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While in 1872 the people numbered 33,000,000, in 1898 they numbered 45,000,000. The general scale of living for the common people has also advanced conspicuously. Meat shops are now common throughout the land a thing unknown in pre-Meiji times and rice, which used to be the luxury of the wealthy few, has become the staple necessity of the many. Postal and telegraph facilities are quite complete.
The abdicating proclivities of the nation in pre-Meiji times are well shown by the official list of daimyos published by the Shogunate in 1862. To a list of 268 ruling daimyos is added a list of 104 "inkyo." In addition to what we may call political and family abdication, described above, is personal abdication, referred to on a previous page.
Although the Oriental familiar with the details of the pre-Meiji social order will be impressed with what seems to him the complete Occidentalization of her new civilization and social order, although to-day communalism and individualism are the distinguishing characteristics respectively of the East and the West, they are not necessary characteristics due to inherent race nature.
The enthusiastic admirer of Japan hardly finds words wherewith sufficiently to praise the simplicity of her pre-Meiji civilization. No furniture brings confusion to the room; no machinery distresses the ear with its groanings or the eye with its unsightliness. No factories blacken the sky with smoke. No trains screeching through the towns and cities disturb sleepers and frighten babies.
While the Code recognizes the principle of individualism and individual rights and worth in all other matters, in regard to the home, the most important social unit in the body politic, the Code legalizes and perpetuates the old pre-Meiji standards. Individualism in the general social order demands its consistent recognition in every part.
How closely his every act was watched could never be guessed by any one ignorant of the queer superstitions of the pre-Meiji era concerning ourselves. Although recognized as intelligent and formidable creatures, Occidentals were not generally regarded as quite human; they were thought of as more closely allied to animals than to mankind.
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