Deposited by the
Linonian and Brothers Library
 nn

THE YANKEES OF THE EAST

EXTERIOR OF BUDDHIST TEMPLE AT IKEGAMI.

THE YANKEES OF THE
EAST
SKETCHES OF MODERN JAPAN

BY
WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS

VOLUME II

NEW YORK
STONE & KIMBALL
MDCCCXCVI

COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY
STONE ANU KIMBALL

CONTENTS

XII. LABOR AND WAGES 329
XIII. JAPANESE METHODS OF FARMING 349
XIV. A JAPANESE DINNER 360
XV. THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF JAPAN 381
XVI. THE MISSIONARY PROBLEM 4I3
XVII. CHRISTIANITY FROM THE BUDDHIST
POINT OF VIEW 457
XVIII. A PECULIAR INSTITUTION 498
XIX. THE ADVANCEMENT OF WOMEN 51I
XX. THE THEATRE AND WRESTLING RING $38
XXI. JAPANESE ART AND ARTISTS S6l
XXIL ODD THINGS YOU SEE AND HEAR OF 582
XXIII. THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN JAPAN 605

List of Illustrations.
Volume n.

Exterior of a Buddhist Temple at
, Ikegami  . . Frontispiece
A Japanese Wrestling Match . To face fage 331
Exterior of Danjuro's Theatre, Tokyo . 343
Gathering Tea  . . 349
The Coming Generation  357
A Bill for Travelling  370
A Buddhist Priest ... , . . 381
Gate to the New Temple, Kyoto . . . 413
The Marquis Oyama  437
High Priest at Ikegami ... ... 457
A Glimpse of the Yoshiwara, Tokyo . . 499
Garden of a Tea House ... ... 508
The Marchioness Oyama . . . . 524
A Buddhist Funeral  539
Scene on Japanese Stage  . 543
Danjuro in Theatrical Costume . • • 515
The Great Bronze Buddha at Kamakura . 573
The Wonderful Lantern at Nikko , . . 593
A Japanese Cemetery  612
Gateway to the Mikado's Palace, Kyoto . 621
A Japanese Sawmill  638

XII
Labor and Wages
Japan is becoming less and less dependent
upon the outside world for the necessities and
comforts of life and is making her own goods
with great skill and ingenuity. It is often said
that the Japanese are not an original people ;
that they are merely imitators; that they got
their arts from Korea, their industries from
China, and that their civilization is simply a
veneer acquired by studying the methods of the
United States and Europe — all of which, in a
measure, is true, but it is not discreditable.
The Japanese workman can make anything
he has ever seen. His ingenuity is astonishing.
Give him a most complicated mechanism — a
watch or an electrical apparatus — and he will
produce it exactly and set it running without
instruction. Give a Japanese tailor a pair of old
trousers, tell him you want a new pair like them,
and he will reproduce them exactly, with all the
patches and darns included, if there happen to
be any. He can imitate any process and can
copy any pattern or design more accurately and
329

The Yankees of the East
skillfully than any other race in the world. It
is that faculty which has enabled Japan to make
such rapid progress in civilization.
Since their release from the exclusive policy
of the feudal lords, the people have studied the
methods of all the civilized nations, and have
adopted those of each which seemed to them
the best and most readily applied to their own
necessities and convenience. They have found
one thing in Switzerland, another in Sweden,
another in England, others in Germany, France
and the United States, and have rejected what
is not of value to them as readily as they have
adopted those which are to their advantage.
Under such circumstances originality is not
wanted, but a power of adaptability and imita
tion that is immensely more useful. And those
very powers are going to make Japan a dan
gerous competitor for the European nations in
manufactured merchandise. At the same time
it is a mistake to suppose the people have no
originality. The records of their patent office,
which is described at length in another chapter,
are enough to settle that question beyond a
doubt, for they show signs of the development
of a high degree of inventive genius, particu
larly in the line of labor-saving appliances and
machinery. There are factories of all sorts going up in
every part of Japan. In the city of Osaka,
330

Labor and Wages
where there was not a piece of machinery twenty
years ago, there are now more than five hundred
manufacturing establishments run by steam
alone. There are some of the largest, most ex
pensive and complete electrical plants in the
world, several of them made by natives, and
there are unmistakable signs in every direction
that Japan is not only getting ready to release
herself from dependence upon other nations and
make all she needs herself, but will soon come
into direct competition with manufacturing labor
of the United States and Europe.
The enlistment and employment of about
400,000 mechanics and coolies for the war with
China first brought the employer class in Japan
to realize that they have the best, the cheapest
and most skillful labor for the money in the
world, and that they may be compelled some
time in the not very distant future to confront
a theory and not a condition, to paraphrase the
language of a very eminent man. The walking
delegate has not yet made his appearance. In
China there are unions, and, although labor is
quite as cheap, if it is not cheaper, in the in
terior of the great empire, it is much more diffi
cult to control, as the Chinese is a stubborn and
oftentimes an ugly person to deal with. The
Japanese are more gentle, more docile, more
patient and more enduring.
There are no labor unions in Japan, but with
331

The Yankees of the East
the introduction of machinery and modern ideas,
with the establishment of factories, which require
a certain degree of training, and the growth of
intelligence, which will be the inevitable result
of the present system of popular education, the
organization of laboring classes for their own pro
tection and advancement is sure to come. The
greatest protection is in the multitude of people
struggling for a living, which consists of a mat
to sleep upon and a few handfuls of rice for
food. But even under such circumstances the
withdrawal of a comparatively small number of
laborers from the 41,000,000 that populate the
little islands shows how sensitive the masses are
to any unusual disturbance, and should set
thinking men to considering what may happen
when raillions of dollars are locked up in manu
facturing enterprises, and the mechanical pro
ducts of Japan are no longer made in the house
holds and sold in the markets piece by piece.
The advance in the cost of labor caused by
the war was very small when considered in the
light of wages paid in other countries, yet it has
been felt in prices. One or two cents a day
does not seem very much to men who are accus
tomed to receive $50, g6o and ;j!7S a month, but
in Japan, where the average income of the
workingman does not exceed $45 or ^50 a year,
it is a matter of importance on both sides.
Through the kindness of Col. M. W. Mclvor,
332

Labor and Wages
the United States consul-general at Yokahama,
whose home is at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and who,
by the way, is the most popular and one of the
most competent representatives the government
has ever had in Japan, I obtained a schedule of
wages paid for various kinds of labor through
out the empire, which is based upon a large
number of returns from the several provinces.
The table gives the lowest and highest rates
and the average for all the provinces reporting.
From the same source I obtained the average
rates in the city of Yokohama, which is the
principal shipping port in the country, where
the foreign population is largest and where
wages are highest.
The following statement shows the rates of
wages paid to Japanese artisans and laborers in
the local money, which is worth about one-half
as much as American gold:

HIGH

LOW

AVER-

EST.

EST.

AGE.

Carpenters ....

S0.50

$0.20

JS0.3O

Paper-hangers ....

.60

.20

•3J

Stone-cutters ....

.69

.22

-36

Wood-sa-wyers ....

.50

•13

-30

Roofers 

.60

.20

.29

Bricklayers 

.88

.20

•33

Mattingmakers

•SO

.20

•30

Carpenters and joiners, screenmak

ers 
•55
•17
•30
Makers of paper screens, lanterns
etc 
•55
.20
•31
Cabinetmakers, furniture .
M
•17
•32
Tailors, Japanese clothing
¦15
.28
Tailors, foreign clothing
I.oo
.25
•49
Dyers • . . . .
.60
¦05
•25
Cotton-beaters ....
•45
•13
•23
333
The Yankees of the East

HIGH-

LOW

AVER

EST.

EST.

AGE.

Blacksmiths  60

.18

•30

Porcelainmakers .

¦5°
¦13
.29
Lacquermakers
•58
•15
.29
Oil-pressers ....
•34
.16
•25
Tobaccomakers
•50
.11
.26
Printing, pressmen
^3
.11
.26
Compositors
.10
•29
Wine and sake makers
•50
¦15
.29
Sauce and preserve makers
.40
.10
.24
Farm hands, men
•3°
.16
.19
Farm hands, women
.28
.06
.19
Silkworm breeders, men
.50
.10
.22
Silkworm breeders, women
•25
.05
.17
Weavers ....
t
.07
•IS
Teamakers, men
•IS
•31
Coolies or general laborers
•33
.14
.22
The following are rates paid by
the month:
HIGH
LOW
AVER
EST.
EST.
AGE.
Weavers, men  $12.00
gl.00
«4,83
Weavers, women .... 12.00
I.oo
3,.30
Confectionerymakers and bakers . 12.00
1.00
5-74
Farm hands, men . . . 5.00
1.00
2.31
Farm hands, women . . . 3.50
•49
1.58
Household servants, men . . 5.00
•50
2.12
House servants, women .
300
.50
1.16
The following are the present rate of wages
paid in the city of Yokohama, reduced to United
States currency, the average working day being
ten hours : 24
•36.38
Carpenters .
Plasterers . .
Stone-cuttersWood-sawyersRoofers . .
Tilers . . .
Mattingmakers Screenmakers
Joiners . .
Paper-hangersTailors for Japanese
clothing , . . ,
Tailors for foreign
clothing ....
).26 .26•31•29
.26 •31 ¦^.29 .24 .24
.48
Dyers 
Cotton-beaters . .
Blacksmiths ....
Porcelain artists, or
dinary ....
Superior porcelain ar
tists  72
Porcelainmakers . . $0.24
Oil pressmen ... .24
Tobacco and cigar-
makers  24
Pressmen, printing
offices  .19
Compositors ... .29
334
Labor and Wages
Ship carpenters . . .29 Tea-firing women . .10
Lacquermakers . . .24 Confection mak ers
Sake brewers ... .22 and bakers ... .17
Silk spinners, fe- Sauce and preserve
male  17 makers .... .24
Tea-pickers ... .29 Ordinary laborers . . .19
Tea-firing men . . .14
The following are the rates paid by the
month :
Farm hands, men  if 1,44
Farm hands, women  1.20
Silk worm breeders, men .... 1,92
Silk worm breeders, women ... .96
Weavers, women  96
House servants, men  2.80 to $7.20
House servants, women  2.40 to 4.80
Factory labor is paid even less than these
prices. Middleton & Co., one of the most prom
inent tea-shipping houses in Japan, employ in
their establishment a large number of persons,
men and women, who work from 5 o'clock in
the morning until 6 o'clock at night, with three
intervals at 8, 12 and 3 o'clock respectively,
when they eat their rice and what other refresh
ments they bring with them and rest for twenty
minutes or a half hour. The highest wages paid
by the Messrs. Middleton are 42 sen a day,
which is equivalent to 21 cents in United States
currency. This is received by men who are
experts in handling tea, and have acquired their
proficiency by natural ability and long years of
experience. The lowest wages are paid to young boys and
girls who pick over the tea leaves to remove the
stems and other foreign substances. They re-
335

The Yankees of the East
ceive 13 sen, or 6J^ cents, a day for about tvi'elve
hours' work, not Including their resting spells.
Of the entire force in the establishment 20
are paid 21 cents a day in United States currency,
90 are paid 18 cents, 50 get 15 cents, 335 12
cents, 278 10 cents, 5 g cents and 30 6J^ cents
a day, and they board themselves.
The same rates are paid in all the tea "go
downs," as they are called, and similar wages in
the factories and manufacturing establishments
throughout the country.
Embroidery women, who make the work that
is so much prized by Americans and Europeans
for decorative purposes, seldom receive more
15 or 20 cents a day in our money, although in
any other land they would be estimated as artists.
Iba, the jinrickisha man whom I hired by the
week during my stay in Yokohama because he
can speak English and was a resident of Chicago
for a year or more during the World's Fair, was
paid 70 sen, or 35 cents a day, and was expected
to be on hand from 8 o'clock in the morning
until 12 o'clock at night, with his exaggerated
baby carriage to haul his employer up hill and
down, always at a run and often ten miles at a
go — for distances are very great in Japanese cities.
And from his 35 cents a day, or $g a month, he
was compelled to pay a "squeeze" to the pro
prietor of the hotel — I don't know how much —
for the privilege of attaching himself to their
336

Labor and Wages
establishment, instead of standing at the street
corner like less fortunate 'ricksha men and pick
ing up ordinary customers, who are more exact
in making change and do not give " pour boires."
Iba told me confidentially that he often gets
more than the regular fare as presents from tour
ists when he tells them that he was once in Chi
cago, and that is the way he got me.
The wages paid in Yokohama are the highest
in the empire, as to foreigners money has a
smaller value and they are not such close traders
as the natives. Yet in that city the ordinary
patrolmen of the police force are paid 8 yen or
$4 in our money a month, while the sergeants
receive $6 and the other officials of higher rank
a corresponding amount. Ordinary firemen get
$3.50 a month, foremen of hose carts $1 and
engineers of steam fire engines, who are supposed
to possess the highest grade of talent, receive
S12 a month. All are furnished two suits of
clothing a year, one for summer and one for
winter, and an overcoat. Night watchmen, who
go about the premises of citizens, in addition to
the regular police, as a safeguard against fire
and burglars, get $4 a month. They patrol the
district on which they are employed frotn dark
to daylight, and are paid by their patrons, al
though licensed by the city and sworn in as
special police.
There was some rise in wages in the cities
337

The Yankees of the East
after the opening of the war because of the
scarcity of labor. Coolies who work as steve
dores, loading and unloading vessels, get 30
cents a day now for working from 6 o'clock in the
morning until 6 at night, where they formerly
received 25 cents. Professional gardeners — and
in Japan landscape gardening has been a science
and an art for 600 years — get $10 and ;gi2 a
month. Telegraph messengers and postmen are
paid $6 and $8 respectively and are furnished a
uniform, and I suppose it takes as much of a
political pull to get a place of that kind under
the government here as it does in any other
country. They are supplied with bicycles when
their routes are any distance from the postoffice.
They are making "bikes" of avery good quality
in Japan now, having stolen some of the best
improvements from both British and American
patents. I believe the first strike ever known in Japan
occurred in the summer of 1895. A party of
bricklayers engaged in building a factory near
Tokyo had their hours of labor extended from
twelve to thirteen because of a desire on the
part of the contractor to complete the job as
soon as possible. The men asked a correspond
ing increase of wages, and they were getting
only twelve cents a day in our money, but it
was refused them and they quit work. The con
tractor got other bricklayers to take their places,
338

