RICHARDSON'S MURDER--JAPANESE STUDIES
THE day after my arrival at Yokohama I was taken over to Kanagawa and
introduced to the Rev. S. R. Brown, an American Missionary, who was then
engaged in printing a work on colloquial Japanese, and to Dr J. C.
Hepburn, M.D., who was employed on a dictionary of the language. The
former died some years ago, but the latter is at this moment (1886)
still in Japan,[2] bringing out the third edition of his invaluable
lexicon and completing the translation of the Bible on which he has been
occupied for many years. In those days we had either to take a native
sculling boat for an _ichibu_ across the bay to Kanagawa or ride round
by the causeway, the land along which the railway now runs not having
been filled in at that time. Natives used to cross by a public ferry
boat, paying a _tempô_ (16-1/2 to the _ichibu_) a-piece, but no
foreigner was ever allowed to make use of the cheaper conveyance. If he
was quick enough to catch the ferryboat before it had pushed off, and so
seize a place for himself, the boatmen simply refused to stir. They
remained immovable, until the intruder was tired of waiting, and
abandoned the game. It was only after a residence of some years, when I
had become pretty fluent in the language and could argue the point with
the certainty of having the public on my side, that I at last succeeded
in overcoming the obstinacy of the people at the boathouse who had the
monopoly of carrying foreigners. There was in those days a fixed price
for the foreigner wherever he went, arbitrarily determined without
reference to the native tariff. At the theatre a foreigner had to pay an
_ichibu_ for admittance, and was then thrust into the "deaf-box," as the
gallery seats are called, which are so far from the stage that the
actors' speeches are quite indistinguishable. The best place for both
seeing and hearing is the _doma_, on the area of the theatre, close in
front of the stage. On one occasion I walked into the theatre, and took
my place in one of the divisions of the _doma_, offering to pay the
regular price. No, they would not take it. I must pay my _ichibu_ and go
to the foreigner's box. I held out, insisting on my right as one of the
public. Did I not squat on the floor with my boots off, just like
themselves? Well then, if I would not come out of that, the curtain
would not rise. I rejoined that they might please themselves about that.
In order to annoy a single foreigner, they would deprive the rest of the
spectators of the pleasure they had paid to enjoy. So I obstinately kept
my place, and in the end the manager gave way. The "house" was amused at
the foreigner speaking their language and getting the best of the
argument, and for the rest of my time in Yokohama I had no more
difficulty in obtaining accommodation in any part of the theatre that I
preferred.
[2] Dr Hepburn died in 1911.
In those days the Yokohama theatre used to begin about eleven o'clock in
the morning and keep open for twelve hours. A favourite play was the
_Chiu-Shin-Gura_, or _Treasury of Faithful Retainers_, and the
_Sara-Yashiki_, or the _Broken Plate Mansion_. The arrangement of the
interior, the fashion of dress and acting, the primitive character of
the scenery and lights, the literary style of the plays have not
undergone any changes, and are very unlikely to be modified in any
marked degree by contact with European ideas. There is some talk now and
then of elevating the character of the stage and making the theatre a
school of morals and manners for the young, but the good people who
advocate these theories in the press have not, as far as I know,
ventured to put them to practical proof, and the _shibai_ will, I hope,
always continue to be what it always has been in Japan, a place of
amusement and distraction, where people of all ages and sizes go to
enjoy themselves without caring one atom whether the incidents are
probable or proper, so long as there is enough of the tragic to call
forth the tears which every natural man sheds with satisfaction on
proper occasions, and of the comic by-turns to give the facial muscles a
stretch in the other direction.
On the 14th September a most barbarous murder was committed on a
Shanghai merchant named Richardson. He, in company with a Mrs Borradaile
of Hongkong, and Woodthorpe C. Clarke and Wm. Marshall both of Yokohama,
were riding along the high road between Kanagawa and Kawasaki, when they
met with a train of _daimiô's_ retainers, who bid them stand aside. They
passed on at the edge of the road, until they came in sight of a
palanquin, occupied by Shimadzu Saburô, father of the Prince of Satsuma.
They were now ordered to turn back, and as they were wheeling their
horses in obedience, were suddenly set upon by several armed men
belonging to the train, who hacked at them with their sharp-edged heavy
swords. Richardson fell from his horse in a dying state, and the other
two men were so severely wounded that they called out to the lady: "Ride
on, we can do nothing for you." She got safely back to Yokohama and gave
the alarm. Everybody in the settlement who possessed a pony and a
revolver at once armed himself and galloped off towards the scene of
slaughter.
