consistent with the spirit of Japanese legislation. No sooner had they set foot upon the shore, than in defiance or contempt of the power and assumptions of the Portuguese, the governor ordered them to be seized and thrown into prison. Sixty-one out of the seventy-three were shortly after executed. The rest were sent adrift in an open boat, and with scanty provisions, upon the ocean, to find their way back to some friendly port, and to communicate to their countrymen the treatment they might in future expect upon a similar occasion. These unfortunate men, however, were never afterwards heard of, and it is probable that they perished in a storm or by the longer process of famine. Such summary justice exhibits at once the barbarity of the laws and the vindictiveness of this government. Jesuits having endeavoured to overthrow the existing | dignity of their claims and the sincerity of their religion and subvert the government, and having intentions. But the fate that awaited them was failed, a decree was instantly promulgated, banishing all strangers from the coasts and territories of Japan, under the most severe penalties, and closing its ports and harbours for ever against them under every circumstance. An exception, as we have observed before, was made in favour of the Dutch, who had assisted them in defeating the insurrection of the Portuguese and Christian natives, and who, it was asserted at the time, further purchased this privilege by denying their faith and performing the degrading ceremony of trampling the cross under their feet at one of the annual festivals of the natives. This gross charge against them has been partially answered by Dutch writers, who assert that their countrymen did not deny that they were Christians, but that they were of the same communion with the Portuguese; but the trampling of the cross under their feet would seem to imply that they did not wish to be accounted holding even a common or general connexion with them, and for this purpose, to gain a monopoly of comparatively speaking valueless privileges, they consented to treat with disrespect the symbol of their religion, a symbol that has been in every age and every country the glorious sign of their one belief. It is not improbable that the injustice exercised towards the English on this occasion would have been severely dealt with, had not the government at home been distracted by the internal disturbances of the country and the impending struggles that even now began to menace the political horizon of Great Britain. Certain it is that no effort was made until long after to urge our claims of admission, and never, that we know of, to seek redress for the injuries inflicted in 1637, the year when they, in conjunction with the Portuguese, were banished; and a false delicacy has repressed the governments of Europe from demanding what must be acknowledged by every reflective mind a universal right, and by the law of nations the prerogative of all. The exception made in favour of the Dutch, was the permission to send annually two ships from Batavia to the port of Nangasaki, but under such restrictions as make their crews for the time being little less than prisoners. Upon their arrival at the harbour, they are signalled to await the agents of the government, to whom they deliver up their arms, to be returned upon their departure. When in port they are only allowed to move about at stated times, and under surveillance, whilst in some instances the Japanese authorities affix the price to the articles they have brought with them for sale. The Portuguese could ill brook the ascendency of the Dutch in Japan, however ill-gotten that ascendency had been, and in less than three years from the time of their expulsion made an attempt to renew their commercial relations with that people. Accordingly, a deputation was sent to Nangasaki, consisting of seventy-three persons, and accompanied with all imaginable pomp, to impress the emperor with the For more than half a century the Japanese were allowed to remain unmolested and to enjoy the exclusiveness which they had established, no attempt being made to gain admission into their ports, until the year 1672, when the English arrived at Nangasaki, bearing a copy of the old treaty. The same inflexibility towards any communication was manifested, and after several interruptions the English sailed away without accomplishing their object. Such has been the result of every subsequent expedition. The vigilance with which the Japanese guard against the infraction of these laws amongst their own subjects is curiously illustrated by the following anecdote:-In 1808 Captain Pellew, cruising about in those seas, was driven by stress of weather into one of their harbours, and being also in want of provisions, sent word to the governor that he stood in need of his assistance, and if he would order