Labor and Wages
but they were induced to abandon him also, and
as he persisted in his refusal to do what the
men considered simply justice It was decided to
send emissaries to all the other bricklayers in
the city and ask them to join in a " sympathetic"
strike. The attempt to introduce this modern im
provement into the conservative labor system of
Japan was only partially successful. Many, in
fact most of the bricklayers employed in the
city, were too stupid to understand why they
should throw up good jobs because members of
their occupation elsewhere were unjustly treated,
but a thousand or more men engaged upon the
water works, on some railway freight houses and
other structures quit, and it was several days be
fore the difficulty was adjusted. The contractor
who caused the trouble finally compromised with
his men and went back to twelve hours' work
with twelve hours' pay.
While there are no labor unions in Japan
there are many guilds, composed of merchants
and manufacturers and others engaged in the
same line of business who have organized for
their mutual advantage and to control so far as
they can the trade to which they belong. They
have existed ever since the seventeenth century
and were copied from the Dutch, who came to
the empire during that period and exercised a
very powerful influence upon industry and com-
339

The Yankees of the East
merce. In fact, the Dutch were never entirely
expelled from Japan. When the shogun issued
his edict of exclusion because of the rapid growth
of the Catholic religion there the Dutch Protest
ants were still allowed to occupy the island of
Deshima in the harbor of Nagasaki, and for
more than two hundred years that was the only
place in Japan where a foreigner could live.
The first Dutch settlement was established
there in 1624, and the island has remained prac
tically without change ever since. The Japanese
were prohibited from going abroad, and even
those sailors who were shipwrecked on foreign
shores were forbidden to come home lest they
might bring back with them the seeds of sedi
tion against the despotic power of the shogun
and the divinity of the emperor. There was
still some commerce with China and Korea, but
all the intercourse between Japan and other na
tions was conducted through the little colony of
Protestant Dutchmen on the island of Deshima
until a peaceful armada under the command of
Matthew Gilbraith Perry entered the Bay of To
kyo in 1853.
The Dutchmen at Deshima exercised a whole
some influence upon the Japanese and educated
a large number of their young men. They fur
nished the only social and intellectual stimulant
Japan had and a few modern ideas filtered
through them into the empire. Among other
340

Labor and Wages
things they taught the Japanese the uselessness
of dragons' teeth and snake skins as a pharmaco
poeia and gave them a knowledge of anatomy and
the rudiments of medicine. European improve
ments upon the spindle and the loom came in
that way. One finds a great many traces of the
heavy Dutch civilization throughout Japan. The
guild is one of them, and it now extends from
the bankers and the manufacturers as far as the
massage operators, the story tellers and the
thieves. In Japanese cities and villages about sunset
you begin to hear doleful whistles in the streets.
One will come from somewhere near you, and
pretty soon another from far away, and if you
choose you can trace them to blind men, who
walk in the middle of the road, each with a
bamboo staff in his hand, blowing his monoto
nous and melancholy signals to notify the pub
lic of his whereabouts. These are the "amma
san," blind shampooers and massage operators,
who occupy a conspicuous place in Japanese
domestic life. They rub the skin, knead the
muscles and shampoo the hair, which are favor
ite treatments among the natives, and are
credited with great virtues in the Japanese
hygiene. Custom immemorial has limited this occupa
tion to the blind, and with the exception of
music it is almost the only one in which a per-
341

The Yankees of the East
son so afflicted can engage, although, curiously
enough, when a blind man is fortunate enough
to be rich he is a money-lender. The amma
san are organized into one great guild, with
their headquarters at Tokyo and Kyoto, and are
divided into different grades like wrestlers,
being promoted from one to another after the
passage of an examination and the payment of
a fee, which goes into a common treasury and is
used for charity among the guild.
I do not suppose there is any law limiting
this business to blind men, but no others are
engaged in it. The extreme care which the
women of Japan take of their hair makes sham
pooing popular, much more so than in any
other country, and massage treatment has for
centuries been a popular remedy for rheuma
tism, lumbago and other pains and aches.
Their system differs, however, from the Swedish
in that they work down instead of up the body,
their theory being similar to that of the Indian
medicine men, who press the pain out of the
body by working it toward the fingers and toes.
Another curious guild is that of the story
tellers, called "yose," who appear to be relics of
the days when books were scarce. They are
similar in their methods and occupation to the
troubadors of the middle ages and the Zin-
gari, who are even now found in the mountains
of Austria, Italy and Spain. They have houses
342

Labor and Wages
of entertainment where people may go and lis
ten to recitations of stories, tragedies and poems
while they sit around cross-legged, drinking tea
and smoking their long-stemmed metal pipes.
Sometimes the yose has a book before him
reading a chapter of history or an act from one
of the great plays. Sometimes he reads a poem
or tells a story of mythological times or of
modern events. When he comes to a particularly
good point he claps together a couple of little
slabs of wood, which are kept by him for that
purpose. The latter are also seen at the theater.
There is always a man sitting at the extreme
right of the stage with two small flat pieces of
wood, and whenever the situation becomes criti
cal or exciting he stimulates the interest of the
audience by clapping them together. When the
murderer is creeping upon his victim, when the
suicide is about to fall upon his sword, or when
the villain runs away with the heiress, he makes
a terrible racket that often drowns the dialogue.
The entertainments of the yose are usually
mixed. There may be a poem from a Japanese
Tennyson, an extract from the plays of a Japa
nese Shakespeare, a chapter from a Japanese
Bancroft or Froude, together with a few comic
selections and a story of love and war. The
recent war with China caused a great boom in
the yose business, for those people kept the public
informed of the progress of events and the pol-
343

The Yankees of the East
icy of the government, dramatically reciting the
incidents of the campaign in China. The lesser
yose are itinerant and give their recitations upon
the streets or in the tea houses, where no fee is
charged but a collection is taken up at intervals.
The street yose are usually accompanied by a
samisen player and a singer, perhaps two or
three, and you find them surrounded by crowds
of coolies wherever you may go.
Students of the Japanese language often util
ize these entertainments for the purpose of im
proving their pronunciation. There is a young
Englishman named Black who is a member of
the guild in Tokyo. I believe he is the only
foreigner who was ever admitted. He speaks
Japanese perfectly, and his knowledge of Euro
pean literature gives him more than ordinary
popularity. The guild system includes all trades and oc
cupations. The silk-growers and silk-buyers,
the men who raise tea and those who sell it, the
manufacturers of lacquer and cloisonne and
porcelain, the weavers and spinners, the artists
who decorate kakemonas or scrolls, the carpen
ters, screenmakers, confectioners, paper dealers,
doctors, lawyers, merchants of all kinds, teachers
and even preachers, have their guilds and meet at
regular periods to discuss subjects of general in
terest and mutual importance. Among the me
chanics and tradesmen these guilds are often
344

Labor and Wages

extended to include life insurance and aid to those
who are ill and infirm, like our mutual-benefit so
cieties of the United States. Assessments are
made upon the living to pay the doctors who have
attended the sick and the undertakers who have
buried the dead.
Thus far the guild has not been used to any
extent for the advancement of wages or the reg
ulation of working hours, for the reason that 95
per cent of the skilled labor in Japan is occupied
in the homes of the people and in a measure
independent of the conditions that govern wage
workers in other lands. Up till five years ago
factories were almost unknown. The weaver
had his loom in his own house and his wife and
sons and daughters took their turns at it during
the day. It had always been the custom for the
children to follow the trade of thp parents. The
best porcelain and cloisonne and lacquer work is
done under the roofs of humble cottages, and the
compensation has been governed usually by the
quality of the piece produced.
There are middlemen who buy for the export
trade and merchants for the local trade, and the
workingman usually sells his wares to the same
person. This has gone on for centuries. Asana
the weaver, sells his brocades to the grandson of
the merchant who bought his grandfather's pro
ducts. When there is a large order, say for
1,000 lacquer trays or 10,000 embroidered
345

The Yankees of the East
shawls, the middleman is resorted to. When
the silk buyer or notion buyer for Marshall Field,
goes over each spring to purchase his annual
stock of Japanese goods he goes to a middle
man, who places the order in small lots among
the people who have by long experience learned
to depend upon him, and as fast as they finish
an order they send it in. Sometimes the mid
dleman advances them money. They usually
run an account with him, as the planters in the
southern stares do with their factors in the com
mercial cities. He furnishes them materials and
sometimes little luxuries in the way of clothing
or food, which are charged to their account.
It will be seen that under this system organ
izations for the purpose of affecting wages and
the hours of work are not practicable in Japan,
but the guilds have had strong influences in ad
vancing the prices of articles which enter into
the export trade. This is the natural result of
the demand. Until Japan was modernized there
was no such thing as a steady demand for any
thing but food, and that was exchanged between
producers from day to day almost entirely with
out the use of money. Every artisan worked
for his prince, or the feudal lord to whose baili-
wic he belonged, and when he produced a sword
or a vase or a piece of lacquer he took it to
headquarters, where the purchasing agent of the
daimyo gave him money for it. Then he went
346

Labor and Wages
home and made another one. As everything
belonged to the prince, and artists and artisans
were entirely dependent upon him for their lives
as well as their property, there was no incentive
to accumulate wealth, and nothing to stimulate
industry except a desire to accomplish some
thing. Therefore the ancient art of Japan was so much
superior to its modern art. It was not so much
a question of revenue as a matter of skill, and
artists would spend months upon a piece of work
which they will now complete in as many days.
The demand from foreign markets has made the
change, and has depreciated the quality while it
has increased the quantity of the product.
Fifty years ago a Japanese workman got no
more compensation if he made ten vases than
if he produced one. Now he gets ten times as
much, and enjoys the benefit of his labor like the
workingmen in other lands. Hence his ambition
is to produce as much as possible regardless of
the quality. The people in Europe and America
who buy his porcelains and cloisonne cannot
distinguish the difference as long as the effect
produced is as attractive. They are willing to
pay as much for a vase that he made in two
weeks as for one that cost six months of labor,
and only the most conscientious artists can resist
the temptation to multiply the results of their
genius. 347

The Yankees of the East ^
Mr. Okakura, the director of the imperial
school of art, asserts that there are in Japan
to-day artists as great as any that have ever lived,
and that their skill has been increased by
education and the development of their general
intelligence. He says the only reason that the
work of the ancient schools surpasses that of
modern artists . is that more time was devoted to
details then than now. If the men who are
living to-day would devote as much attention
and spend as much time in finishing their work
as their ancestors did centuries ago they would
surpass them in every respect. He insists that
Japanese art is not in a state, of decay, but that
the temptations offered by the modern market
have caused it to deteriorate.

348

GATHERING TEA.

XIII
Japanese Methods of Farming
Japan is one vast garden, and as you look
over the fields you can imagine that they are
covered with toy farms where children are play
ing with the laws of nature and raising samples
of different kinds of vegetables and grain. Ev
erything is on a diminutive scale, and the work
is as fine and accurate as that applied to a clois
onne vase. What would an Illinois or an Iowa
farmer think of planting his corn, wheat, oats
and barley in bunches, and then, when it is
three or four inches high, transplanting every
spear of it in rows about as far apart as you can
stretch your fingers. A Japanese farmer weeds
his wheat fields just as a Connecticut farmer
weeds his onion bed, and cultivates his potatoes
and barley with as much care as a Long Island
farmer bestows upon his asparagus or his flqwers.
When grain is ripe it is cut with a sickle close
to the ground. The bottom ends are carefully
tied together with a wisp of straw ; the bunch is
then divided and hung over a bamboo pole or a
rope, like Monday's washing, to dry ; sometimes
349

The Yankees of the East
in the field and sometimes in the backyard, and
even in the street in front of the house.
When it is thoroughly cured, the heads of
grain are cut off with a knife, and the straws are
carefully bound up and laid away in bundles.
The heads are then spread out upon a piece of
straw-matting and beaten with such a flail as
you see in Japanese pictures. Another method of
threshing is to take handfuls of straw and pull
them through a mesh of iron needles.
After the threshing is done the grain is taken
up in a sort of scoop basket made of bamboo,
and shaken by one woman who holds it as high
as her head, while another woman stands by
with a large fan which she waves rapidly through
the air and blows the lighter chaff away from
the heavier grain as they are falling. The richer
farmers have separators built upon a primitive
plan and turned with a crank. People often
winnow grain by pouring it from a scoop upon
a fan three or four feet wide, upon which it is
tossed up and down gently so as to leave the
chaff in the air when it falls. Another method
of threshing is to beat the heads of grain upon
a board or a row of bamboo poles.
Sometimes you see whole families at it. In
passing through country districts in a carriage
or jinrikisha one finds the greater part of the
roadway preempted by the farmers of the neigh
borhood for the purpose of drying their grain,
350

Japanese Methods of Farming
which is spread out in thin layers upon long mats
and raked over every now and then by an old
woman in order that the particles on the bottom
may get their share of the sun. The straw,
which is still tied together in bunches, is hung
over racks along the roadside during the day
and carried under shelter at night to protect it
from dampness as well as from thieves. Some
times the racks are thirty or forty yards long
and eighteen or twenty feet high, with a series
of poles, and the farmer's wife or one of his
daughters comes along at intervals to inspect it,
to see that it is curing evenly, for it is almost as
valuable as the grain.
Every particle of straw is saved, and it is put
to a thousand uses. They make of it hats, shoes,
ropes, roofs, matting, the partitions and floors of
houses, water-proof coats, baskets, boxes and a
thousand and one other useful articles. They
braid it for fences, too, and the finer, softer qual
ities are cut up for fodder.
There is very little hay raised in Japan. The
grass is very wiry and indigestible. It cuts the
intestines of the animals. Some alfalfa is grown,
but it does not prosper. In the neighborhood
of Kobe, which is one of the seaports on the
southern shore, the soil seems to be better
adapted for hay, and the best beef comes from
that locality.
The ordinary Japanese horse, which origin-
351

The Yankees of the East
ated in China and is called a griffin, seems to
like straw and thrives upon it, but he is small
and ugly and is not capable of much endurance.
He resembles the Texan bronco in appearance,
but a journey of fifteen miles will use him up.
They chop the straw very fine for feeding pur
poses, mix it with oats, barley, millet and other
grains, and by adding water make a kind of
mush. Oxen are given the same food, and in
some portions of the country one sees a good
many of them. They draw their loads by ropes
stretched from a collar to the axle of a two-
wheeled cart. One man leads them by cords
attached to rings in their noses, while another
steers the vehicle with a tongue that sticks out
behind. On very rare occasions you find a man plow
ing with a cow or an ox, but more frequently
with man or woman power. The Japanese
plow is a section of the trunk or the branch of
a young tree with a proper curve to it, and is
all wood except a narrow pointed blade, which
is fitted into the framework. It has only one
handle. Every variety of agriculture is carried on in
a manner similar to that I have described, and
the soil is in constant use. A couple of acres is
considered a large tract of land for farming pur
poses. Most of the farms are of smaller area,
and the crops are greatly diversified. Upon
352

