May, 1875). There are now nine cremation grounds in Tōkyō. The charges for cremation vary from 7 yen to 1½ yen for adults, and from 3 yen to 1 yen for children under six years of age. The good priest of whom we caused enquiry to be made on this point, said that poor folks often came begging to be let off more cheaply, but that in these hard times it was impossible to do so.
The system is quite simple, wood being the only fuel used. The corpse, enclosed in its wooden coffin, is thoroughly consumed in about three hours. Nothing remains but a few minute splinters of bone and the teeth, which latter are preserved and often sent to the great temple at Kōya-san. The ashes are placed in an urn and buried. We should add that on the 19th June, 1874, a law was passed against intramural interment, except in certain special cases. It is still prohibited, unless when the body has been cremated before burial.
Currency. A gold standard was adopted in 1897, and the coinage consists of gold, silver, nickel, and copper. The chief circulating medium, however, has generally been paper. The system is decimal, and the nomenclature as follows:
| 1 yen (half-dollar) | = 100 sen. |
| 1 sen (half-cent) | = 10 rin. |
| 1 rin | = 10 mō (or mon). |
| 1 mō | = 10 shu. |
| 1 shu | = 10 kotsu. |
Government and banking accounts do not take notice of any value smaller than the rin; but estimates by private tradesmen often descend to mō and shu, which are incredibly minute fractions of a farthing. No coins exist, however, to represent these Lilliputian sums. There are gold pieces of 20 yen, 10 yen, and 5 yen; silver pieces of 50 sen and under, nickel pieces of 5 sen, copper pieces for lesser values, and paper for various values great and small, from 1 yen upward. The paper notes now in use are redeemable in gold, and therefore stand at par. The large oblong brass pieces with holes in the middle, ena-
