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Updated: May 29, 2025
We all possess, as still quite a fresh sensation, a memory of the account published a few years since of the committing of harikari by a Japanese official of high social standing, at the bidding of a native court, in atonement of an affront offered to an American officer how the representatives of the United States were formally invited, in full uniform, to witness the bloody self-immolation of the proud but to the law submissive Mongol; how everything went off en règle, from the theatrical preparation of the stage with seat, sword and red carpet to the climax of decapitation of the culprit by his body-servant; and how our representatives in gilt and blue filed out shocked, but vindicated, and satiated with more than the full measure of justice pressed down and running over.
He keeps one eye on the dowager and the other on Li Hung Chang, while he sends out harikari mandates to troublesome officials, and stands off the Russian ambassador. Last, but not least, is the Sultan of Turkey, who has a large family to provide for and who keeps a man busy issuing promissory notes to Uncle Sam so that his wives may be properly supplied with filigree hair pins and divided skirts.
Harikari has not begun, nor is it likely soon to begin, to thin the ranks of our Californian office-holders. Few die, none resign, and absolutely none are got rid of in that way. They have no treaty-courts to make them afraid. Their lives are their own, and we hope may always be.
A 'harikari' sentence saves the nation much trouble and expense. A coroner's verdict of 'suicide by request, is much more simple, and just as good as a lengthy criminal prosecution, besides affording the transgressor a choice of weapons.
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