Japanese Methods of Farming
such a little spot of land will be grown almost
everything known to the vegetable kingdom ; a
few square feet of wheat, barley, corn and mil
let, a plat of beans perhaps ten feet wide by
twenty feet long, an equal amount of potatoes
and peas, then a patch of onions about as big as
a grave, beets, lettuce, salsify, turnips, sweet po
tatoes, vegetable oysters and other varieties of
cereals and roots occupy the rest of the area.
The farmer looks upon his growing crop
every morning, just as an engineer will inspect
the movements of his machinery, and if any
thing is wrong repairs it. If a weed appears in
the bean patch he pulls it up ; if a hill of pota
toes or anything else fails it is immediately re
planted. And when he cuts down a tree he al
ways plants another to take its place. The arti
ficial forests of Japan cover many hundreds of
square miles, and by this accuracy, economy and
care the prosperity of the country is permanently
assured. As one crop is harvested the soil is
worked over, fertilized and replanted with some
thing else.
The largest area of agricultural lands in Japan
is devoted to raising rice, perhaps as much as
nine-tenths of the whole, and, as that crop re
quires a great deal of water, the paddys are
banked up into terraces, one above the other,
and divided off into little plats twenty-five or
thirty feet square, with ridges of earth between
353

The Yankees of the East
them to keep the water from flowing away when
they are flooded. All farming land is irrigated
by a system that is a thousand years old. Some
of the ditches are walled up with bamboo wicker
work and some with tiles and stone.
The farmers live in villages and their farms
are detached, sometimes a mile or two and three
miles away from their homes. There are no
fences or other visible marks of division, but
every man knows his own land, for it has been
in his family for generations. Irrigating ditches
and little paths are usually the boundary lines.
Theoretically all the land belongs to the em
peror, but the greater part of that under cultiva
tion has been held in the same families for gen
erations and always descend from the father to
the oldest son. Sales are made and recorded
very much as they are in this country, and land
is mortgaged to secure loans. The actual value
of every acre is fixed upon the assessor's book
for taxation purposes.
The official statistics of Japan show that there
are 11,400,008 men and 10,948,053 women en
gaged in agriculture, which is more than half
the total population.
No other grain or plant requires so much
care as rice, and from the beginning of the
season the paddy fields are full of patient work
ers, men and women, standing half way up to
their knees in the mud preparing the soil or grub-
354

Japanese Methods of Farming
bing out the water weeds that spring up rapidly
and would smother the young shoots if they
were not removed. Men and women work to
gether, wearing wide straw hats that make them
look like so many mushrooms ; and although
the rest of the body may be naked, except for
the loin-cloth that is prescribed by law, they all
wear thick cotton leggings as high as their knees
to protect them from slugs, blood-suckers and
water vermin of various kinds that swarm in the
filthy soil.
Every farmer raises some rice. Roughly speak
ing, the rice product exceeds five bushels per
capita of population and more than half of it is
exported. The rice of Japan is the best in the
world, and brings the highest prices in the
markets of Europe and the United States.
The product of China, India and Korea is much
cheaper, although of poorer quality, and a ma
jority of the farmers in Japan prefer to sell their
own crop for export and buy that which is im
ported for home consumption.
Rice is used by the people in an infinite
variety of forms. It appears upon the table of
the prince as well as the pauper three times a
day, just like bread in America, and enters into
as many food preparations as our flour.
There can be no market for American agri
cultural implements and machinery in Japan for
two very simple reasons. First, the farms are
355

The Yankees of the East
not big enough, and second, labor is too plenty.
If a Japanese farmer should introduce a modern
reaper and self-binder upon his farm he would
cut down everything in the way of crops while
he was turning it around, and there wouldn't be
anything left for him and his family to do all the
rest of the season.
The tools used in the cultivation of the
ground are peculiar to Japan and quite curious.
Most of them are home-made and have never
been imitated by foreign manufacturers. The
farmers employ their winter evenings and stormy
days in making new implements and repairing
old ones with a little aid from the neighboring
blacksmith or traveling tinker. There are many
men who make a business of traveling from
village to village during the winter with a little
portable forge to assist in repairing tools for the
next season.
These tools last for a lifetime, as they are
kept with great care, and are often passed down
from generation to generation. Everything is
done by hand. You can travel all day in some
of the farming counties without seeing a horse
or a mule or any other kind of a beast of bur
den, and goats and sheep, cows and swine are
equally scarce.
The workingmen of Japan have no reason to
complain that the women do not carry their
half of the load. Whatever may be the position
356

THE COMLN'G GENERA'TION,

Japanese Methods of Farming
of the gentler sex in the household; although
she is not allowed to hold property or share in
the responsibilities that are usually divided be
tween husbands and wives in America, she is at
least admitted to an equality with man when
there is any hard work to be done. Wherever
you go, in the cities or villages, or the farming
communities, you find the wife and mother
working side by side with the husband and sons,
plowing, planting and reaping, and at sunset
taking home a large portion of the harvest in a
big basket on her back. Whenever you see a
man between a pair of tiny shafts tugging to
haul a heavily loaded cart up a hill, there is
always a woman pushing from behind, bare
headed, barefooted, except for a pair of straw
sandals, and wearing a pair of blue cotton leg- '
gings like tights from her waist to her ankles.
Sometimes the baby is playing with a few rude
toys on top of the load. Sometimes he is
strapped to her shoulders, and his head drops
from one side to the other with every motion of
her body until you fear it may fall off.
You find women standing knee deep in the
rice paddys, which are a thick mush of water,
soil and manure, preparing the ground for the
seed, and then, when the green shoots appear
above the surface, they wade in again and sepa
rate and transplant the little bunches of grain.
You can scarcely pass through a field without
357

The Yankees of the East
finding a woman weeding ; you cannot travel a
country road in the morning without meeting
hundreds of them with heavy bamboo packs
loaded with vegetables and other farm produce
on their way to market ; and while woman may
be satisfied with her assignments, it seems to
me that the men give her all the back breaking
work to do.
There is very little difference between the
dress of the sexes in the agricultural districts,
and as you go farther into the interior it be
comes less, until you find the farmer and his
wife and their sons and daughters wearing
very similar apparel, and very little of it, so
that you can scarcely distinguish them except
by their hair.
Silk and tea, the two chief exports of Japan,
are raised almost entirely by the labor of woman,
and in the mechanical arts she appears to par
ticipate equally in the labor, although she gets
little or none of the credit. Her deft fingers
fashion many of the choicest pieces of cloisonne
and the ceramics, and in the decoration of lac
quer that which comes from her hands is equal
and often superior to the work of man. She
weaves mats and other articles of straw; she
braids bamboo baskets and the thousand and
one other articles that are made from that useful
tree. She goes out with her husband in fishing
boats, and dries and salts the product that he
358

Japanese Methods of Farming
brings home ; she assists in house building and
cabinet making, and in various other occupa
tions which in the western countries are not con
sidered suitable to her sex, and does most every
thing that man can do quite as well and as rap
idly, although her wages in every employment
are only a little more than half of his. She is
always present in the shops and stores, usually
as bookkeeper and cashier. Some of the largest
stores are managed by women, and a few are
owned by them. And, although the laws and
social regulations of the country prohibit it,
sometimes you find a woman whose force of
character defies both courts and customs and
directs the financial affairs and the business of
her family as well as the matters that pertain to
the household.

359

XV
A Japanese Dinner
A ceremonious Japanese dinner is a tiresome
experience for an American, particularly if he
be in the habit of doing things in a hurry and
is given to stiff joints and embonpoint. But
the novelty is worth the test of endurance, and
if it happens to be in the home of a rich man,
where one can enjoy to the full measure the hos
pitality that is regarded as one of the fine arts
as well as one of the cardinal virtues, with all
the graces and formalities of oriental etiquette,
it will never be forgotten. We tried the tea
houses and the eel houses and the other native
restaurants, where one may order and eat what
he likes, subject only to that deliberation which
governs everything in Japan, and we had the
honor of being admitted to the hospitable homes
of several native friends, who arranged their en
tertainments so far as possible to conform to
foreign customs ; but it was not until we were
asked to dine with a gentleman whose wealth
and surroundings allow him to live in the
360

A Japanese Dinner
highest style of Japanese luxury that we saw the
real thing.
Buddhsim has left its impression upon the
diet as well as the manners of the Japanese.
The strict tenets of the church forbid the taking
of life, and, therefore, animal food was practi
cally abandoned in Japan more than one thou
sand years ago. Nine-tenths of the people still
live on vegetables and dried fish — the latter be
ing a concession to human frailty. Chickens
are used to some extent, and a pious fraud is
practiced by calling the deer a "mountain
whale." When you see the sign " Yamakujira"
written over a market or eating house it means
that they have venison for sale there under the
title I have given, but it is so expensive that
only the rich can indulge in that sort of sin.
Meat eating is on the increase, however, and
markets for the sale of beef, pork and mutton
are found in the neighborhood of all the fash
ionable districts. A familiar sign in Tokyo reads:
" Cow's Meat and Pig's Meat for
Sale Here."
But there are one thousand fish markets to
every meat market in Japan. You can buy fish
alive, fresh killed and preserved by a dozen dif
ferent methods. Not only does the ocean yield
an enormous harvest, but the rivers and lakes
are stocked by the government annually and
361

The Yankees of the East
people raise them just as we raise pigs and
chickens. Every man who has a garden has a
fish pond in which are usually found several va
rieties, and always carp, which grow as well as
in Germany, and eels, which are considered
great dainties.
There are three or four eel houses in Tokyo
that are as popular for dining as Kinsley's in
Chicago or Delmonico's in New York. The
Golden Koi has been made famous by Edwin
Arnold. When you enter that or any other eel
house you are led to a tank full of squirming
reptiles and asked to select your victims. The
larger eels are rank and coarse and greasy and
the American seldom tries them but once. The
little fellows, however, are delicious, particularly
when about five Inches long and broiled on a
bamboo skewer like kidneys or white bait. You
can see them cooked if you like, for true to their
habit of having everything the reverse of what
it is with us, the Japanese restaurants place their
kitchen in the front part of the house adjoining
the entrance and their dining-rooms somewhere
at the end of a series of corridors in the rear.
Most of them open upon beautiful gardens full
of arbors, urns, iron lanterns, dwarf trees, flowers
and other decorative effects. You have seen
pictures of them repeatedly on lacquer boxes,
fans and other examples of Japanese art.
The tea gardens in Japan are all alike, and
362

A Japanese Dinner
they are all lovely, but the houses would be more
comfortable if one could have tables and chairs
and knives and forks instead of being compelled
to sit on a mat in his stocking feet and endeavor
to eat with chopsticks. Everything is served on
little lacquered trays on the floor. The food is
usually in bowls or tiny cups which you can lift
to your mouth if you like and shovel in the food
as most of foreigners have to do, because the use
of chopsticks is an acquired art, and very few
can ever do it gracefully.
While you are eating there are always two or
three nesans or geisha girls to entertain you.
None of them can talk English, but at the tea
houses usually frequented by foreigners a few
useful words have been acquired, and, as the
girls are very quick of perception, it is only nec
essary to give them one-quarter of an idea and
they will supply the other three-quarters with
their native wit. No matter what Sir Edwin
Arnold and other sentimental writers on Japan
may say these girls are not pretty. Their fig
ures are shapeless, their features are flat, their
complexions are muddy, their teeth are bad, and
if they wore modern garments one would never
look at them a second time. They cannot com
pare in looks with the shop girls of Chicago and
New York, and the waitresses in our country
hotels will average quite as well for beauty. But
their kimonos are of the daintiest shades and
363

The Yankees of the East
combinations of color, their obis are of the richest
brocades, and their hair is a marvel in its ar
rangement. All this makes them interesting,
and they have pretty graceful manners, which
often, however, approach familiarity. The geisha
girl is not always naughty, but she tries to be
attractive, for that is her capital in trade. As
the tea houses are frequented by men only, she
naturally adopts the manners and the methods
that the customers most admire.
The girls receive no regular wages, but are
a sort of extra that is served with every order
and are paid by the customer and not by the
house. The habitues of particular restaurants
know them by name and order their geishas as
they order their dinner. If no special favorites
are called for they take their turn as customers
come in, always going in pairs. While you are
eating they sit around on the floor and make
themselves merry, repeating the latest gossip,
reciting little poems, telling anecdotes and jokes
and making themselves as entertaining as possi
ble. If you want them to sing or play the sam
isen they will do so, but their musical accom
plishments are not appreciated by foreigners,
who seldom ask them to sing twice. A Japan
ese song is a recitative in a minor key pitched
very high and interspersed with little squeals and
screeches. It has no melody or harmony and
one finds it difficult to detect any rhythm.
364

A Japanese Dinner
The rich people have large grounds surround
ing their houses even in the midst of a great
city like Tokyo, and when they dine the outer
screens are opened so that the guests may have
the benefit of the landscape. No other art has
reached a greater perfection than landscape gar
dening, and the host usually asks you to take a
stroll through his grounds before dinner, when
he points out his favorite flowers and bushes and
cuts you a bunch of roses. When you return to
the house you take off your shoes at the door
step and spend the rest of the evening in your
stocking feet or wear a pair of cotton overshoes,
if you have been thoughtful enough to bring
them from the hotel. Some Japanese families
who are in the habit of entertaining foreigners
keep these overshoes on hand, and they are
thoroughly appreciated by such visitors as are
sensitive to cold.
The wife of a Japanese gentleman never pre
sides at his table except when he has lady guests
but she usually makes her appearance when the
servants bring in the tea and sweetmeats that
always precede a dinner as cocktails or brandy
or sherry and bitters sometimes do with us. She
gives you a graceful greeting and than retires to
reappear as you are saying your "sayonaras,"
which is the Japanese for " good-by."
Thin silken cushions are scattered around
upon the floor, and the guests are arranged in
365

The Yankees of the East
the order of their rank or seniority, which is a
matter of great importance among so ceremoni
ous a people as the Japanese. Little tables
about six inches high, such as you see piled up
like pyramids in the bric-a-brac stores in Amer
ica, are brought in and placed before you. Then
bare-footed nesans, or waiting-maids, looking
fresh and cool and graceful in their soft-tinted
kimonos, bring trays of lacquer upon which are
several covered bowls. Before they leave the
trays upon the little tables they place them on
the floor for a moment while they make their
very best bow.
Bowing with us is a lost art. Our lumbar
vertebrae have never been limbered up to a de
gree sufficient for us to move more than the
head and perhaps the shoulders, but , the Japa
nese bow begins with the hips. When you meet
a gentleman or a lady they usually show you the
back of their neck several times before they
commence conversation, placing the hands upon
the knees and turning the body in a right angle.
Servants drop upon their knees, place their hands
upon the matting and touch the forehead upon
the floor. This ceremony is repeated with the
greatest gravity whenever they bring you a dish
or take one away, and they are trained to it from
childhood. A little boy or girl of 3 or 4 years
will make as dignified a bow as the most re
nowned instructor in decorum, and a Japanese
366

