having been bred up to a calling which trades in life and death, he
was bound, so far as in him lay, to atone for this by seeking to
alleviate the suffering which is in the world; and he carried out his
principle to the extent of impoverishing himself. No neighbour ever
appealed to him in vain for help in tending the sick or burying the
dead. No beggar or lazar was ever turned from his door without
receiving some mark of his bounty, whether in money or in kind. Nor
was his scrupulous honesty less remarkable than his charity. While
other smiths are in the habit of earning large sums of money by
counterfeiting the marks of the famous makers of old, he was able to
boast that he had never turned out a weapon which bore any other mark
than his own. From his father and his forefathers he inherited his
trade, which, in his turn, he will hand over to his son--a
hard-working, honest, and sturdy man, the clank of whose hammer and
anvil may be heard from daybreak to sundown.

[Illustration: FORGING THE SWORD.]

The trenchant edge of the Japanese sword is notorious. It is said that
the best blades will in the hands of an expert swordsman cut through
the dead bodies of three men, laid one upon the other, at a blow. The
swords of the Shogun used to be tried upon the corpses of executed
criminals; the public headsman was entrusted with the duty, and for a
"nose medicine," or bribe of two bus (about three shillings), would
substitute the weapon of a private individual for that of his Lord.
Dogs and beggars, lying helpless by the roadside, not unfrequently
serve to test a ruffian's sword; but the executioner earns many a fee
from those who wish to see how their blades will cut off a head.

The statesman who shall enact a law forbidding the carrying of this