LETTER V

Summary

H.B.M.'s Legation, Yedo.

Foreign life in Tôkiyô is much like life at home, except that it has fewer objects and less variety, and except in a small clique of scholars and savans talk runs in somewhat narrow grooves. Except the members of the legations, and the missionaries, most of the foreigners here are in the employment of the Japanese Government, and their engagements are for terms of years. It is no part of the plan of the able men who lead the new Japanese movement to keep up a permanent foreign staff. To get all they can out of foreigners, and then to dispense with their services is their idea. The telegraph department has passed out of foreign leading-strings this week, and other departments will follow as soon as possible.

The Naval College has English instructors, the Medical College is under the charge of Germans, the Imperial University has English-speaking teachers, the Engineering College has a British Principal, assisted by a large British staff, and a French Military Commission teaches European drill and tactics to the army. The changes in the teaching staff are frequent, and people talk not only of actual but possible changes, whose engagement expires next month or next year, the probabilities of its renewal, the reduced salary on which Mr. —— is remaining, the certainty that Mr. ——'s engagement will not be renewed, and guess what he will do with himself and what sum he has saved; whether Mr. ——'s salary is paid in satsu or coin, and the present discount on satsu. One happiness of being at the Legation is that gossip is utterly discouraged, and that one is not subjected to wearisome and profitless talk.