A Japanese Dinner
housekeeper is a great deal more particular about
the dress and manners of her servant than we are.
When you are in Japan you have to do as the
Japanese do, and you can find out their ways
easily by watching. Your host is thoughtful
and observing, and tries to put you at your ease
and help you along by dropping little hints as
to the manner of using your chop-sticks and the
customary way of doing this and that. Some
times at dinner they give you handsomely carved
ivory chop-sticks that are heirlooms, and may
have been in the family for generations, but it is
less ostentatious to furnish little strips of sweet
white wood highly polished and split apart for
only half their length to show that they have
never been used. No well-ordered family ever
uses the same chop-sticks the second time. The
ozen or tables, the lacquer trays, the bowls and
and cups in which your food is served are all of
the most exquisite workmanship and artistic
designs. You seldom see a porcelain plate or a
saucer at a Japanese dinner. Those are made
exclusively for the foreign trade, but the little
bowls and cups in which your food and sak^ are
served are works of art.
The host sets an example by removing the
covers from the bowls upon his tray and, imitat
ing him, you find an assortment of food that is en
tirely new and often trying to your palate. There
is no need of a knife, for everything is cooked in
367

The Yankees of the East
little morsels, but a fork would come mighty handy
and a spoon would be even better, for you find it
almost impossible to convey anything from your
tray to your mouth with chopsticks. They
slip and wobble and cross each other with a de
pravity that seems intentional You drop your
food into your lap and upon the floor in a most
amusing but embarrassing manner. Your host
offers a fork or a spoon, but the spirit of Ameri
can independence asserts itself and you make
another effort. Finally the host remarks courte
ously: "Sometimes we do it this way," and lifts
his bowl to his lips and shovels in the food as
you would shovel coal into a cellar. This method
cannot be recommended for gracefulness or re
finement, but it is better than starvation.
There are half a dozen dishes in each course,
and your host kindly tells you what they are.
First, suimono, a kind of bean soup ; kuchitori,
chestnuts boiled and crushed into a mush ; kam-
aboko, fish picked fine and then rolled into
little balls and baked ; sashimi, raw fish cut into
tiny slices and covered with ice. This is dipped
into a rich sauce called soy, and really doesn't
taste as bad as it sounds. Each course is served
with little cups of warm sak^ — the native brandy,
made of rice. There is no bread or butter, and
you will not have a napkin offered you unless
you ask for it.
The second course is a small fish broiled
368

A Japanese Dinner
whole, with the head and tail on, which is very
difficult to eat with chopsticks ; umani, bits of
fowl boiled with lotus roots or potatoes ; a little
salad made of onions, peas and string beans,
with a few leaves of lettuce or cresses; su-no-
mono, sea slugs served with eggplant, mashed
as we do potatoes, and chawan-mushi, a thick,
custardy soup made of fish and vegetables, with
mushrooms for a relish.
The third course is usually a curry with rice
and pickled vegetables, such as eggplant, cab
bage leaves, radishes and onions ; and for a
fourth and final course you have soba, a sort of
buckwheat vermicelli served with soy and a sweet
liqueur called mirin ; shiruko, rice cakes, sea
weed and all sorts of confectionery, which is
very sweet and tasteless.
The nesans keep your sakd cup full, and dur
ing the course of the dinner each of the com
pany rises and proposes the health of the host
and then some other guest until the whole party
is disposed of. This is a trying ordeal to one
who does not like sak^, for you must lift your
little cup to your forehead in salutation each
time and then empty it in three sips. It holds
only a thimbleful, but it is fiery stuff and inflames
the blood more than our brandy. It is custom
ary also to drink the health of the waitresses,
who bow their foreheads to the floor in acknowl
edgment while the compliment is paid them.
369

The Yankees of the East
At the close of the dinner the tabako bon,
a tray holding a tiny hibachi with live coals in a
cone of ashes and a section of bamboo for an
ash receiver is placed before you, and cigarettes
and cigars are passed around in boxes of cloi
sonne that tempt you to violate the command
ment that forbids stealing.
You rise from a Japanese dinner with your
legs aching, a sense of unnecessary fullness and
a craving for food, and when you reach the
hotel you feel inclined to send for a plate of
crackers and cheese or a sandwich. The native
diet is clean, free from grease and rich in carbon,
but it does not satisfy a foreign appetite, and to
sit on your heels for two hours is more tiresome
than climbing a mountain.
When ex-Secretary Foster arrived in Japan
on his way home from the peace conference in
China, he was waited upon by a committee of
prominent citizens of Tokyo, who tendered him
a complimentary dinner as an evidence of their
respect and confidence and their appreciation of
his services in the restoration of peace ; for the
intelligent men of both nations feel indebted to
Mr. Foster. The Chinese think that if it had
not been for his skill in diploraacy they would
not have got off as easily as they did, and the
Japanese believe it was his influence with the
Chinese government that caused their terms to
be accepted and complied with so promptly.
370

A BILL FOR TRAVELLING.

A Japanese Dinner
Although Mr. Foster declined all public
functions, he consented to accept private hospi
tality, and one evening, just before his depar
ture, he was entertained at the mansion of Mr.
Okura. Mr. Yokoyama, a former partner of
Mr. Okura, and Mr. Shibusawa, one of the
richest men in the country, were joint hosts.
The other guests represented the several
official branches of the government, including
several of the cabinet ministers and their secre
tary. Count Ito, who exchanged the ratifications
of the peace treaty with China.
It is difficult to describe Mr. Okura's palace
without knowing the names and the uses of
things. But it seeraed to be all carvings, gold
leaf, lacquered wood work and erabroidered
screens, and was filled with the rarest bronzes,
ceramics and cloisonne. It is three stories in
height, stands upon a hill overlooking the city
of Tokyo, and is surrounded by magnificent
groves and gardens, which are inclosed within
a high walk There isn't a fixed partition in
the whole house, but the rooms are divided by
sliding screens of most beautiful decorative
design and workraanship.
The outside walls are made of similar screens,
three in succession. The first are of solid wood
like shutters, which can be adjusted so as to let
in as much light and air as is needed in the
summer and shut out the cold winds and snows
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The Yankees of the East
of winter. Within this shell are little balconies
on every side of the house about three feet in
width and of the level of the floor. Then comes
a series of sliding screens made of glass and the
most exquisite cabinet work, the wood being in
its natural color, without oil, paint or varnish.
Some of the panes of glass were large and some
were small.
Fitting closely to this was a third series of
screens, most beautifully finished in gold and
lacquer, which can be opened and closed at will,
and according to the weather. It was a warm
night and most of them were open, so that the
guests might have the benefit of the breeze that
carae up the bay of Tokyo.
The floors are made of the customary Japan
ese mats, such as you find in every house, but of
the finest quality, and the woodwork between
them was polished till it shone like a mirror.
Over them were spread adjustable mats of fine
rattan, highly polished, varnished and stained a
golden yellow. The stairs and vestibules are
marquetry of polished woods. The house was
handsomely decorated with flowering plants and
the little dwarf trees, for which Japan is so fa
raous. The gardeners of this country, with in
finite skill and patience, and -with raethods which
those of other lands have never been able to im
itate, will produce a symmetrical and perfect
cherry tree or a pear or a pine or a cedar not
372

A Japanese Dinner
more than twelve or eighteen inches high, that
bears the same proportion and resemblance to
the natural tree as Commodore Nutt bore to the
Australian giant.
Grouped upon handsomely carved stands
were some of the finest examples of the bronze
and porcelain arts that can be found in Japan,
while the embroideries that were both framed in
screens and hung from the walls are beyond my
power of description. The carved friezes, arches
and columns are perhaps even more reraarkable.
Some of them are in the natural color of the
wood, some are lacquered, others are gilded.
In alraost every room was a "tokonoma," as
they call a little recess or alcove where a hand
some "kakemono" — an embroidered or painted
scroll — is hung over a vase of flowers, and some
times a tablet or other memorial to the ancestors
of the family. That is the place of honor which
the emperor would occupy if he ever came to the
house, and the guest is always seated before it.
We took off our shoes in the vestibule. That
is always necessary when you enter a Japanese
house, for one would as soon think of tramping
with hob-nailed soles upon the top of a grand
piano as upon the polished floors of a Japanese
gentleman's dwelling. Servants took our wraps,
and at the same time handed us heelless felt
slippers with just a little pocket for the toes,
which require experience to keep on the feet.
373

The Yankees of the East
The Japanese guests wore "tabbies" — cloth
stockings with soles of felt.
We were shown to the upper story first, where
the hosts received us with a cordial welcome,
and we were introduced to the other guests as
they came in. Brandy and bitters, sherry and
cocktails were placed upon a table, with caviar
sandwiches for those who wished to sharpen
their appetites, and cigarettes of American man
ufacture were served before and after dinner.
We were disappointed when we found it was
to be a French dinner served in European style
instead of a genuine Japanese affair, but the
menu as well as the cooking and the service
could not have been excelled in Paris. The
table was spread in a curious room on the second
story where the ceiling and the friezes were elab
orately carved and gilded relics of an old Shinto
teraple, and the walls were made of large sliding
screens of gold and black lacquer. One side of
the room was entirely open to the night air, and
we could see the lights of the city extending for
several miles to the south of us as we sat at the
table. In this room, which is the most elaborate and
artistic of Mr. Okura's mansion, the tokonoma
was concealed by golden doors, behind which
were portraits of the emperor and empress. In
accordance with the custora of a country where
patriotism is a religion, and the ruler is believed
374

A Japanese Dinner
to have descended directly from the gods, a por
tion of the banquet was placed beneath their por
traits by the host before the guests were served
or even seated.
The only national feature of the bill of fare
was miniature representations of Fujiyama the
sacred mountain, in frozen tea, which was like
the coffee glacd or leraon and orange ice that
we have in the United States, except that it had
a strong flavor of the Japanese staple.
As the coffee was served Mr. Okura arose and
delivered an address of welcorae, in which he
expressed the gratification of the people of
Japan, and particularly the comraercial and in
dustrial interests, at the happy termination of
the war and their appreciation of the efforts of
Mr. Foster to secure terms of peace which
should be satisfactory and honorable to both
countries. He spoke of the public services of
the guest of the evening in his own and other
countries, and wished hira a long career of use
fulness. He alluded to the friendship that every
Japanese feels for the United States and to the
fact that our people were their leaders and in
structors in the science of civilization. He
expressed the hope that trade between the two
countries raight be iraproved, and said it was
the wish of both the people and the govern
ment of Japan that there might be closer com
mercial as well as political relations between
375

The Yankees of the East
them. He also extended a few cordial words of
welcome to Gen. George B. Williaras of Wash
ington, who originally went to Japan twenty-four
years ago to assist in organizing the finance de
partment of the government upon modern
methods and was therefore received like an old
friend when he returned to Tokyo.
After the speech had been translated by Mr.
Yokayaraa, Mr. Foster and Gen. Williams replied
in an appropriate manner.
Coffee was served on the floor below, where
the formality that had prevailed up to this hour
was soraewhat broken in upon by the giggling
of geishas and the tuning of samisens and
other musical instruments behind certain screens.
The only chairs in the house were those that
had been brought from the hotel to accommo
date the party, for in the finest mansions, even
in the palace of the mikado, the family and
guests usually sit on the floor. Cigars and cigar
ettes were served, and a beautifully embroidered
curtain was dropped about the center of the
room to conceal the preparations for a typical
Japanese entertainment.
The first act was a pathetic little comedy, in
volving four characters and incidents which are
supposed to have happened 150 years ago. The
daughter of a dairayo, as the feudal princes were
called in the olden times, was much annoyed by
a monkey that belonged to an itinerant mounte-
376

A Japanese Dinner
bank and juggler, and proposed to kill it. The
samurai, or knight, who accompanied her, tried
without avail to protect the poor animal, when
the owner of the monkey came in. He failed
also, but her heart was softened by the graceful
caperings and clever tricks of the little beast and
the affection the raountebank displayed for it,
so she offered to spare its life provided he would
sell or give it to her. Then came a pathetic
scene in which the juggler preferred to part
with his own life rather than his raonkey, and
which ended by an agreement that they should
all travel together. They did so after joining
in a concerted dance.
All this was conveyed to us in pantomime
and an occasional dialogue by four damsels
dressed and made up in an appropriate manner.
The part of the raonkey was taken by a child
seven or eight years old. One of the actresses,
she who played the part of the samurai, showed
considerable talent. While the performance was
going on two women sat in a corner and sung
the story to the accompaniment of samisens.
After an interval there was a typical geisha
dance by some popular members of that profes
sion, which had its story also, as all Japanese
performances do. It was supposed to be a poera
in motion concerning the mistress of a certain
shogun who ruled Japan hundreds of years ago,
and lived such a luxurious life that the story
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The Yankees of the East
books are full of legends about him. The
dance related to the punishment of an artist who
indiscreetly transferred to canvas some scenes
he witnessed while an inmate of the shogun's
palace, and was banished to a desert island for
life. From the Japanese standpoint the geishas
were beautiful and graceful, but judged from
the American standard they were neither.
Their garments were gorgeous, but their faces
were so covered with paint and powder as to
conceal almost every trace of human semblance.
It raay be said that in these performances there
is never the slightest suggestion of iraraodesty,
or the least exposure of the person, which is con
sidered so necessary to high art in Europe and
the United States. It was a remarkable and
picturesque performance, the first of the kind
that some of us had ever witnessed, and the
most blas6 of the guests never saw anything
more complete and elegant.
The Japanese dietary includes a great many
flowers and fruits we do not recognize as food.
For instance, sunflower seeds are dried and
eaten raw with salt ; the blossoms of the national
flower, the chrysanthemum, are made into a
salad and are boiled and eaten with salt ; the
root is a coramon article of food. The stalk of
the japonica, boiled and highly seasoned, is
considered a great luxury. The burdock root
378

A Japanese Dinner
and leaves are both eaten. The artichoke is
one of the commonest of dishes. The leaves
and seeds of the sago palm, and the beans or
seeds of the poppy, dried and powdered, are
used as a condiment. Watercress, mustard,
horse radish and rape are quite as common as
they are with us. The grape fruit or shaddock
is a familiar dish, and there are half a dozen
different kinds of oranges, but they are very
sour. The horse chestnut and the acorn are
boiled and roasted, and sixteen varieties of lily
bulbs are served as delicacies with a little saki —
the national brandy — and sugar.
The famous Japanese sauce called "soyu"
in the native tongue, and known to us as " soy,"
is made from wheat and the soyu bean raixed
in equal proportions and ground very fine.
The flour is first boiled to a raush, and then
stearaed in a box or basket with a perforated
bottom. When the steaming is finished the
mush is put in a cask and left until a green
yeast appears. The compost is then taken out,
dried in the sun, and afterwards put into a cask
of salt water. After standing for a good length
of time — often for weeks — the liquid is strained
and the brown sauce is ready for use. It has a
hot but pleasant flavor, and is the basis of the
most renowned sauces used in Europe and
America. Worcestershire sauce, made in Japan,
can be bought at any grocery for about one-
379

The Yankees of the East
tenth the price asked for the genuine article, the
label and trade mark being forged. The natives
defend this forgery on the ground that Worces
tershire sauce is nothing but the native soyu,
and that the formula was originally stolen from
Japan.

