The samurai who lived wholly on the bounty of the daimyo led of course a tranquil life, at least so far as anxiety or toil for daily rice and fish was concerned.  As the fathers had lived and fought and died, so did the sons.  To a large extent the community had all things in common; for although the lord lived in relative luxury, yet in such small communities there never was the great difference between classes that we find in modern Europe and America.  As a rule the people were fed, if there was food.  The socialistic principle was practically universal.  Especially was emphasis laid on kinship.  As a result, save among the outcast classes, the extremes of poverty did not exist.

Were we to rest our inquiries at this point, we might say that in truth the Japanese had attained the summit of progress; that nothing further could be asked.  But pushing our way further, we find that the peace and quiet of the ordinary classes of society were accompanied by many undesirable features.

Prominent among them was the domineering spirit of the military class.  They alone laid claim to personal rights, and popular stories are full of the free and furious ways in which they used their swords.  The slightest offense by one of the swordless men would be paid for by a summary act of the two-sworded swashbucklers, while beggars and farmers were cut down without compunction, sometimes simply to test a sword.  In describing those times one man said to me, “They used to cut off the heads of the common people as farmers cut off the head of the daikon” (a variety of giant radish).  I have frequently asked my Japanese friends and acquaintances, whether, in view of the increasing difficulties of life under the new conditions, the country would not like to return to ancient times and customs.  But none have been ready to give me an affirmative reply.  On detailed questioning I have always found that the surly, domineering methods, the absolutism of the rulers, and the defenselessness of the people against unjust arbitrary superiors would not be submitted to by a people that has once tasted the joy arising from individual rights and freedom and the manhood that comes from just laws for all.

A striking feature of those Japanese who are unchanged by foreign ways is their obsequious manner toward superiors and officials.  The lordly and oftentimes ruthless manner of the rulers has naturally cowed the subject.  Whenever the higher nobility traveled, the common people were commanded to fall on the ground in obeisance and homage.  Failure to do so was punishable with instant death at the hands of the retainers who accompanied the lord.  During my first stay in Kumamoto I was surprised that farmers, coming in from the country on horseback, meeting me as I walked, invariably got down from their horses, unfastened the handkerchiefs from their heads, and even took off their spectacles if there were nothing else removable.  These were signs of respect given to all in authority.  Where my real status began to be generally known, these signs of politeness gave place to rude staring.  It is difficult for the foreigner to appreciate the extremes of the high-handed and the obsequious spirit which were developed by the ancient form of government.  Yet it is comparatively easy to distinguish between the evidently genuine humility of the non-military classes and the studied deference of the dominant samurai.