1873, the commutation was rendered obligatory by a second edict published in 1876. Since that time, many of the Samurai—unaccustomed as they had been to business and to the duty of working for their livelihood—have fallen into great misery. The more clever and ambitious, on the other hand, practically constitute the governing class of the country at the present day, their former lords and masters, the Daimyōs, having lagged behind in the race, and there being still a sufficient remnant of aristocratic spirit to render the rise of a plebeian to any position of importance a matter of considerable difficulty.
Books recommended. Almost every older work on Japan necessarily mentions the Samurai at every turn. See more particularly Mitford's Tales of Old Japan for some of their famous feats of arms, McClatchie's Feudal Mansions of Yedo ("Asiatic Transactions," Vol. VII.) for the houses they inhabited, Nitobe's Bushido for a theoretical discussion of Japanese chivalry and its moral code. The value of this last book, which is written by a Japanese in excellent English, is considerably impaired by the fact that the author has taken, not mediæval Europe, but modern America as his standard of comparison with feudal Japan. The contrast between Eastern and Western social evolution, which in reality is chiefly one of time (Japan having developed along the same lines as Europe, but more slowly), is thus made to figure as one of place and race.
Sculpture. See Carving.
Shimo-bashira. The peculiar phenomenon known by this name, which means literally "frost-pillars," has provoked some curiosity among the resident learned. These frost-pillars are first seen after a bright cold night in early winter, and always in damp, friable soil, the fine uppermost layer of which is borne upwards on their surface, so that one may fail to notice them until, in walking, the foot crushes down two or three inches—sometimes even five or six inches—into what had looked like firm ground; but often they cling to the high sides of shady lanes. Examined singly, they present the appearance of tiny hexagonal columns, or rather tubes, of ice; but they generally occur in clumps or bundles half melted together, and the longer ones sometimes curl over like shavings. Sometimes joints can be perceived in them, and at each joint a minute particle of earth. The late Dr. Gottfried Wagener explained the phenomenon as follows:—"When the surface of damp soil, in which