the necessary articles to be forwarded to the vessel he should be paid for them in return. The only reply which he obtained was a message, that unless he sailed away immediately the guns of the fortress would open upon him. The captain upon the occasion vindicated the dignity and character of the British nation. Instead of being intimidated by this haughty and inhuman threat, he gave the governor to understand that unless the provisions were speedily sent he would batter the town about the heads of the inhabitants. The result was, that supplies of every kind were brought, the vessel re-stored and put into a proper condition for leaving the harbour. The governor, however, who had allowed the provisions to be sent, met with a melancholy fate. He committed suicide. But in this unnatural conduct he acted in conformity with the laws of his country, by which it is enacted that if the man, convicted of the crime of which this governor was guilty, puts not an end to his own life, the lives of his wife and children shall be sacrificed and his property confiscated. The searching examinations they maintain of every vessel that is admitted into their ports, cannot be better exemplified than by the following incident, which shows that no deception can impose upon, or caution elude their vigilance. During the late war, | active and enterprising spirit, a generous and humane whilst the decrees of Napoleon closed the ports of disposition. the continent against England, the Dutch were obliged to go to America for a freight of manufactured goods. An American vessel was also placed at their service, and, being filled with a valuable cargo, set sail, arrived at Nangasaki, and proceeded with the disposal of their freight. But the government agents quickly detected that the build of the ship was dissimilar to what the Dutch had brought before; the texture of the goods, which were coarser than the English, was animadverted upon, and even the crew (there were Americans among them) were subject to their scrutinising suspicions. Upon this the whole stock was ordered to be re-shipped, the sailors to embark, and the vessel instantly to quit the harbour. Such pictures will give some idea of the difficulties that lie in the way of obtaining a hearing from his imperial majesty, the Emperor of Japan. Within the present century, besides other embassies, the Russians sent a conciliatory expedition under the conduct of Vorsenburg, but with no better success; and so lately as 1837, just two centuries from the period of the expulsion of the foreigners, the English government commissioned the Samarang to proceed to the port of Nangasaki, and endeavour to obtain a friendly conference, but to no effect. The Americans, taking with them some shipwrecked Japanese, whom they wished to restore to their country and their homes, also pursued the same plan. But their humane mission was no more respected than the efforts of other nations. However, they have been more active and vigorous than ourselves in their conduct towards the Japanese, and their demands have been more loud and determined. The failure of former negotiations has roused them again to undertake a more decided step, and, perhaps, whilst we are writing an expedition from New York is on its way to those distant islands, for the purpose of placing the commercial relations of that kingdom with the other nations of the world upon a more comprehensive and liberal | footing, if possible; or at least to demand the restitution of several American sailors, who are said to be exposed in iron cages, in different parts of the kingdom, according to the custom adopted against those unfortunate creatures who happen to be driven upon the coast. Nor is this the least evil. After a certain interval they are executed as criminals. Another important object is to compel the emperor to sign a treaty engaging him to supply any shipwrecked mariners thrown on his shores, of whatever country they may chance to be, with whatever necessaries they may require, and insisting upon the right of all nations to seek refuge in his harbours during stress of weather. To carry weight with their request and to ensure the accomplishment of this most humane object, a sufficient force accompanies this legation of mercy, consisting of three steamers, a frigate, a sloop-of-war, and a store-ship, all under the command of Commodore Perry, a man who has distinguished himself in the American navy, by an It is to be sincerely hoped that the end of this expedition will be attained, independent of the new field of investigation it will open to the historian, antiquarian, naturalist and merchant, for the sake of charity; but more is it to be hoped that it will be attained without violence. It will be a great and a glorious day when the nations of the world, laying aside false and suspicious ideas of inter-communication, shall throw