380

A BUDDHIST PRIEST.

XVI
The Educational System of Japan
The most interesting institutions in Japan
are the schools. No country, not even Germany
or the United States, has a better educational
system, in theory, although there are many de
fects apparent to the foreigner that are due to
inexperience. In ancient times and up to the restoration in
1868 education was in the hands of the Bud
dhist priesthood, and was carried on in the tem
ples upon the Chinese plan. Confucius was the
great schoolmaster, and the Chinese classics were
committed to memory. A few ardent and am
bitious students picked up a smattering of the
sciences from books that were borrowed or
begged or stolen from the Hollanders, who were
still allowed to occupy a little island in Nagasaki
harbor, and many paid with their lives the pen
alty of having scientific treatises in their posses
sion and using other methods to increase their
knowledge. No one was permitted to learn
anything that was not taught by the priests, for
381

The Yankees of the East
fear of introducing foreign notions into the
country, and a Japanese who was suspected of
having books in his possession was punished
more severely than Irishmen who introduce
dynamite into England.
But with the revolution of 1868 all this was
changed. Old prejudices and practices were
swept away, and the country plunged into a
carapaign of education that was as excessive as
the restrictions under the shogun had been
severe. The pioneer of Japanese education was
Joseph Neeshima, a native of Tokyo of the sam
urai or warrior class, whose father was a retainer
of the prince of Joshu. He was ten years old
when Commodore Perry entered the bay of
Yedo, and when he was sixteen he accidentally
obtained an atlas in the Chinese language, which
inspired him with a desire to see and know
something of the world. Through a friend he
secretly obtained a Dutch volume entitled "A
Book of Nature," and finally secured a copy of
the Bible or a part of one in the Chinese lan
guage. In 1864, when he was nineteen he ob
tained permission to visit the port of Hokadate,
and there fell in with a Russian priest, from
whom he obtained much interesting information
and through whom he secured an opportunity
to escape from Japan on an American schooner
bound for Shanghai. In those days the crime
of leaving the empire without permission of the
382

The Educational System of Japan
government was punished by death. Neeshima,
however, had no intention of returning to his
home, and only thought of reaching Europe or
the United States, where he could learn some
thing of the great world that he had read about
in the Atlas. After serving for a year on the ship
Wild Flower, first as a cabin-boy and then as a
hand before the mast, Neeshima landed in Boston
with a limited knowledge of English that he
had picked up from the sailors, and bought a
copy of "Robinson Crusoe" at a slop-shop the
first time he went ashore.
The owner of the ship was Alpheus Hardy,
a man who exercised great influence in New
England in those days, and when he learned
from the captain that a young Japanese was
aboard he sent for him, talked with him, and de
cided to take him for a house servant, but when
he fathomed Neeshima's ambition he placed him
in Phillips academy at Andover instead. Here
he was prepared for Amherst college, graduated
in 1870, and returned to Andover Theological
seminary to fit hiraself for missionary work.
While he was there the famous Japanese embassy
visited the United States, and, feeling the need
of an interpreter to assist them in their study of
foreign institutions, they sent for Neeshima and
offered him a handsome salary if he would serve
them in such a capacity. He agreed to do so
provided he was granted a full pardon, and was
383

The Yankees of the East
given the imperial permission to return to Japan
to teach English and Christianity. These con
ditions were cheerfully conceded, and Count
Ito, the present prime minister, who was a mem
ber of the embassy, made out the documents.
Mr. Neeshima accompanied the embassy
through America and Europe, then returned to
Andover to complete his studies, and finally
went to Japan with ?S,ooo in his pocket, which
was furnished him by Mr. Hardy, Peter Parker,
Williara E. Dodge, Gov. Page of Vermont
and others, for the purpose of establishing a
Christian school. He received the active en
courageraent of Count Ito, Count Inouye and
other prominent politicians, who assisted hira in
raising ^40,000 to enlarge and extend the school.
Count Okuma, Count Inouye, Count Ito and
others of equal prominence subscribed $1,000
each, while several citizens of Tokyo gave $2,000,
$3,000, $5,000 and $6,000 each. It is known
as the Doshisha university and is under the care
of the American Board of Foreign Missions.
Several large endowments were made in the
United States ; some by men and woraen now
living, others by legacy. One of the largest
contributors was a Unitarian. Another professed
no religion at all, but considered such a univer
sity as Mr. Neeshima founded an important
agency in the civilization of Japan. Mr. J. N.
Harris, of New London, in 1890, founded a
384

The Educational System of Japan
school of science, and Mr. Sears, the Boston
millionaire has been a liberal contributor.
For many years the institution was very pop
ular and prosperous, but of late it has suffered
from a lack of students. This is due to a dif
ference of opinion concerning its raanagement
and a prejudice on the part of the Japanese
public against what they term foreign interfer
ence in the educational system of the country.
They insist that it should be given over entirely
to native raanagement, and that the faculty
should be composed of native professors alone.
They argue that such changes are absolutely
essential to the further maintenance of the uni
versity; that unless the religious features are re
raoved the institution will become simply an
ordinary missionary school with none but
charity students, and that its usefulness will
soon end. While there is a great deal of force
in these arguments, which is admitted by the
foreign professors and members of the board of
trustees, they feel a sense of responsibility re
garding the endowments that have been made
for the benefit of the university by American
citizens and the raoney contributed to its sup
port by the American Board of Foreign Mis
sions. Nor can they divest themselves of this
responsibility, particularly as they believe the
university will soon lose its character as a Chris
tian institution if they withdraw.
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The Yankees of the East
There is a strong prejudice everywhere in
Japan against sectarian education. The Bud
dhist schools have been abolished by the gov
ernment and Christian schools are allowed only
in the foreign reservations. The Doshisha is
an exception. It is the only institution of any
importance in Japan outside the reservations at
which a Christian education can be obtained,
and it is feared that if it should be given over
to Japanese control the purpose of Mr. Neeshima
and those who assisted him will be defeated and
its influence as a religious agency will cease.
In 1876 a department for women was added
to Mr. Neeshima's school, and in 1883 it took
the character of a university. In 1885 the tenth
anniversary was celebrated with great ceremony,
attended by prominent officials of the govern
ment, and many letters and telegrams of con
gratulation and commendation were received
from influential natives. In 1890 Dr. Neeshima
died, worn out with labor and anxiety. No
private citizen of Japan was ever buried with
higher honors, paid both by the great and the
humble. There was even a delegation of Bud
dhist priests at his funeral, although he was pro
nounced "the headcenter of Christianity in
Japan" and was a Buddhist apostate.
Dr. Kozaki, a member of the faculty, one of
the early graduates of the institution, was elected
president to succeed Dr. Neeshima, and has car-
386

The Educational System of Japan
ried on the institution with moderate ability, al
though his sympathies are supposed to be with
the anti-foreign element. A hospital and train
ing school for nurses was added to the medical
department soon after Dr. Neeshima's death, and
in 1 89 1 a school of law and political science was
founded by Japanese contributors. A library
was also established by native subscriptions and
has about 5,000 volumes, mostly of Japanese
literature. There have been as many as 1,200 students
enrolled, but now there are only about 300 —
sixty-five in the theological department, thirty-
six in the scientific, seventeen in the law, twenty-
two in the medical department and nineteen in
the school of economics. The remainder are
in the collegiate course, including sixty-eight
young women. The largest falling off has been
in the women's school, where there were at one
tirae as raany as 400. Among the graduates of
the institution are many men of prominence in
political and commercial affairs. Several are
members of parliament. The president of the
board of aldermen in the city of Kyoto is an
alumnus. He is also a deacon and superintend
ent of the Sunday school of the native Con
gregational church. The president of the
street-car company in Kyoto was ene of the
earlier graduates. He is also a member of the
Congregational church. I might make a long
387

The Yankees of the East
list of others of similar prominence who feel a
deep interest in the welfare of the institution,
but cannot do much in the way of resisting the
tendency of public opinion, which has been
stronger than ever since the close of the war.
President Kozaki in his annual report to the
board of trustees explains the prejudice against
Doshisha as follows :
" In recent years there has been a tendency toward
a constant diminution of students owing to many
causes. " I. At present there is a small demand for edu
cated men in desirable positions in Japan, and hence
the number of students is less compared with a few
years ago.
"2. Recently there has been national business
depression, which has deprived young men of the
means of securing an education.
" 3. The government has lately decided that the
higher middle schools must receive candidates only
directly from the high schools. This has worked
injury to all private schools.
" 4. Finally, the nationalistic spirit has been very
strong and the demand for foreign languages small.
Especially has there been a strong anti-Christian
spirit, so that all mission schools have suffered
greatly. " Moreover, the one great error about the Japanese
idea of education is that parents and students alike
think that by their learning the latter will secure
a livelihood at once upon graduation. True, genuine
education will not flourish among us unless we remove
such a mistaken idea." 388

The Educational System of Japan
Dr. Kozaki's explanations ought to apply
equally well to the other educational institutions
in this country, but with the exception of the
schools for young women they do not. On the
contrary, in every other branch of education
there is as much eagerness and zeal as there has
ever been, and the value of learning is being
appreciated more and raore by the Japanese
every year. The reaction that has partially sup
pressed the once popular movement for the edu
cation of women has been referred to in another
chapter, and I -will only here mention an adver
tisement of a " boarding school for young
ladies," which shows very clearly how the wind
blows. It announces the following curricu
lum :
•'Japanese, Chinese, French and English languages;
foreign and Japanese politeness ; arithmetic, history,
geography, etc. ; needlework ; Japanese drawing and
music ; (foreign drawing, piano, etc., voluntary.)"
In rauch larger type it is announced that
Japanese and foreign pupils " are entirely sep
arated from each other in classes and in every
thing else, and Japanese pupils are trained in
the antique mode of Japanese politeness." It
is also promised that they shall receive Japanese
food and follow the Japanese mode of living,
and that no religious instruction or books will
be allowed them except at the formal request of
their parents. 389

The Yankees of the East
The trouble with the Doshisha college and
with other institutions that might be named is
that this precocious people think they are pre
pared to manage their own affairs and do not
desire further assistance from foreigners. They
feel just as the people of the United States
would feel if one of our prominent educational
institutions was under the control of Japanese,
only more so. The governraent is getting rid
of all the foreigners in its employ as fast as pos
sible, and certain of the newspapers are scolding
because they don't get rid of them faster. There
is no particular prejudice against Americans,
nor against Christians. On the contrary, there
is the kindliest feeling toward our country and
our countrymen in Japan, which is exhibited on
all occasions and by all classes of people. The
same objection is raised to Capt. L. L. Janes,
who has become a Buddhist, that is offered to
the Christian teachers in the government em
ploy. It is simply a desire on the part of the
Japanese to paddle their own canoe, and Institu
tions that are conducted by foreigners are not
patronized as much as those under native con
trol. The Japanese are perfectly willing to keep
all of the money that has been given to the
Doshisha university and other schools, and they
will accept as much raore as the Americans and
Europeans are willing to contribute, but they
want to spend it themselves. Some of the more
390

The Educational System of Japan
thoughtful advocates of Japanese control have
suggested that funds should be raised in Japan
to repay the endowments that have been placed
upon the institution, so that there can be no
further misunderstanding. This certainly would
simplify matters.
Dr. M. L. Gordon, who is one of the oldest
missionaries in Japan and a trustee and professor
in Doshisha university, thinks the institution
will survive its perils, and that the controversy
will be satisfactorily settled. He says the Jap
anese are perfectly competent to conduct the in
stitution, and he thinks it might be well, per
haps, to give them an opportunity to do so,
provided a satisfactory arrangement can be
made under which the university shall be main
tained forever as a Christian institution, accord
ing to the intention of its founders.
Dr. Gordon thinks also that the Christian
church in Japan is strong enough to stand alone.
"It is firmly intrenched," he said last sum
mer. "It is the only church that is growing.
The other churches are not only making no
progress, but are in a state of decay. They are
contenting themselves with resisting the advance
of Christianity, and are using all sorts of
methods. The anti-foreign feeling and the
strong national spirit that has been developed
by the war give them good raaterial to work
with, and the Buddhist and Shinto priests are
391

The Yankees of the East
largely responsible for the prejudice that exists
against foreign teachers and foreign systems of
education. The Buddhists have organized asso
ciations like our Y. M. C. A. in almost every
town in the empire. They have established
summer schools for the study of Buddhism in
every province, and have recently commenced
the publication of magazines for the purpose of
reaching the reading eleraent of the coraraunity.
Shintoism is alraost exhausted. It has come to
mean nothing but patriotism and the worship
of the eraperor, and with the education of the
people it will disappear as a religion."
At the time Joseph Neeshima was establishing
his university the government was founding a
system of public education upon the American
plan under American advice. The iraperial
university is the sumrait of the system, while
the kindergarten is the base upon which it stands.
As explained in another chapter there is a com
pulsory-education law in Japan, but it is not
strictly enforced, because the children of the
poor are kept at work, and the government pre
fers not to excite popular prejudice against the
schools. But every village and township has its
school privileges, and there are very few people
in the country at present, who have been born
since the revolution of 1868, that cannot read
and write.
There are now 25,404 public schools, with
392

The Educational System of Japan
67,688 teachers, of whom 63,410 are men and
4,278 are women. The number of pupils in
attendance is 3,290,313, of whom 2,302,549 are
boys and 978,746 girls, which is a rather large
school attendance for a population of 41,000,000.
There are forty-seven normal schools, eighty-
nine scientific schools, twenty-seven high-class
colleges for the education of young women, one
military academy, one naval academy, one acad
emy of music, one school of commerce, one
technological institute, of which Mr. Tejima, who
was a commissioner to the World's Fair, is prin
cipal, with 292 students, and a school of fine
arts, with 214 students. In addition to these
there are fifty-two commercial colleges, eight
schools for teaching telegraphy, eleven agricul
tural colleges, nine law schools with 6,259 pu
pils, six schools of medicine with 7,058 pupils,
three veterinary schools with 90 pupils, eleven
institutions for teaching mathematics, engineer
ing and the practical sciences with 897 pupils,
and nine private art schools with 951 pupils.
There are also one hundred and two private
schools for teaching English, four for French,
ten for German and one for Russian, seventy-
four institutions for teaching penmanship and
one hundred and fifty-seven for the training of
nurses and raidwives.
The governraent maintains two special schools
for the education of young princes and princ-
393

