JAPAN.                             669

 tation it is applied to all those crimes and offenses for which the law
 has not provided a particular name."--(Bouvier, Lauw Diet.)
   In the opinion of this Department the offense in question, if proved,
was a misdemeanor, and was punishable as such under the "regulations"
prescribed by Mr. De Long.
   The American policy in Japan has been the strict observance of our
treaty obligations towards that power as a ground for insisting upon a
similar observance towards us. Good policy, therefore, as well as good
faith call upon us to maintain the consular jurisdiction over such cases
as are presented by Mr. ilawes's dispatch, unless we violate well-settled
principles of law by doing so.
       I am, &c.,
                                                  HAMILTON FISH.


                                 IN o. 424.

                        Mr. Bingham to Mr. Fish.

No. 57.]                     UNITED STATES LEGATION, JAPAN,
                   Yokohama, February 23, 1874. (Received April 13.)
  SiR: Since writing my dispatch, No. 55, concerning the unpaid bal
ance of the Simonoseki indemnity, Sir Harry S. Parkes, the English minr
ister, has addressed to me on that subject a letter of this date, a copy
of
which is herewith inclosed.
   You will observe that he holds $5,833.33, which he says is the pro-
portion paid on the special damages adjudged, and which he says is
payable to me as the representative of the United States. I am wholly
unadvised as to the payments hitherto made by the Japanese govern-
ment on account of this indemnity, and therefore, before acting in the
matter, I respectfully ask instructions from the Department, and beg
leave in this connection to call your attention especially to my dispatch
No. 55, above referred to.
   I deem  it my duty to await your instructions, and have to request
that you will favor me with them at your earliest convenience.
        Iam, &c.,
                                                JNO. A. BINGTIAM.

                                 [Inclosure.]

                         Mr. Parkes to Mr. Bingham.
                                   HER BRITANNIC MAJESTY'S LEGATION,
                                                    Yedo, February 23, 1874.,
  SIR: You will doubtless have heard that the Japanese gov ernment have preferred
to proceed with the payment of the moiety of the Simonoseki indemnity, which
remains due under the convention of October 22, 1864, rather than relax the
restric-
tions to which foreigners are subjected in this country, and that they have
lately de-
livered to the ministers of France and the Netherlands and to myself $125,000
each, as
three one-fourth shares of fourth installment of the said indemnity. A certain
portion
of the money thus received by me is transferable to yourself, and in order
to explain
this circumstance it appears necessary that I should trouble you with the
following
reference to the arrangements, concluded more than eight years ago, between
our
respective governments in regard to the division of this indemnity.
  The mode of dividing this money between the four powers to whom it was
payable,
namely, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and the United States, was
discussed
at Paris in 1865. The French minister for foreign affairs, M. Drouyn de Lhuys,
sug-
gested the. division should be made according to the proportion which the
forces of