open their gates widely to all, and every man of every country find a generous welcome and unshaken security on whatever shore he may chance to set his foot. NELLY NOWLAN'S EXPERIENCE. COMMUNICATED BY MRS. S. C. HALL. "I PROMISED, my dear Aunt," continued Nelly, "when I left you, to tell you everything I saw! I little knew what a promise that was when I made it! but there's something so mighty quare has happened lately in this great town, that I should like you to come to knowledge of it; it is so different from what's going on in poor ould Ireland. I haven't much time for writing this month, so must tell it out of the face, and be done with it. Do you remember the watching we used to have when the war was going on betwist | Miss Mulvany of the big shop, and Mrs. Tony Casey ¦ of the red house, about the length of their gowns? All the county cried shame on Miss Mulvany, when the hem of her bran-new-Sunday-silk reached the binding of her shoe, and then they shouted double shame on Mrs. Tony Casey, all the way home from mass, when the next Sunday her dress touched the heel; sure it served us for conversation all the weck, and every girl in the place letting down her hems-and happy she, who had a good piece in the gathers-and to see the smile and the giggle on Miss Mulvany's face! We all knew, when we saw that, that she'd come out past the common, the next Sunday; and so she did, and a cruel wet Sunday it was, and she in another silk, a full finger on the ground behind and before, and she too proud to hold it up! and that little villain, Paddy Macgann, coming up to her in the civilist way and asking if he might carry home her tail for her! And then the row there was between Tony Casey and his wife, the little foolish crayshur, because he refused her the price of a new gown, with which she wanted to break the heart of the other fool, Miss Mulvany, by doubling the length, and how Mrs. Casey would not go to mass, because she couldn't have a longer tail than Miss Mulvany! And sure you mind, Aunt dear, when all that work was going on, how the fine Priest stood on the altar, and 'Girls and boys,' he says-it was after mass- Girls and boys, but especially girls, I had a drame last night, or indeed, to be spaking good English, it was this morning I had it, and I need not tell you, my (1) Continued from page 235. little darlings,' (that was the kind way he had of speaking,) that a morning drame comes true. Well, in my drame I was on the Fair green, and there was a fine lot of you, all looking fresh and gay like a bank of primroses, and all sailing about like a forest of paycocks, with tails as long and as draggled as Mary Mulvaney has got, and Mrs. Tony Casey has not got.'No fault of hers, plaze your Reverence,' said Tony. 'Hould y'er tongue, Tony,' said the Priest, until you're spoken to, and don't be a fool; when a wise man wins a battle, he shouldn't brag of it; and its ill manners you have, to be putting your Priest out in the face of his congregation. Where was I?' convenient if the ladies left it to the dear little red- "In a forest of paycocks, your Reverence,' squeaked I forget it, Aunty, but it continued very learned— little Paddy Macgann. about 'O'Donaghoo and the great O'Brien, That bang'd the strength out of Orion.' "Ouly think of our darling Miss Mildred being thought of in the same day with these 'bloomers,' as if she wore a man's hat and waistcoat,-to say nothing of the other things,-in the broad light of day; and if that isn't enough, strapped over the boot! Our own born, bred, and reared Miss Mildred, with the blush of innocence on her cheek, a brow as fair as if it had with the freshness of youth on her rosy lips, cantering through the country on her snow-white pony, manfashion, to say nothing of boots and spurs ! "Well, this band of Bloomers is quite different to what you would expect from the name. My mistress bought the picture of one, and that was pretty enough to look at. But think of the dress of a slim young lady of ten years old, on a grown-up woman, particularly if she is rather fallen into flesh, and you'll see how I saw a stout Bloomer look,-certainly, that was not blooming. Anything looks well on youth and beauty; or rather, youth and beauty look well in anything; but the deepness of the dress was that it was only a cloak, (though that's not true, for cloaks are not Bloomer,) only a sign, or an all-over sort of badge, for another thing-putting us all into! Counsellor's wigs, and turning us into Parliament men and ministers; and police-inspectors and generals, and rifle-brigades. The upsettingest thing that ever crossed the wild waters of the Atlantic! "Well, girls,' continued his Reverence, 'you were all like paycocks, only some had longer tails than others, and very proud you were of them-mighty fine, and quite natural; showing them off, girls, not to one another, but at one