The Yankees of the East
esses and the sons and daughters of the nobles.
The boys' school is under the special patronage
of the emperor and the girls' school under that
of the empress. The former has one hundred
and seventeen pupils and the latter three hun
dred and eighty-one. There are institutions
for the education of the deaf and dumb, the
blind, the idiotic, and very many private schools
and academies for various purposes.
Every fad and fancy has its place in the edu
cational system". The trouble is that there has
been too much theoretical and too little practical
education. In the old days, as in China now,
the only business of an educated man was to
hold office, and the people haven't got that idea
entirely out of their heads. The result is a
large and growing number of half-educated, im
mature young men, from the lower classes, who
came from the farms and shops into the schools,
and being unable for lack of means to pursue
their studies any longer are floating idly about
the cities, particularly Tokyo, the capital, with
out any prospect of employment and very little
desire to earn an honest living. They are too
proud to work and are incompetent to occupy offi
cial or professional positions. "As Satan finds
some mischief still for idle hands to do" many
of them naturally become criminals. The super
intendent of the penitentiary told me that he

394

The Educational System of Japan
had a large nuraber in his charge. They steal,
forge other men's names and obtain money
under false pretenses, but the greater part of
this Soshi class are professional politicians.
They have no vote, because the right of suffrage
is limited to taxpayers, but they can speak and
yell at public meetings, march in processions,
canvass the working people and create a public
sentiment that is very deceptive.
It is refreshing to turn from this useless and
mischievous class of raen to the Imperial Music
school, which is located in Uyeno park and is
under the special patronage of the empress. We
attended the coraraenceraent exercises and saw
a class of thirty-eight young ladies and gentle
men receive their diplomas. The ceremonies
took place in the large hall before an audience
of perhaps one thousand, fathers and mothers
and brothers and sisters and friends of the
graduates. A great many dignitaries — princes
and nobles and officials of the government —
were present, and seats were reserved for them.
And what a time the ushers did have in getting
them seated !
The Japanese are a very ceremonious people.
Their etiquette has the force of law and the
privileges and prerogatives of rank are univer
sally acknowledged. It was necessary to seat
all these important guests in the order of their

395

The Yankees of the East
positions and titles, and it looked for a time as
if the gentlemen in charge would go crazy in
trying to perform that perplexing duty. They
would get those present all fixed in their proper
places when another prince or another peer
would come in, which made it necessary to upset
the whole arrangement and shift everybody to
other chairs.
And such a lot of bowing! Every Japanese
gentleman turns himself into a right angle three
or four tiraes before he speaks to a friend that
he meets on the street, and the politest man
makes the last bow. Whenever a person of ira
portance carae into this musical concern every
body bowed to him; not a simple movement of
the head as we make, but a genuine doubling up
of the body, and it did seem as if the exercises
would never commence, because the peers kept
straggling in one after another and all these
greetings had to be gone through with.
But after three-quarters of an hour's post
ponement the pupils were ushered in and took
seats alongside of the platform. The boys, who
wore European clothes, looked' very awkward
and ugly, but the girls, who wore the native
dress, looked prim and picturesque in their soft-
tinted kimonos and brilliant-colored obis, and
such a fixing and a fussing there was to get
them arranged in proper order. They were as
conscious and coquettish as the sweet-girl gradu-
396

The Educational System of Japan
ate at home. So far as I can see, women are
alike the world over.
Finally, after the audience was very tired and
very warm, Mr. Uyehara, the president of the
institution, came to the platforra and made an
address; and then his excellency the Marquis
Saionji, minister of state for education, was in
troduced, and took from his pocket a manuscript
which he read in a low voice that sounded like
the intonation of a priest. It had the merit of
being short, but the marquis did not furnish a
very good example of Japanese oratory.
Next the director of the school said some
thing and introduced the chairman of the com
mittee of education in parliament, who wore a
long frock coat and a pair of sky-blue trousers
and looked very uncomfortable and embarrassed
when he presented the diplomas.
After the graduates had marched up one by
one and received their sheepskins Miss Taka-
hashi, who wore a kimono of a delicate shade of
green and an obi of golden brocade, stepped
upon the platforra and replied to the addresses
of the four dignitaries in a most graceful man
ner. Her voice was pitched at too high a key,
but it was as clear and sweet as a temple bell
and all the audience could hear every syllable.
It isn't often that a Japanese woman, particularly
a girl of eighteen, addresses a public assembly.
Such a thing was unheard of ten years ago and
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The Yankees of the East
is still considered a reraarkable event, but she
was as cool and as conscious as if she had done
nothing else all her life.
Then we had a musical programme, in which
all the graduates participated to show their accom
plishments and excite the admiration of their
friends. The first selection was a vocal chorus
entitled "Haniu No Yado," but before three
bars were finished we recognized " Horae, Sweet
Home." Therewere organ and piano solos and
duets, orchestral numbers, with violins, violas,
organs, pianos and other instruments, vocal solos
and duets, mostly classical rausic selected from
such German composers as Wagner, Schumann,
Gurabert, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Meyerbeer,
De Beriot and Schubert. The vocal music was
as comraonplace and the piano-playing as con
ventional as we usually hear on such occasions
at home, but the violin playing was excellent,
one young lady, a Miss Tojo, showing genius of
a high order.
This school is nine years old. It was origi
nally under the direction and instruction of im
ported Gerraan professors, but they have all
been sent home, except one, a lady teacher of
vocal music. The rest of the faculty are Jap
anese who were educated in Europe.
When the light of civilization first dawned
upon Japan after the visit of Commodore Perry
to that country, the government sent to the
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The Educational System of Japan
United States a large number of young men to
be educated in science and modern methods.
They have since been the leaders of politics and
society there, and to their enterprise and intel
ligence is largely due the rapid progress that has
astonished the world.
In imitation of this example the Japanese
government induced the king of Korea to send
to Tokyo 113 young men from fifteen to twenty-
five years of age for similar instruction. They
were selected from the families of the nobles,
and all of the eight provinces are represented.
They were chosen by means of a literary
examination at which several hundred candi
dates presented themselves. The government
allows them their actual expenses and fifteen
yen, which is about $7.50 per month, forspend
ing money. They are in charge of Mr. Fuku-
zawa and after they learn the language will take
up the study of the various branches of
physical science. They are required to abandon
their native costume and now wear European
dress. It is understood to be the intention of
the king of Korea to send another battalion of
young fellows as soon as the finances of his
government will permit it.
The strongest and most influential men in
Japan to-day are those who have been educated
in England and America. This has been de
monstrated in the civil service of the govern-
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The Yankees of the East
ment, as well as in the army and navy during
the recent war with China. That struggle
might not have been so brief and one-sided if
the Chinese government had continued its origi
nal policy, which was the same as that of Japan,
for the education of young men in foreign
schools. Some years ago 120 Chinese students
were sent to the United States to be thor
oughly trained in the schools and colleges,
especially in modern science, and thirty or more
new ones were sent regularly every year for
several years, but suddenly an edict came from
the government at Pekin recalling every one of
thera. Some think it was due to the hostile
legislation enacted by our congress against the
Chinese, and that may have had its influence,
but, however, the policy of foreign education
was abruptly abandoned and the American stu
dents were received with marked disfavor when
they returned home.
The Japanese language is polysyllabic. It is
rausical and graceful, especially when spoken by
the ladies. It is poetical in imagery, capable of
infinite humor, lending itself readily to jests
and puns. It is dignified and sonorous
when spoken by an eminent orator like Fuku-
zawa Yukichi, the great educational reformer.
It is courtly in the mouths of the accomplished
and even of the lowest classes, who addressing
one another use honorifics in the most impres-
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The Educational System of Japan
sive way. It contains no foul words, no oaths —
no curses of any kind. The Kuru-ma-ya, who
draws a jinrikisha, uses, in conversation, expres
sions of courtesy which would grace the speech
of a Grand Monarque. It is true that he uses
them unconsciously, so ingrained are they in
the language, but they indicate a far greater con
sideration for the feelings of others than is shown
in the speech of even the most cultured classes
in England or in America. Of course there are
boors in Japan, as in all countries, but they are,
fortunately, few, and the very spirit of their lan
guage renders it difficult for them to give vent
to ill-natured or brutal feelings. The language is
polite beyond all European tongues, indeed
servile in the speech of inferiors towards su
periors in rank.
That the Japanese language can give ade
quate expression to the martial spirit of which
the nation has so recently shown fresh and strik
ing proof, is well known to all who have heard
Japanese troops singing on the march, or Japan
ese blue-jackets chanting war-songs pn the fore
castle. The best known of all Japanese war-
songs is, probably, the one to which the forces
of the Imperialist party marched to victory in
1868, when the restoration of the imperial power
was achieved and the era of the great change
commenced. It runs thus :

401

The Yankees of the East
" Miya Sama, Miya Sama !
O uma-no maye-ni
Pira-pira suru-no wa
Manja-i-na ?
Chorus —
To Ko-tonya, re-tony a; re-na!
Are wa cho-teki sei-batsu
Sei-to-noMishiki-no Mi-hata-wo
Sniranai ka?
ChORUS —
To Ko-tonya, re-tonya, re-na ! "
The language is erainently polysyllabic. No
better example of this can be required than the
term which stands for one of the three English
words of only one letter — the personal pronoun
" I," — for which the Japanese require four syl
lables : Watakushi. The very length of the first
personal pronoun, singular, which in the plural
becomes Wata-kushi-domo (a word of six syl
lables as against our monosyllable "we") must
tend towards modesty in Japanese style, literary
or epistolary, and conversation. It would not
prove convenient to some of the authors, jour
nalists and orators in this egotistical age. As a
matter of fact, the personal pronouns are com
monly omitted in Japanese, except where such
omissions might cause ambiguity.
When an attempt is first made to learn the
language the heart of the stoutest student quails
402

The Educational System of Japan
as he gazes upon a page printed or written in
the characters used in Japan to this day — ver
tical columns, from right to left, of Chinese
ideograms, interspersed with Japanese phonetic
characters, the signs of the Hira-gana syllabary.
They represent sounds only, whereas the Chinese
characters convey ideas, more or less pictorially,
without any reference to sound. When the stu
dent is told that he raust learn to identify at
least four thousand of the Chinese ideograms,
not to mention the forty-seven syllabic signs of
the Hira-gana and their nuraerous variations,
numbering over two hundred, besides the forty-
seven signs of the simpler Katakana ("side
characters") before he can read a Japanese
newspaper with ease, one cannot wonder if his
ardor cools. Foreign students become warm
advocates of the educational policy identified
with that enlightened statesman, the late viscount
Mori Arinori, who once boldly proposed that
his countrymen abandon their native idiom and
adopt the English language in its stead.
Even at the present day the Japanese lan
guage has recourse to the Chinese for names and
phrases to indicate all such new things and ideas
as "telegraph," "bicycle," "photograph,"
"democracy," "limited liability," and one often
finds English words adopted, with raore or less
modification, to convey ideas that cannot be
expressed by any term in the native vocabulary.
403

The Yankees of the East
There never was a dictionary of the Japanese
language until the task of making one was
undertaken by Dr. Hepburn, a medical mis
sionary of the Presbyterian board, who is now
living at Orange, N. J., enjoying the rewards of
a long and useful life. With him it was the
labor of many years, but he made the language
and literature of Japan accessible to foreigners,
and without his dictionary it would be almost
impossible for Europeans or Americans to carry
on trade or do missionary work. The Japanese
government so appreciated Dr. Hepburn's com
pilation that it has protected it from piracy by
an arbitrary decree of the Emperor, and sorae
years ago, without warrant of law or any other
authority than that based upon common, ordi
nary justice, seized and destroyed a pirated
edition that was published in Tokyo. Dr. Hep
burn's dictionary stands alone in this respect —
the only article produced by a foreigner that
cannot be reproduced and imitated in Japan.
The Japanese vocabulary, although rich in
an abundance of poetic phrases and expressive
adjectives, is entirely deficient in terms of abuse.
As I have said, it offers absolutely no means of
swearing. There was no profanity in ancient
Japan, but many English " swear words " have
been kindly furnished by immigrants from
Europe and America.
Japanese nouns have no gender or number.
404

The Educational System of Japan
Japanese adjectives have no degrees of compari
son, and Japanese verbs have no person. There
is an elaborate system of honorifics, however,
which replaces to a considerable extent the use
of person in the verbs, and makes good the ab
sence of personal pronouns.
When one man addresses another of superior
rank he uses entirely different phraseology
from that he would adopt in expressing himself
to an inferior, and etiquette requires the appli
cation of the same rule when one is speaking to
an equal or an inferior concerning a person of
higher degree. It even comprehends animals,
for when a housemaid speaks to the cook about
the cat or the dog or the horse, they are men
tioned casually as in the English language, but
when she speaks to her mistress concerning these
useful domestic animals she says: "The honorable
horse is waiting at the door ;" " Mr. Dog has
gone up street with his master," or " Mrs. Cat
is in the garden." This is not intended as
evidence of respect for the cat or the dog or
the horse, but it is a form of speech required in
addressing a person of higher rank and author
ity. For the same reason the nursemaid or
"ahma," as they call such persons in Japan,
always refers to "Mr. Baby" or "Miss Baby"
instead of plain "baby," and the "pidgin Eng
lish" of a Japanese ahma sounds very funny
when it is heard for the first time. " Mr. Baby
405

The Yankees of the East
belong topside," said the nursemaid at the
house of a friend in Yokohama, when I asked
after her little charge, which meant that the
infant was upstairs.
But pidgin Japanese, as used by foreigners,
is equally as amusing to those who ^re familiar
with the native language. The foreign resident
in Japan usually has a limited vocabulary which
he handles to the best of his ability in cora
municating his wants and wishes. Housekeepers
usually converse with their servants in a mixed
dialect of the two languages, but sometimes the
more ambitious endeavor to convey their orders
in classical Japanese which they have learned
frora books. The results are amusing, and
sometimes startling. For example, a lady of
my acquaintance, who desired the housemaid to
put the cat outdoors, said : " Neko tenki
shinjo," which being literally translated, was,
" Present the cat to the weather."
Another lady who wished the cook to pre
pare some fruit, remarked : " Nashi tebukero
sayonara," which meant literally, "Make the
pears bid good-bye to their gloves."
The same lady endeavored to advise her
nurse that the baby was upstairs by saying:
"Babysan nikai aru" — literally, "Mr. Baby is
a two-story house."
Once and a while a poet makes an amusing
" Irish bull," usually when he wants to be ex-
406

