as we pronounce it. We laugh at ourselves for this. Why should we not laugh at you, when occasion offers? There are only two styles of "English as she is Japped" which call, not for laughter, but for the severest blame. One of these occurs in books which are published under Japanese names as original matter, but are really made up of a cento of passages stolen from European writers. The alteration of a word here and there is naïvely supposed to effect concealment; but being almost always unskilfully done, it serves only to make the fraud more glaring. We ourselves have repeatedly been the corpus vile of such experiments. A second Japano-English style is exemplified in so-called educational works, such as Conversations in English and Japanese for Merchant who the English Language,—English Letter Writer, for the Gentlemen who regard on the Commercial and an Official,—Englishand. Japanies. Names on Letteps, and other productions whereby shameless scribblers make money out of unsophisticated students. And yet these curiosities of literature are too grotesque for at least the European reader to be long angry with them. One of the funniest is entitled The Practical use of Conversation for Police Authorities. After giving "Cordinal number," "Official Tittle," "Parts of the Bod" such as "a gung,[1]" "a jow," "the mustacheo," diseases such as "a caucer," "blind," "a ginddness," "the megrim," "a throat wen," and other words useful to policemen, the compiler arrives at "Misseranious subjects," which take the form of conversations, some of them real masterpieces. Here is one between a representative of "the force" and an English blue-jacket:—
What countryman are you?
I am a sailor belonged to the Golden-Eagle, the English man-of-war.
Why do you strike this Jinrikisha-man?
He told me impolitely.
What does he told you impolitely?
He insulted me saing loudly "the Sailor the Sailor" when I am passing here.
- ↑ The Japanese translation shows that "gum" is the word intended.