another. Well, there is, as you all know, no accounting for drames, for all of a sudden who should come on the green, but the Black Gentle-been bathed in May-dew every morning of her life, man himself! It's downright earnest I am. I saw him as plain as I see you; hoofs and horns, there he was; and when you all saw him, of course you ran away like hares, and those that had short gowns got clean off, tight and tidy, but as for poor Mary Mulvany, and all like her, (in dress, I mean,) all he had to do, was to put his hoof on the gown tails, and they were done for-pinned for everlasting. Girls! remember the morning drame comes true! If ye make a vanity of your gown tails, it's a sure sign that the devil has set his foot on them. Now be off every one of you, and let me see you next Sunday.' Ah, Aunt dear, the tails were cut off to the shoe binding. "Now, Aunt, it would be the greatest blessing in life if the fine ladies here had some little contrivance (those who walk) for keeping their dresses off the streets; it's a murdering pity to see the sweep they give to the dirt and dust as they float over the pavements; my mistress says, that long ago the upper petticoat reached the ancle joint, and was of quilted silk, mighty handsome, and the dress drawn up so "My dear mistress shook her poor head, and said as to show it a bit, and could be let down at pleasure; to me, for I was greatly troubled at the first it's next to impossible to keep shoes and stock-going off to think if it was passed into a law ings clean, while what our good old priest called the 'paycock's tail' sweeps the streets as the lady walks. But, indeed, (as my dear good lady says,) 'extremes meet;' for will you believe it, that there has been an attempt made by some ladies from America, (that wonderful uneasy country, that's too big to contain itself, and must keep on a-meddling and a-doing for ever more,) to revolutionize, that is, stir up a rebellion against every stitch we wear! There is reason in all things; and it would be both more clean and more VOL. XV. here, what I should have to turn to myself, or whether it would not be more patriotic for me to go back to ould Ireland and be a White-Boy at once, because if the women were turned into men, surely we'd have the best of it then, any how. I was troubled, for I hate the law, and as for Parliament, I never could stand the arguments there, as I'd like best to have my own way, without any contradiction, which a woman can do at home if she's at all cute; so, seeing me bothered, (this as I say was at the first) my lady was quite amused, and Ellen,' she and Miss Mary Jane. Miss Cressy is a fine stately said, 'do not trouble yourself about it, there is woman-all bone-and high-learned, and has spoken little doubt but that the more civilized we become, more than once on Man, the oppressor;' but though the more employment will be found for women, Miss Mary Jane dresses Bloomer, she does not abuse and the more highly will they be respected; but her fellow-creatures as badly as Miss Cressy. She is to be either happy or useful, a woman must be five years younger, and very good-looking—by candleemployed as a Woman, not as a man; she must be light! To be sure it is wonderful how the tongues employed where her tenderness, her quick perceptions, of the three go against mankind, when they're all her powers of endurance, her unselfishness, her devo- together, and the landlady making one little lament tion, are called into, and kept in, action. She who is after another, how that her husband does this, and the mother of heroes does not covet to enter the docsn't do that; and this often makes me think of battle field herself,' said my mistress, all as one as if what I heard of often from one we both loved-you will she was reading out of a printed book,-(I never could remember who it was when I tell you the advice. 'If handle any thing but a stone, and should dead faint you would lead a happy life, never tell your husband's at the sound of a pistol, but I was not going to let on faults to any ear but his own; a woman who makes that to her,)-so, 'True for you, Ma'am,' I said, her husband's failings a subject for conversation is though I was fairly bothered, but made bould to add, | unworthy his respect or his affection.' And, if you 'Sure no lady could attend to the Parliament-house mind, Aunty, the same woman, (the heavens be her and the wants of a large small family.' bed!) used to say we had two ears and but one. tongue-a sign that we should not say all we hear. Anyhow, it would bother the saints to hear the talk of them-Mrs. Blounet hitting ever so hard at Miss Cressy and Miss Mary Jane for being old maids; and, Miss Cressy especially, turning upon Mrs. Blounet for having two husbands, (not at a time, though.) It was wonderful the talk they used to have, and the suppers; and then Miss Cressy disappeared in the