Letters Which Have Appeared in the "Japan Daily Herald" (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Letters Which Have Appeared in the "Japan Daily Herald"

Sm,-the old proverb, Familiarity breeds contempt, is now being illustrated in this country, in the relations between natives and foreigners. That it should be so, is a deplorable fact; and the only way to check the growing evil of the decline of respect for foreigners, is to draw attention to it, and to thoroughly ventilate the question as to the causes, and the best means to secure in the future, a better mutual understanding.

The future of foreigners in this country should be worthy of present deep thought, and careful management will be required to secure for both natives and. Foreigners, the great benefit to be derived from unrestrained intercourse.

Many of us can remember the time when there was not a single foreigner in the country outside of treaty limits, excepting the members or guests of the Foreign Embassies, who might be on a flying visit to the deserted Legations in Yedo; and no foreigner in the service of the Japanese, excepting a French officer, drill instructor of the Tokugawa tr00ps, and a couple of Hollanders in the machine shops at Nagasaki, After their connection with Mr. Von Siebold, and his troubles, they were loth, for a long time, to have anything to do with foreigners as In course of time a missionary or two, and a medical lecturer, got a partial footing, as teachers. In the meantime, a system of obtaining information on the cheap was practised by the natives and foreigners, but too anxious to court their favour, even taught their servants, or rather professed to teach them. The information pumped out of the residents was not always the most desirable, added to which, the native servants of foreign residents had ample opportunity for studying their employers' private life. Need I add, that this experience lost nothing in the narration to their outside friends added to this, the servants or the acquaintances of foreigners lost no opportunity to introduce their friends to the houses of foreigners, and the sporting pictures, photos, etc., seen there, (frequently forsale), added nothing to the opinion of the visitors, in impressing them with the high morality and intelligence of the Christian world.

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