as the tea-canister, the incense-burner, the hanging scroll, and the bouquet of flowers in the alcove, is either handled, or else admired at a distance, in ways and with phrases which unalterable usage prescribes. Even the hands are washed, the room is swept, a little bell is rung, and the guests walk from the house to the garden and from the garden back into the house, at stated times and in a stated manner which never varies, except in so far as certain schools, as rigidly conservative as monkish confraternities, obey slightly varying rules of their own, handed down from their ancestors who interpreted Sen-no-Rikyū's ordinances according to slightly varying canons of exegesis.
To a European the ceremony is lengthy and meaningless. When witnessed more than once, it becomes intolerably monotonous. Not being born with an Oriental fund of patience, he longs for something new, something lively, something with at least the semblance of logic and utility. But then it is not for him that the tea ceremonies were made. If they amuse those for whom they were made, they amuse them, and there is no thing more to be said. In any case, tea and ceremonies are perfectly harmless, which is more than can be affirmed of tea and tattle. No doubt, even the tea ceremonies have, if history libels them not, been sometimes misused for purposes of political conspiracy. But these cases are rare. If the tea ceremonies do not go the length of embodying a "philosophy," as fabled by some of their admirers, they have, at least in their latest form, assisted the cause of purity in art. Some may deem them pointless. None can stigmatise them as vulgar.
Book recommended. Brinkley's Japan and China, Vol. II. p. 246 et seq.
Telegraphs. The first line of telegraphs in this country may be said to have been experimental; it was only 840 yards in length, and was opened for government business in 1869. During the following year Tōkyō and Yokohama, and Ōsaka and Kobe, respectively, were connected by wire, and a general telegraphic system for the empire was decided on; but the