evenings, and poor Mr. Creed (that's the landlady's husband,) declared she served at a confectioner's of an evening in the dress; and my mistress said that sort of thing would crush the movement altogether;' as if the dress was thought to be ever so healthy and convenient, its going into that class as a show and a vulgar attraction would prevent its ever being recognised as respectable in England. Then Mrs. Blounet took stronger than ever to lecturing in pink trowsers-she weighs thirteen stone-and a grey 'tunic,' she calls it, but it is just a short petticoat pleated full. Oh, so short! "Oh!' she said, smiling, no married lady, I suppose, would think of entering Parliament, it would be very awkward indeed when a right honourable ladymember was delivering her opinion on the malt tax, or on the duty on bread-stuff's, just as the ladies on the opposition benches cried out Hear, hear!" to be interrupted by a message from the other house, of "Please, Ma'am, the baby wants you." : 2 'Well, I saw a great deal of good sense in this, and thought it would be better for women to be content to be women. I am sure we used to be very happy long ago, before this came into our heads, but the landlady I told you of did not think so: she has two or three friends that come and talk over all the domestic and un-domestic arrangements of all their 'gossips' one of these ladies is a widow-for the second time, and they say she was the death of the first by her tongue, and of the second by her temper, --may be the one helped on the other against both the poor fellows! any how, the both are dead, and she makes a great boast of never taking a third; they say she was never asked; she is what's called a 'strongminded woman,' she would say anything, or do anything; and what I can't understand,-though she is for ever abusing the men, and letting on she hates them and their ways,-is that she does everything in the world she can to seem manly! She tramps about in high-heeled boots, with straps; she speaks in what she calls a 'fine, manly tone,' and hates soft voices, because they are womanly; she has a way of her own of turning the rights of women into the rights of men: she parts her hair at the side, and turns it in an under roll all round-' because it's like a man;' and yet she calls them men' bears and brutes enough to fill the zoology gardens; and though she grumbles because men tyrannize over women, she is bringing up her son to have his way in everything, and makes his sister give the cake from her hand, and the orange from her lips to pamper him! "Now that's mighty quare to me-She is the landlady's prime minister-her name is Mrs. Blounet. Then there are the two Miss Hunters, Miss Cressy And Miss Mary Jane was wonderful, except when Mr. Creed had any gentlemen visitors; then she would i allow that Alexander the Great, and Buonaparte, and a few more, were equal to us. But the worst of it was that this spirit of Bloomer was quite upsetting our house; the landlady took to writing about the rights of woman, and left every one of her duties uncared for. Mr. Creed is a police inspector of the P division, and often wanted a hot cup of coffee, but Mrs. Creed downright refused to make it. The baby did as it liked. The only thing its mother corrected was proofs! long strips of printed paper like dirty farthing ballads-and Mrs. Blounet and she would sit all day just making mischief, and writing the botheringest nonsense that ever was, while my mistress might wait for her dinner. Think of three guineas a-week, for three rooms, and done for! and yet not able to get a chop dressed, because the landlady is practising the rights of women-by giving us no rights at all. Now isn't it quare? And it was worse and worse she was getting, so that between her and the east wind, we had neither peace nor quiet-all the morning she was the beginning and end of half the knowledge and pride going-of all the knowledge the gold-seekers care about, just as if grubbing up and counting up would make them all as one as the raale quality; and then, if you say a word, they get up a cry of 'A man's a man for a' that, and bother ye'r heart out with it's nothing what a man was, but what he is;' and so I say, but with a different meaning, 'A grub's a grub for a' that;' and don't tell me! all the wealth of California and Australia to the back of it, won't change a man; what he was, he is, unless something brighter than gold comes over him; the seeking and loving money never purified a heart yet, nor raised a man the breadth of a straw. It's not the wealth, but how you use it.' I see and hear a deal about wealth, but something keeps stirring in my heart, and whispering in my ear, which, as a poor girl, I've no right to talk about; there are ways of working up like the little grain of mustard seed my mistress reads of, that grew into a great tree, and sheltered the houseless