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Rh order that the empire might have peace. Their persons were sacred, so that nobody was permitted to lay hands thereon; therefore their hair and nails might have grown to an unseemly length, had they not been clandestinely trimmed during sleeping hours. The dishes from which they had partaken of food were forthwith dashed in pieces, in order that nobody else might ever use them. And the very rice that they ate was picked over kernel by kernel, in order that no broken or imperfect grain might find lodgment in the Imperial stomach." It is also said that no one was allowed to speak the name of the Emperor or to write in full the characters of his name; in the latter case, for clearness, at least one stroke must be omitted from each character.

But the late Emperor, whose name was Mutsuhito, was an entirely different personage. He did not live in seclusion, but frequently showed himself in public to his subjects, who could look upon his face without fear of being smitten with death. He was, none the less, revered and loved by all the people, and was the real ruler of the land. He had, however, voluntarily surrendered to the people some of his prerogatives, so that the Japanese to-day enjoy constitutional government, parliamentary and representative institutions, and local self-government. And in 1901 the Empire, instead of being divided up, as in 1801, into about 300 feudal fiefs, in each of which a Daimyō was more or less a law unto himself, is divided into about 50 Prefectures, Imperial Cities and Territo