The Criminal Code of Japan . By Thomas L. Blakemore. Tokyo: Tuttle, 2nd ed., 1954. ix, 192.

Abstract

ing about to limit himself to bare bones. A scholar, especially one who chooses a subject both dramatic and little known, ought occasionally to use the broad brush and to stick his neck out; and the author, who has spent a number of years and a very considerable ability in studying his subject, ia uniquely prepared to do this. Indeed, if those of Professor Lensen's caliber boggle at color, then students must content themselves with inferior black and whites of less able men. An exposition of the weak military and geographical position from which the Russians bargained would have added savor, while at the same time intricacies of the internal struggle for power in Japan might have been sketched in. The author points out that the Japanese negotiators were more afraid of their own government than of the Russians and that the government was afraid of its own people—but surely not all the people. The government was mortally afraid that the Mito clique would accuse it of selling Japan's birth-right but at the same time the Bakufu neglected to bring over on its side those merchants and daimyo eager for a Russian settlement.