and homeless. Now that is a fine thing to think of, and I delight in a little story of a mouse letting a lion out of a netthere's great comfort in that—and I feel A man's a man for a' that,' reading newspapers, and correcting them 'proofs;' all the evenings, attending public meetings. And the poor babby! I have heard her tell her husband that if he wanted it washed, he must do it himself, for she had the rights of her sex to attend to, and it was as much his business as hers to mind it. Oh! it's wonderful when politics get into a woman's head, how they drive nature out of it! they beat small tea parties, and fairs, and dances, and paterns-ay, and falling in love-out and out for making a woman forget herself. And yet if there's a thing in the world she is proud of, it is that babby, and sitting at the head of her tea-table pouring out tea, and laying down the law! You used to say, Aunty dear, that a woman never went out and out to the bad, until her heart got into the wrong place; indeed, you and the landlady would not agree at all; for in almost everything she had reasoned herself out of nature-and that's what they try to do-but just wait until I tell you how things went on. We were very uncomfortable; my poor mistress kept waiting for her dinner, and if I had not studied a cookery book, as hard as ever Father Jonas (dear holy man!) studied his breviary, she must have gone days and days without a bit of proper food, for there is but one poor fag of a servant, who was born on her legs, and has kept on them ever since, to cook, and wash and walk the children, and lay the cloth, and wait the table, and go every body's messages, and open the door, and bear the ill-tempers of the parlours, drawing-rooms, and every floor, and faction in the house. Well, since the landlady took up with the rights of women, no slave in the free states of America has been so overworked as that poor girl; among other things, the landlady re-things that teach people how to keep from sin,—of proached her for taking no pride in laying out supper for the 'great movers,' as she called them, 'in the cause of women;' and the girl asked what good the 'movement' was to her, except to give her more work. Well, you should have heard the landlady's tongue go after that no one that did could ever forget it,-how she reproached her for want of public spirit, and proper feeling-and 'sympathy.' Now the best of it is, that this good woman's husband is, as I said, a l'olice Inspector, though she tried hard and long to make me believe he had a situation in the city,' which did not sound like policeman. You see, darling, the English are grown very like ourselves in that; my mistress says, that a great deal of the pride and spirit they took in honest labour and its profits, are gone, and forgetting the respect due to great people, mean, Aunt, great good people, and great good things, they run into every little dirty short cut to wealth they can find, and after all sorts and kinds of money—like mad; in fact she says-that there are as many at their dirty diggings' in the city of London, as in that place, they call it by the name of California, in a far away country. Now, to take pride out of mere money there and then, seems of all things the most unnatural for those who have souls in their bodies: the understanding that two and two make four, doesn't seem much to be proud of, and yet that's I when I hear tell of a little old man who, blessed be God! first thought of INFANT SCHOOLS.-Oh! it's them are the blessings. The things I love best, are the the two I like them better than what takes them out of it. And when I remember WHO sent Temperance abroad to the four quarters of the globe-so that even gentlemen are ashamed of being tipsey-and how as a regenerator that Temperance is only next to Godliness - there's a glory for Ireland! And I think of a fine ancient white-headed saint in Manchester, Wright by name and nature, who remembers, as my dear mistress says, to tread in his Master's footsteps, who was sent, not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' And I think of the charities, grander than the Pyramids of Egypt my cousin writes home about; charities purifying the great sins of great London; charities, Aunt darling, increasing every year, and as each new one starts up, from the brain maybe of some poor working man, the pcople cry out, as with one voice, 'This can't be done without. I am glad of such thoughts, and such knowledge, for I'll tell you the truth, I mortally abominate them great bloated gold-finders. When I think of the gold-loving English, I could send all the Fathers of the Church against them, with, bell, book, and candle. When I think of the other things, Aunt dear, why I can only pray that they may be remembered to them as a people, at the last day;-and I'm willing to do penance for the prayer, if so be it's a sin! |