The Educational System of Japan
ceedingly polite, and an old-fashioned Japanese
gentleman is the most polite man in the world.
One lovely day last summer, a party of friends
were invited to the residence of a prorainent
business man of Tokyo to witness one of the
triumphs of the botanical art peculiar to Japan,
which produces miniature trees. You find oaks,
elras, raaples, cypress, cedars and other trees in
the conservatories and the gardens of the rich,
perfect in symmetry but miniature in size. An
oak or a maple may only be ten or twelve inches
in height, but the trunk and every branch and
leaf will be as perfect as the raost flourishing
tree of that variety in the forest. How this is
done I have never been able to understand,
although explanations are always ready. It is
an art that has been successful in no other
country. On this occasion it was a plum tree
and the little dwarf was covered with blossoms.
But when the party gathered, the object they
were invited to witness was absent. Some accident
had occurred which prevented the gardener from
keeping his appointment, and after waiting for
an hour or two and hearing all sorts of expla
nations and apologies from the host, who was
mystified as well as mortified, we took our de
parture with a promise to come again. One
gentleman of the old school, who ranks high
among the famous writers of Japan, attempted
to console our host by leaving with him a liter-
407

The Yankees of the East
ary gem in autograph, which was written and
offered with the greatest sincerity and without
the slightest idea of sarcasm. He simply meant
to be polite when he wrote these words :
" My soul is intoxicated with the beauty of
the plant which unfortunately I cannot see."
The construction of the Japanese language
is also peculiar. Everything in that country is
done in the opposite way from which we are
accustomed to do it. The adjective precedes
the noun which it defines, the adverb the verb,
and the explanatory or dependent clause pre
cedes the principal clause. The object likewise
precedes the verb, and the commonest sentences
even in familiar conversation are long and com
plicated. Mr. Basil Chamberlain, who was pro
fessor of philology in the imperial university,
gives the following example:
" At the present day Buddhism has sunk into
being the belief of the lower classes only. Few
persons in the middle and upper classes under
stand its raison d^etre, most of them fancying
that religion is a thing which comes into play
only at funeral services."
This sentence was first translated into literary
Japanese and then re-translated literally into
English, when it read :
"This period at having-arrived Buddhism
that they say thing as for merely low class
people's believing place that having become
408

The Educational System of Japan
middle class then upwards in as for its reason
discerning are people being few religion that
if one says funeral rites time only in employ
things manner in they think."
An attempt is being raade by the leaders of
modern thought and custora in Japan to release
their literature from the restrictions it has in
herited, and to direct Japanese poetry into new
paths ; but they find it quite as difficult to bring
about this reform as do those who are leading
the crusade in favor of the education of women.
Japanese poetry is more interesting than
Japanese prose, but it has neither rhyme nor
rhythm. From the birth of literature until the
present day Japanese verses have consisted
simply of alternate lines of five and seven syl
lables, with generally an additional line of seven
syllables at the end. For example, the follow
ing is a typical Japanese poem :
Hototogisu Nakitsuru kata wo
Nagamureba —
Tada ari-ake no
Tsuki zo nokoreru:
That is, literally rendered :
" When I gaze towards the place where the
cuckoo has been singing — nought remains but
the moon in the early dawn."
There is seldom a story or a plot in the
poetry of the Japanese, but only a sentiment;
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The Yankees of the East
and everybody worships the rauses. The favor
ite subjects are flowers, birds, snow, cherry blos
soms, lotus flowers, autumn leaves, the mist on
the mountains, and, in fact, the entire aspect of
nature, the whole range of human missions
and the shortness of huraan life; but love-songs
are prohibited in decent poetry. No man or
woman can understand why a respectable foreign
poet can write a love-song. Indeed, there is no
name for love in the language. The term
which comes the nearest is used to describe an
improper passion. The husband does not
" love" his wife ; he " respects and admires "
her. The child does not "love" the father
and mother; he "respects and worships"
them. The mother does not "love" her child;
she has an " affectionate regard " for it ; but
the exercise of that eraotion which we call love is
limited to improper persons.
Most of the Japanese poetry, like Japanese
art, seems preposterous from our point of view.
It is more often than otherwise a series of ejac
ulations, or the stateraent of some commonplace
fact in poetic phrases. For example, the follow
ing is considered a masterpiece of a famous
poet who lived a thousand years ago :
" The moon on an autumn night made visible
a large nuraber of wild geese that fly past
with wings intercrossed in the white clouds."
That is all there is to the poem, but it is
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The Educational System of Japan
embraced in every collection of Japanese clas
sics, and has been inscribed upon fans and
kakamanos, gift books and other artistic works
thousands upon thousands of times. It is con
sidered a model of poetic taste, and other famous
poems in Japanese literature are very much
like it.
Another famous poem reads : " Though their
hues are gay, the blossoms flutter down, and so
in this world of ours, who may continue forever?
Having to-day crossed the mountains of existence
I have seen but a floating dream with which I
ara intoxicated."
Japanese gentlemen and ladies are always
composing verses. It is one of the essential
accoraplishraents of a gentleman or lady in
upper Japanese society, and is imitated by peo
ple of lower rank. The art is applied at wed
dings, funerals, birthday anniversaries, and upon
all occasions of joy or grief. If a boy is born
the father receives poems of congratulations
from all his friends. If a young gentleman
gets married the guests at the wedding are ex
pected to leave appropriate poems before they
take their departure, or they raay send thera
before the ceremony. When the cherry blos
soms open almost every man, woman and child
in Japan become poets and go about twisting
the little slips of paper that bear their verses
around the twigs of the trees. When the Jap-
411

The Yankees of the East
anese gentleman walks through a forest he al
most always expresses his admiration in verse
and ties the manuscript to a tree where it will
receive the attention of the god that patronizes
that particular locality. When a man goes on
a journey he is very often overtaken at the rail
way station by the servant of some thoughtful
friend who hands him a brief but appropriate
effusion. In the schools themes are given for
poems by months.
The Eraperor has not only one but several
poets laureate, and a master of the art is ap
pointed to teach the imperial family how to
write verses. Once each year, in January, a
theme is announced, upon which the Emperor,
the Empress and other high personages at court
each compose an ode of thirty-one syllables.
In fact, the whole nation is invited to compete,
and many thousands of verses are sent in, writ
ten on thick paper of a certain size, prescribed
by custom. Last year the theme was " Praying
for the Present Dynasty at a Shinto Temple."
The previous year it was " Patriotic Congratu
lations." Other topics have been " The Lon
gevity of the Green Bamboo," "Pine Trees
Buried in the Snow," " Insects by Moonlight,"
" At Anchor on a Suramer Voyage," " Blos
soms Fallen into a Pond," " A Willow Tree
in Early Spring."

412

wwsH o
HW

XVII.
The Missionary Problem
There is a wide difference of opinion on
the missionary question, and a serious inquiry
among religious and benevolent associations in
the United States and Great Britain as to the
propriety of continuing missionary work in
Japan. A committee from the American Board
of Foreign Missions was sent over in the auturan
of 1895 for the purpose of making a report on
this subject. It was not proposed to abandon
the field at once, but to leave unfilled the places
of those preachers and teachers who frora tirae
to time shall retire from the work. After a
careful investigation this committee expressed a
most emphatic opinion against any relaxation
of the efforts that are being made by foreign
associations to evangelize Japan, either through
the schools or the churches.
There is no doubt that the majority of native
Christians, the converts that the missionaries
have made, would prefer to have the foreign
teachers and preachers sent home. This is not
due to any dissatisfaction with their labors nor
413

The Yankees of the East
to any distrust of their motives or ability, but
it is the result of a tremendous eruption of
patriotism that has occurred in Japan since the
Chinese war. It is born of vanity and self-
reliance, and applies to all the foreign employes
of the government, to all foreign teachers in
private schools, to all foreign business houses
and enterprises. The Japanese think they are
capable of taking care of themselves. Those
precocious people are very much like the average
youth who desires to be released from the re
straints of home and parental care. He feels
corapetent to judge what is best for his own
welfare, and is willing to confront all the re
sponsibilities of life without further advice or
assistance. There is no denial of the obligation
that rests upon the Japanese to their foreign
instructors for the progress they have raade and
the prosperity they enjoy. They are perfectly
willing to express their gratitude to every Amer
ican and European who has assisted in the
development of their prowess and progress,
from Commodore Perry to the people who are
teaching in the raission schools to-day, but they
do not care to be longer dependent upon aliens
in any sense.
This independence has caused the dismissal
of nearly all the foreigners that have been in
governraent eraploy, on the railways, steamships,
in the telegraph offices, and the executive de-
414

The Missionary Problem
partments as well as in the colleges and schools,
and the church people think they can get along
just as well in religious matters without the aid
of missionaries. It is urged that the sectarian
schools and the churches be turned over to
native teachers and preachers, and that the
people be left to work out their own salvation.
The movement is encouraged by nearly all the
educated Japanese clergy, and the native teach
ers in missionary schools. In fact, national
pride and independence has possessed the entire
forty-one raillions of people with a fervor that
is almost hysterical. The Rev. Tamura, pastor
of an Independent Presbyterian church at To
kyo, who was educated at Princeton and Auburn
Theological Seminary, is one of the most pro
nounced advocates of the theory that Japan is
able to take care of herself in religious as well
as civil affairs, and expresses the views of his
coadjutors in these words :
" The seeds of Christianity have been well
sown in Japan during the last thirty years. If
the Christianized Japanese are not able to look
after the harvest Japan must be regarded as a
poor field in which to preach the gospel of
Christ. If all the foreign preachers were to
leave Japan to-morrow do you suppose a single
church would be closed? Would not Christ
ianity continue to grow and prosper? The
true faith is too well established, and is too
415

The Yankees of the East
much needed in Japan to ever go backward.
It will go on like education and all other things
that civilize and upbuild Japan. We have dis
missed nearly all persons of foreign birth from
our government offices, from pur railway service,
from our army and navy, from the post offices
and the public schools, and why should foreign
religious teachers be retained ? There is a feel
ing among our people that the presence of for
eign missionaries is a reproach to their capacity
and civilization, and they believe that the money
expended by the missionary boards in supporting
foreign teachers and preachers could be raade a
great deal more useful and go a great deal far
ther if only native teachers and preachers were
employed. The native preacher and teacher can
live on forty yen — about $21 in American money
— per month, while every foreign missionary
receives $100 a month and many of them more.
For the yearly salary of a foreign missionary I
raaintain a church, a Sunday school, a gospel
newspaper, and educate twenty-seven young
raen for the ministry!"
It is the ambition of many of the ablest and
most active native Christians to organize a church
of their own, independent of all denominations
and foreign associations, upon a creed that shall
be broad enough to cover every phase of Pro
testant belief, and include Unitarians as well as
Presbyterians and Methodists. In other words,
416

The Missionary Problem
they want a distinctively national church, and
call the organization they are striving to estab
lish "The National Christian Church of Japan."
As one of the leaders of this movement ex
plained, they expect to obtain the sanction and
patronage of the government, place it under
the care of the department of education, with
the hope and belief that it will grow in num
bers and - influence until it embraces within
its fold all believers in the existence of a Su
preme Creator and the truth of the Scriptures.
They want it to be to Japan what the Church of
England is to the British governraent. They
predict that such an organization, appealing to
the patriotism as well as to the religious senti
ment of the community, will make raore rapid
inroads into the Buddhist church than can pos
sibly be expected frora foreign missionaries.
They hope to amalgamate the missionary schools
with the national system of education and secure
the passage of a law by parliaraent authorizing
but not requiring the study of the Scriptures
in all the public schools. These people have
even gone so far as to forraulate a creed for this
new church, but, when it was subraitted for the
criticism of some of the venerable missionaries,
they instantly pointed out such serious defects
and omissions that the authors withdrew the
document and have not published it for general
information. It is said, for example, that there
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The Yankees of the East
was nothing in the proposed creed concerning
the divinity of Christ or the doctrine of the
atonement. The theological seminary of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in Japan is in charge of the
Rev. Joseph M. Francis, formerly of Milwaukee.
I asked hira whether he thought the Christian
church of Japan was ready to stand alone, and
whether it would be politic to withdraw foreign
missionaries from that country.
" By no means," he answered. " Christian
missionaries have been working in Japan for
something like thirty years. Taking all the
various denominations together — the Roman,
Greek and Protestant churches, we have about
one hundred thousand communicants. That is
an average of about one in every four hundred
of the population, which is not a sufficient pro
portion to justify Independence. There are
various other points to be considered, also. The
Japanese are not prepared, from a theological
point of view, to perpetuate among themselves
what we understand to be orthodox Christianity.
Experience shows that they are not. They
have n't the ' ground-work of faith' ; they have n't
the knowledge and the steadfastness and security
that is necessary to sustain them. Among the
Congregational churches, for instance, the native
Christians have made an attempt, which has been
partially successful, to get everything out of
418

The Missionary Problem
foreign control and into their own hands. But
the condition of the Congregationalists in Japan
from an orthodox point of view is most unsatis
factory." "I understand the natives of all denomina
tions desire to unite in an independent national
church ?"
"Yes, that is the ambition of raany of the
Japanese Christians. They desire to organize a
national union Japanese church upon a liberal
basis sufficiently broad to embrace every be
liever in Christianity. They want it to be
different from all other churches ; unique, and
peculiar to their own country. They propose
to have a creed embodying such truths as they
consider agreeable to the tastes of their own
people in religion."
" Has this creed been defined? "
" Not long ago the native Congregationalists
drew up a creed which they thought would an
swer the purpose, but from an orthodox point
of view it was quite unsatisfactory and insuf
ficient. It left out some of the fundamental
doctrines of Christianity. For example, it con
tained nothing concerning the atonement or the
divinity of Christ. As Christianity is a com
paratively new thing to the Japanese, they are
yet unable to draw a clear distinction between
what is essential and what is not. Their ex
perience is limited. Their education is imper-
419

The Yankees of the East
feet. They are immature. You could not ex
pect anything else from a people who have only
had the gospel for thirty years, and are just
beginning to comprehend the doctrines we have
inherited through our fathers for centuries.
" It is also important to consider whether
the natives are financially able to sustain their
own churches. A large majority of Christians
in Japan belong to the lower classes, who have
little money. Comparatively few churches are
self-supporting, although they pay what we
would consider very small salaries to their
preachers, ordinarily from $12 to $15, gold, per
raonth. While that seems a small sura to us, it
is about what raen of equal ability and educa
tion receive in other professions. It is equal to
the salaries of the judges of ordinary courts,
for exaraple. If foreign assistance was with
drawn raany of the Christian churches would
have to be closed for lack of funds, and their
merabers, as a natural result, would drift back to
their old beliefs or forget their religious obliga
tions entirely. There are, of course, exceptions,
but it is generally true of all the denominations.
" We have found by experience that foreign
ers are more successful in the inauguration of
Christian work than natives. While a mis
sionary cannot do pastoral work as well as a
native preacher, he can break up the ground
much better. He is able to command attention
420

