Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1904-08-26

practice of hara-kari originated. For
the oldest annals in existence con-
tain reference to it as national GUS
tom. But it was in the twelfth CEN
tury of our era that it was first
instituted as judicial means of
ending the lives of those mobiles and
Samurai who were regarded as meri-
ting death, but not dishonor. Rules
of procedure were devised. Whereas,
however, in the case of meetings on
the field of honor in western coun-
tries, the best friend of the principal
acts as his second, in Japan, the best
friend-in the case of judicial
hara-kari--acted as his executioner,
appearing from behind screen, and
with one sweep of his long sword
cutting off the head of the principal
at the moment when the latter,
while squatting on the floor, having
drawn the smaller Of his two swords
across his barred stomach from the
extreme left to right below the waist
liue, was in the act of sinking face
forward on the ground.
The last of these judicial execu-
tions, so far as foreigners are aware,
took place little over thirty years
ago, when Samurai of the name of
Zenzaburo atoned in this manner, by
order of the Mikado, for an armed
attack upon members of the British
Legation. The ceremony took place
In the presence of Sir Ernest Satow,
now English envoy at Pekin, and of
Lord Redesdale, to whom Zenzabufo's
head was presented for inspection,
by his "ksrshku," or best friend,
who had decapitated him at the mo-
ment when he had completed his
disemboweling process.
While the judicial hara-kari is un-
derstood to have ceased, the unofficial
sepperku remains, as isapparent from
the scenes on board the Kinshu Maru
the other day, a national custom of
the people, aud con tinues to be prac-
ticed. Indeed according to one of
those unwrittep laws which are SO
much more binding than the ones
that figure in the judicial code,
man of the Samurai class, who is not
prepared to die by his own hand
rather than suffer disgrace is SUBJ
jected to the same sort of ostracism
as the continental European who
declines to challenge and is barred
from the acceptance of commission
in the army.
In all cases where a man who lluds
himself face to face with trouble
commits hara-kari, any offence of
which he may have been guilty, or
wrong that he may have done, is re-
garded by the law aud by the public
alike as nonproven since he is no
longer there to defend himself. In
one word he saves by means of sui
eide his own honor and that of his
family, and as long as these ideas
prevail so long will hara-kari con-
tinue feature of Japanese civiliza-
ton.
1t may not be in consonance with
our western ideas. Indeed, the sur
vival of this form of self destruction
iu Japan serves to remind us of the
fact which we are so often tempted
to forget-namely: that between the
orient and the occident there is a
great and deep gulf, and that where
as we belong to the occident, the
japanese will always remain Asiatics
no matter how many of our ways they
may adopt. Hara-kari is not pleas
ant custom, and by many it will be
denounced as sayoring of barbarism.
And yet underlying this particularly
ghastly method Of suicide there is an
underlying ideal of chivalry and of
honor, without which the world
would be poorer.