Lieut.-Colonel Vyse, the British Consul, led off the Legation mounted
escort in spite of Colonel Neale's order that they should not move until
he or their own commander gave the word. M. de Bellecourt, the French
Minister, sent out his escort, consisting of a half-dozen French
troopers; Lieut. Price of the 67th Regiment marched off part of the
Legation guard, accompanied by some French infantry. But amongst the
first, perhaps the very first of all, was Dr Willis, whose high sense of
the duty cast on him by his profession rendered him absolutely fearless.
Passing for a mile along the ranks of the men whose swords were reeking
with the blood of Englishmen, he rode along the high road through
Kanagawa, where he was joined by some three or four more Englishmen. He
proceeded onwards to Namamugi, where poor Richardson's corpse was found
under the shade of a tree by the roadside. His throat had been cut as he
was lying there wounded and helpless. The body was covered with sword
cuts, any one of which was sufficient to cause death. It was carried
thence to the American Consulate in Kanagawa, where Clarke and Marshall
had found refuge and surgical aid at the hands of Dr Hepburn and later
on of Dr Jenkins, our other doctor. There was only one British
man-of-war lying in the harbour, but in the course of the evening
Admiral Küper arrived in his flagship, the _Euryalus_, with the
gun-vessel _Ringdove_. The excitement among the foreign mercantile
community was intense, for this was the first occasion on which one of
their own number had been struck down. The Japanese sword is as sharp as
a razor, and inflicts fearful gashes. The Japanese had a way of cutting
a man to pieces rather than leave any life in him. This had a most
powerful effect on the minds of Europeans, who came to look on every
two-sworded man as a probable assassin, and if they met one in the
street thanked God as soon as they had passed him and found themselves
in safety.
It was known that Shimadzu Saburô was to lie that night at Hodogaya, a
post-town scarcely two miles from Yokohama. To surround and seize him
with the united forces of all the foreign vessels in port would, in
their opinion, have been both easy and justifiable, and viewed by the
light of our later knowledge, not only of Japanese politics but also of
Japanese ideas with regard to the right of taking redress, they were not
far wrong. In the absence of any organised police or military force able
to keep order among the turbulent two-sworded class it cannot be doubted
that this course would have been adopted by any Japanese clan against
whom such an offence had been committed, and the foreign nationalities
in Japan were in the same position as a native clan. They were subject
to the authorities of their own country, who had jurisdiction over them
both in criminal and civil matters, and were responsible for keeping
them within the bounds of law and for their protection against attack. A
meeting was called at Hooper's (W. C. Clarke's partner) house under the
presidency of Colonel F. Howard Vyse, the British Consul, when, after an
earnest discussion and the rejection of a motion to request the foreign
naval authorities to land 1000 men in order to arrest the guilty
parties, a deputation consisting of some of the leading residents was
appointed to wait on the commanding officers of the Dutch, French and
English naval forces and lay before them the conclusions of the meeting.
The British admiral, however, declined to act upon their suggestion, but
consented to attend another meeting which was to be held at the
residence of the French Minister at 6 a.m. on the following morning. The
deputation then went to Colonel Neale, who with great magnanimity waived
all personal considerations and promised to be present also. The idea
had got abroad amongst the foreign community that Colonel Neale could
not be trusted to take the energetic measures which they considered
necessary under the circumstances. In fact, they found fault with him
for preserving the cool bearing which might be expected from a man who
had seen actual service in the field and which especially became a man
in his responsible situation, and they thought that pressure could be
put upon him through his colleagues and the general opinion of the other
foreign representatives. But in this expectation they were disappointed.
At the meeting Colonel Neale altogether declined to authorise the
adoption of measures, which, if the Tycoon's government were to be
regarded as the government of the country, would have amounted virtually
to making war upon Japan, and the French Minister expressed an opinion
entirely coinciding with that of his colleague. Calmer counsels
prevailed, and Diplomacy was left to its own resources, arrangements,
however, being made by the naval commanders-in-chief to patrol the
settlement during the night and to station guard-boats along the
sea-front to communicate with the ships in case of an alarm.
Looking back now after the lapse of nearly a quarter of a century, I am
strongly disposed to the belief that Colonel Neale took the best course.
