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44 not dancing attendance on "society, or dissipating time and energy on useless games. The intercourse between officers and men is frank and intimate,—a result of that seeming contradiction which we have discussed elsewhere, the democratic spirit which has always permeated this paternally governed empire.

The published statistics of the forces are believed to be of little value at any time, because the authorities wisely keep precise details of the fighting strength and more particularly of the possibilities of mobilisation secret. Writing, as we do, during the progress of a war which strains all the nation's resources, it were even more idle than usual to attempt to gain any trustworthy information on such matters of high policy. When hostilities with Russia broke out, the army had for several years past been undergoing a process of expansion, to be completed such was the generally accepted statement—in 1911; and persons supposed to be well-informed held that on the completion of all the contemplated changes, the following figures would be approximately correct, in any case not above the mark:—

of whom between 8,000 and 9,000 officers, admitted partly by competition, partly after graduation at any of the middle schools. Exclusive of the Imperial Guard, there would be twelve divisions with headquarters at Tōkyō, Sendai, Nagoya, Ōsaka, Hiroshima, Kumamoto, Sapporo, Hirosaki, Kanazawa, Fukuchiyama, Marugame, and Kokura. Three brigades—say 7,500 men—are detached for service in Formosa. The cavalry has always been the weakest branch of the Japanese army, owing to the absence of good horses; neither does the build of the average Japanese tend to make him a graceful rider. As at present fixed, there is one regiment