Samurai
a Japanese chivalric order of the feudal period; translated to its nearest English equivalent it signifies "guard." The Samurai were a military LOUIS, a British statesman; born in Liverpool in 1870. He was educated at University College School and at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating with first-class or caste, prominent in early times class honors in 1893. In 1895 he contested South Oxfordshire as a liberal for a seat in the House of Commons and also in 1900. He was elected to represent the Cleveland Division, N. Riding, Yorkshire, in 1902, and held the seat till 1918. In 1905-9 he was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of the Home Departin Japan and were termed individually or collectively, Samurai, with equal propriety. Originally, the name Samurai applied only to those soldiers who acted as personal guards to the Mikado and occupied quarters in the Imperial Palace.
In its final usage it became a descriptive term for the entire military caste of the SAMYDACEE Imperial Order, and included in its hierarchical significance: the commander-inchief, or "shogun"; the landed nobility owing fealty to the Emperor and holding land under military tenure, or the "daimyos"; and the "samurai," the military retainers of the feudal class, the priviclass, the leged two-sword men, the fighting men, the caste of gentlemen, and the scholars of the nation. When, in 1868, the "shogunate" was abolished, followed in 1871 by the restoration of all feudal lands to the Emperor by the "daimyos," the "samurai" ceased to have any existence beyond a tradition in the national life of Japan. In 1878 the name "samurai" was abandoned and its significance has been largely lost in modern Japanese life except in so far as it has survived as an inspirational code of chivalric conduct and bravery. a small order of SAMYDACEÆ, plants, alliance Violales, consisting of SAMYDACE, a small order of trees and shrubs exclusively tropical and principally South American. Leaves alternate simple, evergreen, stipulate, usually with round or linear transparent markings. Flowers perfect, calyx inferior, 4-5 partite. Stamens perigynous, two, three, or four times as many as the segments of the calyx. Fruit superior, capsular, leathery, one-celled. Seeds one-celled. numerous, arillate, with oily or fleshy aloily or fleshy albumen and large embryo. The plants are of little economic value.