The plan of the mercantile community was bold, attractive and almost
romantic. It would probably have been successful for the moment, in
spite of the well-known bravery of the Satsuma _samurai_. But such an
event as the capture of a leading Japanese nobleman by foreign sailors
in the dominions of the Tycoon would have been a patent demonstration of
his incapacity to defend the nation against the "outer barbarian," and
would have precipitated his downfall long before it actually took place,
and before there was anything in the shape of a league among the clans
ready to establish a new government. In all probability the country
would have become a prey to ruinous anarchy, and collisions with foreign
powers would have been frequent and serious. Probably the slaughter of
the foreign community at Nagasaki would have been the immediate answer
to the blow struck at Hodogaya, a joint expedition would have been sent
out by England, France and Holland to fight many a bloody battle and
perhaps dismember the realm of the Mikados. In the meantime the commerce
for whose sake we had come to Japan would have been killed. And how many
lives of Europeans and Japanese would have been sacrificed in return for
that of Shimadzu Saburô?
I was standing outside the hotel that afternoon, and on seeing the
bustle of men riding past, inquired what was the cause. The reply, "A
couple of Englishmen have been cut down in Kanagawa," did not shock me
in the least. The accounts of such occurrences that had appeared in the
English press and the recent attack on the Legation of which I had heard
on my way from Peking had prepared me to look on the murder of a
foreigner as an ordinary, every-day affair, and the horror of bleeding
wounds was not sufficiently familiar to me to excite the feelings of
indignation that seemed to animate every one else. I was secretly
ashamed of my want of sympathy. And yet, if it had been otherwise, such
a sudden introduction to the danger of a horrid death might have
rendered me quite unfit for the career I had adopted. This habit of
looking upon assassination as part of the day's work enabled me later on
to face with equanimity what most men whose sensations had not been
deadened by a moral anæsthetic would perhaps have considered serious
dangers. And while everyone in my immediate surroundings was in a state
of excitement, defending Vyse or abusing Colonel Neale, I quietly
settled down to my studies.
In those days the helps to the acquisition of the Japanese language were
very few. A thin pamphlet by the Rev. J. Liggins, containing a few
phrases in the Nagasaki dialect, a vocabulary compiled by Wm. Medhurst,
senior, and published at Batavia many years before; Rodriguez' _Japanese
Grammar_, by Landresse; a grammar by MM. Donker Curtius and Hoffmann in
Dutch, and a French translation of it by Léon Pagès; a translation by
the latter of part of the Japanese-Portuguese Dictionary of 1603;
Hoffmann's dialogues in Japanese, Dutch and English; Rosny's
_Introduction à la langue Japonaise_, were about all. And but few of
these were procurable in Japan. I had left London without any books on
the language. Luckily for me, Dr S. R. Brown was just then printing his
_Colloquial Japanese_, and generously allowed me to have the first few
sheets as they came over at intervals from the printing office in
Shanghai. A Japanese reprint of Medhurst's vocabulary, which could be
bought in a Japanese bookshop that stood at the corner of Benten-Dôri
and Honchô Itchôme, speedily proved useless. But I had a slight
acquaintance with the Chinese written characters and was the fortunate
possessor of Medhurst's Chinese-English Dictionary, by whose help I
could manage to come at the meaning of a Japanese word if I got it
written down. It was very uphill work at first, for I had no teacher,
and living in a single room at the hotel, abutting too on the bowling
alley, could not secure quiet. The colonel ordered us, Robertson and
myself, to attend every day at the "office" (we did not call it the
chancery then) to ask if our services were required, and what work we
had consisted chiefly of copying despatches and interminable accounts.
My handwriting was, unfortunately for me, considered to be rather better
than the average, and I began to foresee that a larger share of clerical
work would be given to me than I liked. My theory of the duty of a
student-interpreter was then, and still is, to learn the language first
of all. I considered that this order would be a great interruption to
serious work if he insisted upon it, and would take away all chances of
our learning the language thoroughly. At last I summoned up courage to
protest, and I rather think my friend Willis encouraged me to do this;
but I did not gain anything by remonstrating. The colonel evidently
thought I was frightfully lazy, for when I said that the office work
would interfere with my studies, he replied that it would be much worse
for both to be neglected than for one to be hindered. At first there was
some idea of renting a house for Robertson and myself, but finally the
Colonel decided to give us rooms at one end of the rambling two-storied
building that was then occupied as a Legation. It stood at the corner of
the bund and the creek, where the Grand Hotel now is, and belonged to a
man named Hoey, who took advantage of my inexperience and the love of
books he had discovered to be one of my weaknesses to sell me an
imperfect copy of the _Penny Cyclopædia_ for more than a complete one
would have cost at home. I used to play bowls sometimes with Albert
Markham (of Arctic fame), who was then a lieutenant on board H.M.S.
