daily rice, and in which noble ideas of duty and loyalty can spring up and bear fruit in heroic deeds. To the peasant, tilling his little rice-field year after year, have come the heavy burdens of taxation; the grinding toil for a mere pittance of food for himself and his family; the patient bearing of all things imposed by his superiors, with little hope of gain for himself, whatever change the fortunes of war may bring to those above him in the social scale. Is there wonder that, as the years have gone by, his wits have grown heavy under his daily drudgery; that he knows little and understands less of the changes that are taking place in his native land; that he is easily moved by only one thing, and that the failure of his crops, or the shortening of his returns from his land by heavier taxation? This is true of the héimin as a class: they are conservative, fearing that change will but tend to make harder a lot that is none too easy; and though peaceable and gentle usually, they may be moved to blind acts of riot and bloodshed by any political change that seems likely to produce heavier taxation, or even by a failure of their crops, when they see themselves and their families starving while the military and official classes have enough and to spare. But though, as a class, the farmers are ignorant and heavy, they are seldom entirely illiterate; and everywhere, throughout the country, one finds men belonging to this class who are well educated and have risen to positions of much responsibility and power, and are able to hold their own, and think for themselves and for their brethren. From an article in the "Tōkyō Mail," entitled "A Memorialist of the Latter Days of the Tokugawa Government," I quote passages which show the thoughts of one of the héimin upon the condition of his own class about the year 1850. It is from a petition sent to the Shōgun by the head-man of the village of Ogushi.

The first point in the petition is, that there is a growing tendency to luxury among the military and official classes. "It is useless to issue orders commanding peasants and others to be frugal and industrious, when those in power, whose duty it is to show a good example to the people, are themselves steeped in luxury and idleness." He ventures to reproach the Shōguns themselves by pointing to the extravagance with which they have decorated the mausoleums at Nikkō and elsewhere. "Is this," he asks, "in keeping with the intentions of the glorious founder of your dynasty? Look at the shrines in Isé and elsewhere, and at the sepulchres of the Emperors of successive ages. Is gold or silver used in decorating them?" He then turns to the vassals of the Shōgun, and charges them with being tyrannical, rapacious, and low-minded. "Samurai," he continues,—"samurai are finely attired, but how contemptible they look in the eyes of those peasants who know how to be contented with what they have!"

Further on in the same memorial, he points out what he regards as a grave mistake in the policy of the Shōgun. A decree had just been issued prohibiting the peasantry from exercising themselves with sword-play, and from wearing swords. Of this he says: "Perhaps this decree may have been issued on the supposition that Japan is naturally impregnable and defended on all sides. But when she receives insult from a foreign country, it may become necessary to call on the militia. And who knows that men of extraordinary military genius, like Toyotomi,[40] will not again appear among the lower classes?"

He ends his memorial with this warning: "Should the Shōgun's court, and the military class in general, persist in the present oppressive way of government, Heaven will visit this land with still greater calamities. If this circumstance is not clearly kept in view, the consequence may be civil disturbance. I, therefore, beseech that the instructions of the glorious founder of the dynasty be acted upon; that simplicity and frugality be made the guiding principle of administration; and that a general amnesty be proclaimed, thereby complying with the will of Heaven and placating the people. Should these humble suggestions of mine be acted upon, prospective calamities will fly before the light of virtue. Whether the country is to be safe or not depends upon whether the administration is carried on with mercy or not. What I pray for is, that the country may enjoy peace and tranquillity, that the harvest may be plentiful, and that the people may be happy and prosperous."

One is able to see, by this rather remarkable document, that the peasants of Japan, though frequently almost crushed by the heavy burdens of taxation, do not, even in the most grinding poverty, lose entirely that independence of thought and of action which is characteristic of their nation. They do not consider themselves as a servile class, nor their military rulers as beyond criticism or reproach, but are ready to speak boldly for their rights whenever an opportunity occurs. There is a pathetic story, told in Mitford's "Tales of Old Japan," of a peasant, the head-man of his village, who goes to Yedo to present to the Shōgun a complaint, on behalf of his fellow-villagers, of the extortions and exactions of his daimiō. He is unable to get any one to present his memorial to the Shōgun, so at last he stops the great lord's palanquin in the street,—an act in itself punishable with death,—and thrusts the paper forcibly into his hand. The petition is read, and his fellow-villagers saved from further oppression, but the head-man, for his daring, is condemned by his own daimiō to suffer death by crucifixion,—a fate which he meets with the same heroism with which he dared everything to save his fellows from suffering.

The peasant, though ignorant and oppressed, has not lost his manhood; has not become a slave or a serf, but clings to his rights, so far as he knows what they are; and is ready to hold his own against all comers, when the question in debate is one that appeals to his mind. The rulers of Japan have always the peasantry to reckon with when their ruling becomes unjust or oppressive. They cannot be cowed, though they may be misled for a time, and they form a conservative element that serves to hold in check too hasty rulers who would introduce new measures too quickly, and would be likely to find the new wine bursting the old bottles, as well as to prevent any rash extravagance in the way of personal expenditure on the part of government officials. The influence of this great class will be more and more felt as the new parliamentary institutions gain in