Of a period some two hundred years earlier, it is stated that, by the assistance of the Sovereign, Buddhism established a charity hospital in Nara, “where the poor received medical treatment and drugs gratis, and an asylum was founded for the support of the destitute.  Measures were also taken to rescue foundlings, and, in general, to relieve poverty and distress” (p. 92).  The good beginning made at that time does not seem to have been followed up.  As nearly as I can make out, relying on the investigations of Rev. J.H.  Pettee and Mr. Ishii, there are to-day in Japan fifty orphan asylums, of which eleven are of non-Christian, and thirty-nine of Christian origin, support, and control.  Of the non-Christian, five are in Osaka, two in Tokyo, four in Kyoto, and one each in Nagoya, Kumamoto, and Matsuye.  Presumably the majority of these are in the hands of Buddhists.  Of the Christian asylums twenty are Roman Catholic and nineteen are Protestant.  It is a noteworthy fact that in this form of philanthropy and religious activity, as in so many others, Christians are the pioneers and Buddhists are the imitators.  In a land where Buddhism has been so effective as to modify the diet of the nation, leading them in obedience to the doctrines of Buddha, as has been stated, to give up eating animal food, it is exceedingly strange that the people apparently have no regard for the pain of living animals.  Says the editor of the Mail in the article already quoted:  “They will not interfere to save a horse from the brutality of its driver, and they will sit calmly in a jinrikisha while its drawer, with throbbing heart and straining muscles, toils up a steep hill.”  How often have I seen this sight!  How the rider can endure it, I cannot understand, except it be that revolt at cruelty and sympathy with suffering do not stir within his heart.  Of course, heartless individuals are not rare in the West also.  I am speaking here, however, not of single individuals, but of general characteristics.

But a still more conspicuous evidence of Japanese deficiency of sympathy is the use, until recently, of public torture.  It was the theory of Japanese jurisprudence that no man should be punished, even though proved guilty by sufficient evidence, until he himself confessed his guilt; consequently, on the flimsiest evidence, and even on bare suspicion, he was tortured until the desired confession was extracted.  The cruelty of the methods employed, we of the nineteenth century cannot appreciate.  Some foreigner tells how the sight of torture which he witnessed caused him to weep, while the Japanese spectators stood by unmoved.  The methods of execution were also refined devices of torture.  Townsend Harris says that crucifixion was performed as follows:  “The criminal is tied to a cross with his arms and legs stretched apart as wide as possible; then a spear is thrust through the body, entering just under the bottom of the shoulder blade on the left side, and coming