_Centaur_, and Charles Wirgman, the artist-correspondent of the
_Illustrated London News_. Towards the end of October we induced the
colonel to consent to our getting two lessons a week from the Rev. S. R.
Brown, and to allow us to engage a native "teacher," at the public
expense. So we had to get a second, and pay for him out of our own
pockets. He also agreed to leave us the mornings free for study up to
one o'clock. A "teacher," it must be understood, does not mean a man who
can "teach." In those days, at Peking and in Japan also, we worked with
natives who did not understand a word of English, and the process by
which one made out the meaning of a sentence was closely akin to that
which Poe describes in the _Gold Beetle_ for the decyphering of a
cryptograph. Through my "boy," who was equally ignorant of English, I
got hold of a man who explained that he had once been a doctor, and
having nothing to do at the moment would teach me Japanese without any
pay. We used to communicate at first by writing down Chinese characters.
One of his first sentences was literally "Prince loves men, I also
venerate the prince as a master"; prince, as I afterwards divined, being
merely a polite way of saying _you_. He said he had lots of dollars and
_ichibus_ and would take nothing for his services, so I agreed with him
that he should come to my room every day from ten to one. However, he
never presented himself again after the first interview.
[Illustration: SIR ERNEST SATOW
1869]
[Illustration: SIR ERNEST SATOW
1903]
My "boy" turned out to be what I considered a great villain. I had at an
early date wanted one of the native dictionaries of Chinese characters
with the Japanese equivalents in _Katakana_. I sent him out to buy one,
but he shortly returned and said that there were none in the place, and
he must go over to Kanagawa, where he would be sure to find what I
wanted. After being out the whole day, he brought me a copy which he
said was the only one to be found and for which he charged me four
_ichibus_, or nearly two dollars. This was just after my arrival, when I
was new to the place and ignorant of prices. Six weeks afterwards, being
in the bookseller's shop, I asked him what was the price of the book,
when he replied that he had asked only 1-1/2 _ichibu_. My boy had taken
it away and returned next day to say that I had refused to give more
than one, which he consequently accepted. Unconscionable rascal this,
not content with less than 300 per cent. of a squeeze! I found out also
that he had kept back a large slice out of money I had paid to a
carpenter for some chairs and a table. He had to refund his illicit
gains, or else to find another place.
After a time I got my rooms at the Legation and was able to study to my
heart's content. The lessons which Mr. Brown gave me were of the
greatest value. Besides hearing us repeat the sentences out of his book
of _Colloquial Japanese_ and explaining the grammar, he also read with
us part of the first sermon in the collection entitled _Kiu-ô Dôwa_, so
that I began to get some insight into the construction of the written
language. Our two teachers were Takaoka Kanamé, a physician from
Wakayama in Ki-shiû, and another man, whose name I forget. He was stupid
and of little assistance. Early in 1863 Robertson went home on sick
leave, and I had Takaoka Kanamé to myself. In those days the
correspondence with the Japanese Government was carried on by means of
Dutch, the only European tongue of which anything was known. An absurd
idea existed at one time that Dutch was the Court language of Japan.
Nothing was farther from the truth. It was studied solely by a corps of
interpreters attached to the Dutch settlement at Nagasaki, and when
Kanagawa and Hakodaté were opened to foreign trade, some of these
interpreters were transferred to those ports. On our side we had
collected with some difficulty a body of Dutch interpreters. They
included three Englishmen, one Cape Dutchman, one Swiss, and one real
Dutchman from Holland, and they received very good pay. Of course it was
my ambition to learn to read, write, and speak Japanese, and so to
displace these middlemen.
So Takaoka began to give me lessons in the epistolary style. He used to
write a short letter in the running-hand, and after copying it out in
square character, explain to me its meaning. Then I made a translation
and put it away for a few days. Meanwhile I exercised myself in reading,
now one and now the other copy of the original. Afterwards I took out my
translation and tried to put it back into Japanese from memory. The plan
is one recommended by Roger Ascham and by the late George Long in a
preface to his edition of the de Senectute, etc., which had been one of
my school books. Before long I had got a thorough hold of a certain
number of phrases, which I could piece together in the form of a letter,
and this was all the easier, as the epistolary style of that time
demanded the employment of a vast collection of merely complimentary
phrases. I also took writing lessons from an old writing-master, whom I
engaged to come to me at fixed hours. He was afflicted with a watery
eye, and nothing but a firm resolve to learn would ever have enabled me
to endure the constant drip from the diseased orbit, which fell now on
the copy-book, now on the paper I was writing on, as he leant over it to
correct a bad stroke, now on the table.
