Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/63

Rh Japan were built and are operated according to the British methods. The rate of fare is 1 sen per mile for third class, 2 sen for second class, and 3 sen for first class, and the rate of speed rarely exceeds 20 or 25 miles per hour; but fortunately the people are not in such a hurry as Americans. Recently, however, express trains, running at the rate of 30 or more miles per hour, have been started on several of the roads, especially between large and important places. Dining-cars and sleeping-cars, too, may be found on some of the lines; and the American check system is used for baggage. The government owns most of the railways; in 1906, the Twenty-second Diet adopted a bill for buying up the seventeen largest private lines. This may have been desirable from a strategic point of view; but from the business standpoint it was not advisable, for the government lines are not so well managed. The best line in the country was a private one, the Sanyō Railway Company, operating west from Kōbe.

Railroads have been naturally accompanied, and often preceded, by telegraph lines, which now keep the various parts of the empire in close communication with Tōkyō and with each other. During 1910 the telegrams numbered over 28,000,000, and are increasing rapidly in number every year. The Japanese syllabary has lent itself easily to a code like the Morse Code. Telephones, too, have been