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246 HONDA THE SAMUEAI.
'No, nor will I. To turn from politics to practical
morals, let me ask how many eta people, or
outcasts, live in Fukui?"
"About four hundred, master."
" Poor creatures ! I visited their quarters at the
town's end yesterday. The poorest of them live
under the bridge, in the damp and foul places. I see
they are as badly treated in the dominions of the
beneficent lord of Echizen as elsewhere. They are
obliged to live apart, to marry only among them-
selves, earn a livelihood as cobblers, skinners, tan-
ners, leather-dressers, buriers of dead animals, mounte-
banks, or beggars. No citizen will give them food
or drink and ever touch again the cup or plate in
which it was given. Their lives are not worth a
straw if they meet a drunken brawler at night, and
no process of law exists for the prosecution or punishment
of one who kills an eta. Now to a student
of Confucius this is a disgrace : for the sage teaches
us humanity."
" Can not a samurai be a good Confucian, and ac-
cept things as they are in our social system, without
making himself unpopular by championing the cause
of the eta ? "
Rai looked at the doctor as if expect-
ing his sympathy.
" As for me," said Doctor Sano, " I have long felt
as does our teacher Koba. Consider the origin of the
eta. They are the victims of the combined barbar-
ity of the uncivilized ages of Japan and of priestcraft
; Church and State, as the Europeans say, are
combined against them. According to all we have