Hari-kari

Hari-kari (rather hara-kiri, 'belly-cut,' also called 'happy despatch'), a term applied to the curious Japanese system of official suicide, obsolete since 1868 (see JAPAN). The Japanese estimated the number of such suicides at 500 per annum. All military men, and persons holding civil offices under the government, were held bound, when they had committed an offence, to disembowel themselves. This they performed in a solemn and dignified manner, in presence of officials and other witnesses, by one or two gashes with a short sharp sword or dagger 9½ inches long. Personal honour having been saved by the self-inflicted wound, the execution was completed by a superior executioner (or rather the victim's second, often a kinsman or friend of gentleman's rank), who gave the coup de grâce by beheading the victim with one swinging blow from a long sword. Japanese gentlemen were trained to regard the hara-kiri as an honourable expiation of crime or blotting out of disgrace. See articles by an eye-witness in Cornhill (1869).