Japan and the Japanese

300 JAPAN. A. D. 101)0 1092.
all. Sometimes, also, they have pieces of money, in gold or silver,
stuck or nailed to them, to be given as a reward to any one who
discovers any fact, person or criminal therein mentioned. These
grated proclamation-cases arc commonly placed, in great cities, just
at the entrance, and in villages and hamlets in the middle of the
chief streets, where there is the most passing. Along the road there
are some other orders and instructions for passengers, put up in the
like manner, but upon lower posts. These come from the sheriffs,
surveyors of the roads and other inferior officers, and although the
things therein ordered or intimated be generally very trilling, yet
they may involve a transgressor or negligent observer in groat
troubles and expense.
"Another remarkable thing we met with, as we travelled along,
were the places of public execution, easily known by crosses, posts,
and other remains of former executions. They lie commonly with-
out the cities or villages, on the west side.
"In this heathen country fewer capital crimes arc tried before the
courts of justice, and less criminal blood shed by the hands of public
executioners, than perhaps in any part of Christendom. So powerfully
works the fear of an inevitable, shameful death upon the minds
of a nation, otherwise so stubborn as the Japanese, and so regardlees
of their lives, that nothing else but such strictness would be
able to keep them within due bounds. 'T is true, indeed, Nagasaki
cannot boast of that scarcity of executions ; lor besides that this
place hath been in a manner consecrated to cruelty and blood, by
being made the common butchery of many thousand Japanese
Christians, there have not been since wanting frequent executions,
particularly of those people who, contrary to the severe imperial
edict, cannot leave off carrying on a smuggling trade with for-
eigners, and who alone perhaps of the whole nation seem to be
more pleased with this unlawful gain, than frightened by the shame-
ful punishment which they must inevitably suffer if caught in the
fact or betrayed to the governors.
" Of all the religious buildings to be seen in this country, the
Tira, that is, the Buddhist temples, with the adjoining convents,
are, doubtless, the most remarkable, as being far superior to all
others, by their stately height, curious roofs, and numberless other
oeautiful ornaments. Such as are built within cities or villages,