advancing rapidly to a foremost place. It demonstrated its prowess
in the war with Russia, and its diplomacy and power in the recent war.

Japan has installed popular education, with common schools,
academies, and universities, much on the American plan. It has
adopted and installed every modern appliance developed by
electricity--telegraph, cable, telephone, etc.

While I was greatly tempted to reverse my decision and go,
my mother, who was in delicate health, felt that an absence so
long and at such distance would be fatal, and so on her account
I declined.

As I look back over the fifty years I can see plainly that four
years, and probably eight, in that mission would have severed
me entirely from all professional and business opportunities
at home, and I might have of necessity become a place holder
and a place seeker, with all its adventures and disappointments.

If I had seriously wanted an office and gone in pursuit of one,
my pathway would have had the usual difficulties, but fickle
fortune seemed determined to defeat my return to private life
by tempting offers. The collectorship of the port of New York
was vacant. It was a position of great political power because
of its patronage. There being no civil service, the appointments
were sufficientIy numerous and important to largely control the
party in the State of New York, and its political influence reached
into other commonwealths. It was an office whose fees were
enormous, and the emoluments far larger than those of any position
in the country.