--'No,' I answered, 'we have not. We have, for instance, no sound of _f_ or _v_. In some parts of the country people pronounce _ha_, _hi_, _he_, _ho_ like _fa_, _fi_, _fe_, _fo_, but it is considered bad dialect. The want of _v_ and _f_ in our letters is a point of great difficulty in transcribing foreign words into our writing, but we employ a new method for doing so. On the other hand, our _h_ is pronounced very acutely. You say you have _h_ mute and _h_ aspirate, but in practice I never see, or rather hear, any aspiration at all. Hence, Count "Hisamatsu," our actual military attaché, is always called by the French, as he complains, "Isamatsu," which is not his Japanese name at all. This fact reminds me of a similar matter concerning our own Tokio. The genuine Tokio people generally pronounce _Hi_ as _shi_. It is curious, but it is a fact. This often causes comical mistakes to be made by servant-girls who are told by their mistresses to pronounce it correctly, for they often mix up and use _hi_ in place of _shi_ and _vice versa_. Mind! Tokio is the capital of Japan, but its language is not the purest of the Japanese language. The same holds good in London. It is rather strange for us to notice that in London the _h_ is so commonly misused. I once went to a master, or rather mistress, as she was a woman, of elocution, or at least she advertised herself as such, and she told me that one must be very careful not to be corrupted by the London patois, and that one must not say "am and hegg" for "ham and egg," but while she was telling me those things she herself was making an awful mangling of the _h_. No wonder! She was a pure Londoner. I went to her no more.'
--'That's too awful! She could not have been a well-educated woman, or you are telling us an exaggerated story.'
--'Maybe she was not well educated,' said I, 'but my story is a plain, naked fact. It is very difficult, I think, to get rid of colloquial corruption when once thoroughly imbued with it, even with all the aids of education. I can relate an incident bearing on the point. There is, in Japan, far away from Tokio, a district where people in common parlance can make no difference between _shi_ and _su_. Once I went to that district and gave a lecture to a large gathering of students belonging to the higher schools of the district. Seven or eight of the most capable students took down my speech, and a complete draft of it was made by them, the defective parts having been supplied by one from the other. It was published in the local papers. It was most perfect, as though taken by shorthand, except in one respect, and it was that _shi_ and _su_ had been intermingled, as though I had spoken in the local dialect. It seems that not only are they unable to distinguish the difference when they themselves speak, but also when they hear other people speak. It is a great drawback to the development of the district. The local authorities hire teachers from other districts and try to correct this defect, but with little success. The function of our ears is strange. Sounds which are quite distinct to some people are quite indistinct to others. Our music has not so high a variation of tune as the Western music, but it has sufficient variation to please our ears; but the Occidentals compare our music to the beating of a drum by a child--no tune and no variation, the reason being, I think, because our tunes and variations are quite inaudible to the Western ear. From the same point of view, crows or cows, and, indeed, all living animals have their own language, only our ears cannot distinguish the difference of their words one from another.'