THREE:"As to that," said Doctor Bronson, "much depends upon what you would call frequent. In former times a man might lose his head for a very slight reason, or, perhaps, no reason at all. Crimes that we would consider of small degree were punished with death, and there was very little time wasted between the sentence and its execution. As the Japanese have become more and more familiar with the customs of Western nations, they have learned that we do not remove the heads of our people for trifles, and they show their good sense by following our example. Of late years, executions by decapitation are much less frequent than formerly, but even now there are more of them than there need be.