CHAPTER XX
THE POLICEMAN AND THE SOLDIER
The Japanese policeman is, first and foremost, a gentleman. He is a
samurai, a man of good family, and therefore deeply respected by the mass
of the people. He is often a small man for a Japanese, but though his
height may run from four feet ten to five feet nothing, he is a man of much
authority. When the samurai were disbanded, there were very few occupations
to which they could turn. They disdained agriculture and trade, but numbers
of them became servants, printers, and policemen. This seems an odd mixture
of tasks, but there are sound reasons for it.
Many samurai became servants because service is an honourable profession in
Japan; many became printers because the samurai were an educated class, and
the only people fitted to deal with the very complicated Japanese alphabet;
and many became policemen because it was a post for which their fighting
instinct and their habit of authority well fitted them. Their authority
over the people is absolute and unquestioning; and, again, there are sound
reasons for this.
Forty years ago the Japanese people could have been divided very sharply
into two classes, the ruling and the ruled. The ruling class was formed
of the great Princes and the samurai, their followers, about 2,000,000
people in all. The remaining 38,000,000 of the population were the common
people, the ruled. Now, in the old days when a Daimio left his castle for
a journey, he was borne in a kago, a closed carriage, and was attended
by a guard of his samurai.
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