There are innumerable styles of caligraphy in Japan, and at that date
the _on-ye-riû_ was in fashion. I had unluckily taken up with the
mercantile form of this. Several years afterwards I changed to a teacher
who wrote a very beautiful hand, but still it was _on-ye-riû_. After the
revolution of 1868 the _kara-yô_, which is more picturesque and
self-willed, became the mode, and I put myself under the tuition of
Takasai Tanzan, who was the teacher of several nobles, and one of the
half dozen best in Tôkiô. But owing to this triple change of style, and
also perhaps for want of real perseverance, I never came to have a good
handwriting, nor to be able to write like a Japanese; nor did I ever
acquire the power of composing in Japanese without making mistakes,
though I had almost daily practice for seven or eight years in the
translation of official documents. Perhaps that kind of work is of
itself not calculated to ensure correctness, as the translator's
attention is more bent on giving a faithful rendering of the original
than on writing good Japanese. I shall have more to say at a later
period as to the change which the Japanese written language has
undergone in consequence of the imitation of European modes of
expression.
The first occasion on which my knowledge of the epistolary style was put
into requisition was in June 1863, when there came a note from one of
the Shogun's ministers, the exact wording of which was a matter of
importance. It was therefore translated three times, once from the Dutch
by Eusden, by Siebold with the aid of his teacher from the original
Japanese, and by myself. I shall never forget the sympathetic joy of my
dear Willis when I produced mine. There was no one who could say which
of the three was the most faithful rendering, but in his mind and my own
there was, of course, no doubt. I think I had sometime previously
translated a private letter from a Japanese to one of our colleagues who
had left Yokohama; it must have been done with great literalness, for I
recollect that _sessha_ was rendered "I, the shabby one." But it could
not be made use of officially to testify to my progress in the language.
After the Richardson affair the Tycoon's government erected guardhouses
all along the Tôkaidô within Treaty limits, and even proposed to divert
the trains of the _daimiôs_ to another route which ran through the town
of Atsugi, but this project fell through. Foreigners were in the habit
of using it for their excursions, but Robertson and I had to pass along
it twice a week on our way to and from our Japanese lesson at Mr.
Brown's, and though determined not to show the white feather, I always
felt in passing one of these trains that my life was in peril. On one
occasion as I was riding on the Tôkaidô for my pleasure, I met a tall
fellow armed with the usual two swords, who made a step towards me in
what I thought was a threatening manner, and having no pistol with me, I
was rather alarmed, but he passed on, content probably with having
frightened a foreigner. That is the only instance I can recollect of
even seeming intention on the part of a _samurai_ to do me harm on a
chance meeting in the street, and the general belief in the bloodthirsty
character of that class, in my opinion, was to a very great extent
without foundation. But it must be admitted that whenever a Japanese
made up his mind to shed the blood of a foreigner, he took care to do
his business pretty effectually.
My first experience of an earthquake was on the 2nd November of this
year. It was said by the foreign residents to have been a rather severe
one. The house shook considerably, as if some very heavy person were
walking in list slippers along the verandah and passages. It lasted
several seconds, dying away gradually, and gave me a slight sensation of
sickness, insomuch that I was beginning to fancy that a shaking which
lasted so long must arise from within myself. I believe the sensations
of most persons on experiencing a slight shock of earthquake for the
first time are very similar. It is usually held that familiarity with
these phenomena does not breed contempt for them, but on the contrary
persons who have resided longest in Japan are the most nervous about the
danger. And there is a reason for this. We know that in not very recent
times extremely violent shocks have occurred, throwing down houses,
splitting the earth, and causing death to thousands of people in a few
moments. The longer the interval that has elapsed since the last, the
sooner may its re-occurrence be looked for. We have escaped many times,
but the next will be perhaps our last. So we feel on each occasion, and
the anticipation of harm becomes stronger and stronger, and where we at
first used to sit calmly through a somewhat prolonged vibration, the
wooden joints of the house harshly creaking and the crockery rattling
merrily on the shelves, we now spring from our chairs and rush for the
door at the slightest movement.
My experiences in Japan of an exciting kind were pretty numerous, but, I
regret to say, never included a really serious earthquake, and those who
care to read more about the insignificant specimens that the country
produces now-a-days must be referred to the pages of the Seismological
Society's Journal and other publications of the distinguished geologist,
my friend Professor John Milne, who has not only recorded observations
on a large number of natural earthquakes, but has even succeeded in
producing artificial ones so closely resembling the real thing as almost
to defy detection.