The Missionary Problem
where a native would not be listened to, and a
considerable portion of Japan is still an un
touched field.
" These are some of the reasons why I think
the missionaries should remain in Japan. Many
others might be cited, but these are sufficient, I
think, to show that the Christian church there is
no* yet prepared to cast off the protection and
aid of foreign missionary societies. I do not
believe there is a foreigner in Japan, not even
a Unitarian, who will dissent from this opinion."
" Does the same reasoning apply to foreign
schools?" " Yes, missionary schools are needed in Japan
to-day quite as much as they ever were, and
should remain under the management and con
trol of foreigners. We have a notable example
in the Doshisha University at Kyoto. It was
once the largest and most prominent educa
tional institution in Japan, but has lost its pres
tige and supreraacy because it has practically
passed under native control. It does not have
the confidence of the people any longer. The
faculty is divided on religious questions and on
other points, and it requires a determined and
vigorous adrainistration like that given it by
Joseph Neeshiraa to restore it to vitality. The
missionary schools cannot pretend to compete
with the national schools. Their scope is en
tirely different. So far as mental training goes,
421

The Yankees of the East
the national schools can give the Japanese all
they need ; but, owing to the lack of all moral
teaching in the government system of education,
the missionary schools are a necessity for Chris
tian work. They are the fountains from
which we get our supplies; the sources from
which our best native workers come ; the agen
cies by which we prepare our Christian boys
and girls for usefulness. They have been the
means of bringing first to Christianity and then
into the field the most efficient of all our assist
ants. Money spent on mission schools is as
well placed as money can be. There is no better
investment." "The missionary boards in America ought to
bear in raind, however, that it is useless to send
to Japan every one who offers himself. Men
should be chosen for that field who are
conspicuous for their learning, their ability,
their tact and comraon sense, and it is very
important, also, that they should be gentle
men. Mission work has reached a point in
Japan where a weak man is worse than worthless,
and in controversy we need the support of the
ablest reasoners in the church universal."
"Religious investigation and discussion is
almost as active in Japan as in France and Ger
many. It is'nt Buddhism so much as atheism
that we have to meet. The atheists have sent
no missionaries to Japan, but the empire has
422

The Missionary Problem
been flooded with their literature. It is quoted
and discussed by all classes of people, and they
have an unorganized but aggressive following."
"Have the Japanese any religion?"
" I do not think they have. Neither Bud
dhism nor Shintoism can be said to have a religious
hold upon the people. The rising generation
has drifted away from the old moorings, and is
running to atheism and infidelity. When a man
is educated he has no use for either Buddhism
or Shintoism, and both organizations are in a
state of decay. They are not adapted to edu
cated people, and, as the intelligence of the
Japanese becomes more and more enlightened,
their temples will be more and more deserted."
"What is the attitude of the government
toward Christianity?"
" It is tolerant, but apathetic. Occasionally
our missionary workers in the interior have
trouble with some conservative and bigoted
local official, but so far as the central govern
ment is concerned there is no distinction between
Buddhism, Shintoism and Christianity. The
Emperor and the court are nominally Shintoists,
and observe certain rites of that religion which
have come down from the earliest ages and have
not yet been discarded with other ancient cus
toms. The Shinto priesthood also receive a
financial subsidy from the imperial treasury, for
political reasons, but so far as the government
423

The Yankees of the East
officials are concerned neither foreign nor
native Christians have any reason to complain.
A large number of the members of the Diet
are active Christians, and several of the most
prominent officials openly profess that faith. I
am sure the general government would prefer
foreign missionaries to remain in Japan."
There is no question as to the usefulness of
the foreign missionaries in Japan, although one
hears a great deal of criticism concerning their
conduct and character and methods. They
drove the wedge that split the conservatism of
the ancient Japanese empire, and it was their
privilege to lead and direct a social and political
revolution that has never been equaled in im
portance or success in the history of the world.
It is always much easier to criticise other people
than it is to do right, and the parson, whether
he be at horae or abroad, is a safe target for
criticism and censure. There is the same lack
of sympathy between the commercial and the
missionary classes in Japan that you find else
where, which is due to a variety of causes, and
can scarcely be prevented. The average man
who leaves his own home and goes into a far
country is apt to follow the example of the
prodigal son in some respects. He does not
have the restraint that kept hira frora evil asso
ciation at home, and feels more at liberty to
follow his own inclinations when he realizes
424

The Missionary Problem
that his acts will not be scrutinized so closely by
his neighbors. This relaxation is often followed
by indifference to the practices he had respected
and exemplified before, and when missionaries
from his own country comment upon his fall
from grace he resents it, and hostilities follow.
On the other hand, the missionary element
are usually too critical and lack sympathy with
the commercial community. They are absorbed
in their own work. Their zeal does not permit
them to share or even sympathize with the
amusements and diversions that are considered
necessary to sustain the spirits of the foreign
colonies in Japan and other lands. They will
not play cards, nor dance, nor drink wine, which
among the mercantile class are popular diver
sions. They have no money to spend in enter
taining and do not wish to accept hospitality
they cannot return. Their wives and daughters
cannot dress as well as other ladies of the for
eign colonies. They cannot join in the clubs
and tennis courts, bowling-alleys and driving-
parks for economical reasons as well as for the
lack of time and interest, and of course they do
not attend balls.
Thus the Araericans and Englishmen who go
abroad to preach the gospel and teach the hea
then find themselves in a very different orbit
from that one in which their fellow-countrymen
who are engaged in mercantile pursuits revolve,
425

The Yankees of the East
and they drift farther and farther apart. In all
the treaty ports of Japan there are churches that
are attended by both the merchant and mission
ary colonies, and they meet at the American
legation and the consulate-general on the Fourth
of July and other occasions of festivity. Some
of the missionaries have bridged the gulf by
their social attractions and private means, and
some of the merchants by their interest in evan
gelical work, but, as a rule, foreigners contribute
little towards the propagation of the gospel,
and the missionaries are usually very severe in
their comments upon the habits of their worldly
fellow-citizens. A beautiful lady undertook to explain how
it happened that there was so little intimacy
between missionary and mercantile Americans.
" Yes, I am the daughter of a missionary,"
she said, " and my husband is a merchant, but I
know very few of the missionary families here
now, and I think most of them regard me as
worse than a heathen, although I do try to live a
proper life. It is true that I do not go to
church as regularly as I did before I was married,
but I think I would go oftener now if we had
better preaching. The missionaries take turns
in the pulpit, and we have 'nt any brilliant ora
tors among them. I always enjoy hearing two
or three of them, and if Dr. Blank were to
preach regularly I think I would gq to church
426

The Missionary Problem
every Sunday, and my husband, too ; but it is
very seldom nowadays that I can get him out.
Sunday is his day of rest. He is rauch occupied
all the week ; has to get up early in the morning,
and sometimes works late at night. So on Sun
day raorning he wants to sleep, and I don 't like
to disturb him. If we had somebody for a
regular pastor who was attractive and preached
sermons that were interesting I think he would
go just as regularly as he does at home.
" No, the women of the missionary families
never come to see me nowadays. We used to
exchange formal calls once or twice a year, but
even those have ceased, and I think my father's
old friends look upon me as a sort of outcast.
Nobody knows any better than I how little en
joyment the wives and daughters of the mis
sionaries have, and when I was first married I
tried to make it pleasant for them. We had a
large house, and entertained a good deal, and I
always invited everybody that I knew among the
American colony. But you must realize that it
was usually a raixed company. We had some
Very good people, and, I fear, some pretty bad
ones, but in a colony like this one cannot observe
social distinctions as you do at home. An
American is an American, and as long as he
makes a pretense of respectability my husband
insists upon inviting him when we give a general
entertainmejit. Well, at first all the missionaries
427

The Yankees of the East
came, but some of thera were offended because we
had dancing and served punch, and allowed a
lot of old fogies to play cards upstairs. But
they ought to have reraerabered that such things
are customary at home as well as out here. Two
or three of the women admonished me about it,
and I answered thera kindly, and explained to
them that I thought that amusements of that
kind were a matter of individual judgraent
which every one must apply for himself. Sorae
of the raissionaries spoke to my husband about
it, also, and made hira very indignant. He told
them if they didn't like his way of running a
party he wouldn 't ask them any raore, and he
didn't. And then we found there was a lively
discussion in the missionary colony about us.
Some of the good brethren and sisters thought
that we were likely to lead their colleagues and
their sons and daughters into paths of wicked
ness, and declared that good people ought not
to corae to our house. Others who were more
liberal defended us, and there was quite a tem
pest in a tea-pot ; so before I had been married
a year my association with the missionary colony
was almost entirely cut off, and finally I gave up
calling upon the women because of the unkind
things they said about rae. The only link that
remains to connect me with those who were the
intiraate friends of my parents is a single family
I have always known, and who still believe that
428

The Missionary Problem
I am trying to be a good woman. They come
here frequently, and I go to their house as often
as I can, but I never invite them when we have
a general reception."
This little relation throws a search-light upon
the causes which separate members of a foreign
colony who corae from the same country and
ought to co-operate for their mutual good ; but
human nature is the same everywhere, and
among the hundred families within the foreign
settlement at Yokohama you find all sorts of
people. While there is a great deal to be criticized in
the methods and the conduct of some merabers
of the missionary colonies, I want to say every
thing that can justly be said in support of the
devoted and heroic band of men and women
who have been sent from this country and Great
Britain to carry the gospel to the people of the
East. The results of their work are very appar
ent in Japan, where they have been the pioneers
of civilization, and have exercised an almost
incredible influence upon the social, raorai,
political and industrial revolutions that have
been going on during the last twenty-five or
thirty years. I have said so rauch in their favor
that the Japanese papers criticise me for exag
geration. At the same time I have declared and believe
that the missionary societies show a lack of judg-
429

The Yankees of the East
ment and often great indiscretion in sending
incompetent men and women into that field.
The personal equation is of much greater
iraportance in missionary work than in the
regular ministry. Ability and wisdom that
would comraand confidence and influence here
will coramand even greater confidence and
influence there. At the same time, a man with
out the intellectual force, tact, energy or other
qualifications that are essential to success in life
everywhere is a great deal more useless in the
mission field than he is at home. While spirit
uality is a good thing in a missionary, comraon
sense and intellectual ability are equally impor
tant, and the fact that a raan is willing to sacrifice
hiraself and suffer privation and leave his home
and kindred to preach Christ to the heathen is
not the only reason why he should be sent.
Sanctified common sense is the most impor
tant qualification for missionary work, and those
who lack it should be kept at home. In Japan,
where a religious and moral revolution is now in
progress, it is important that the ablest of raen
should be present to direct the minds of those
who are seeking for light and truth. The mis
sionaries there will average above those I have
seen in South America and other parts of the
world, but nevertheless there are too few strong
raen and too raany weak ones.
In China conditions are entirely different.
430

The Missionary Problem
There is an intense hostility to the Christian
religion and other foreign innovations among
the educated classes that has never existed in
Japan, and, while the raissionaries have made
some little progress araong the common people
with their preaching and their schools, their
work has been in no measure so successful as in
Japan and the Hawaiian Islands, for example.
But the obstacles and the opposition with which
they have to contend are infinitely greater. The
courage and fidelity of those who stand upon
the skirmish line of civilization in China must
be admired and coraraended, but it is a serious
question whether it is right to place in peril
the lives of woraen and children by taking
thera into the hostile districts of the interior,
where they can do no good and where they
are an embarrassment to the work. There
is no reason why unmarried men should not go
provided they possess sufficient courage and tact
to keep themselves out of trouble, but the
slaughter of the women and children of the
missionary families at Kutien and the narrow
escapes from similar perils that occurred at a
score of missionary stations up the Yang-Tse
valley, is a warning that it is wicked to ignore.
Until the United States and Great Britain are
prepared to protect their citizens and compel
the enforcement of their treaty rights it is not
safe for defenseless foreigners to live in the
431

The Yankees of the East
interior of China, be they merchants or mis
sionaries. The total membership of the Christian church
in Japan on December 31, 1894, was 110,520.
The Catholics are the strongest numerically.
They have a total of 49,280 adherents, 242 con
gregations, 206 churches, 5,288 children in their
schools. The Greek church has 22,000 members, with
164 churches and 219 missionary stations.
The Presbyterians and allied churches of that
faith have 72 organized churches, 11,126 mem
bers and 202 children in their schools. Of their
native churches 21 are entirely self-supporting
and 44 partially so. Their contributions in
money last year amounted to 24,697 yen. In
1894, 11,23 converts were baptized. Of their
membership 5,224 are men and 4,428 women.
The Congregationalists are second in numerical
strength, having a membership of 11,079 ^^ 7°
churches, 43 of which are entirely self-support
ing and 27 partially so. They report 670 con
versions last year. The Baptists have 1,597
merabers, the Church of England 3,201, the
Araerican Episcopal church 1,684 and the
Methodists 5,987.
The total Protestant membership on Decem
ber 31, 1894, was 39,240, with 3,422 adult con
verts during 1884. They have 364 organized
churches, and 750 missionary stations, with
432

The Missionary Problem
29,957 scholars in their Sunday-schools, and
72,217 yen were contributed by them that year.
The raultiplicity of denominations has been
a handicap to Christian progress in Japan, for
it has not only given their opponents an excuse
to say that they cannot agree among themselves
over the right way to get to heaven, but it has
bewildered and demoralized the Japanese, who
by centuries of training have a natural tendency
to unite in all movements for the common good.
With the exception of the Church of England
and the American Episcopal church the several
denominations have combined in an organiza
tion and have divided the field among them
selves so as to prevent friction.
The following is a list of the organizations
doing missionary work in Japan and the number
of representatives each had in the field on the
first of July, 1895 :
American Baptist Missionary Union . . . .34
American Bible Society  I
American Board of Foreign Missions .... 57
Baptist Southem Convention  3
British and Foreign Society  i
Church of Christ  13
Christian Church of America •  4
Church of England  81
Cumberland Presbyterians  II
Episcopal Church of the United States ... 26
Evangelical Association of North America ... 5
Evangelical Lutheran Mission  5
Evangelical Missionary Society, German and Swiss . 3
Independent . . •  6
International Christian Alliance  2
Methodist Church of Canada  19
Methodist-Episcopal Church, U. S. A  49
Methodist-Episcopal Church South .... 19
433

The Yankees of the East
Methodist Protestant Mission  6
Presbyterian Board of Missions  .38
Presbyterian Church South  17
Reform Church Mission  18
Reform Church in the United States .... 7
Scandinavian Alliance  10
Seamen's Friend's Society  I
Society of Friends  4
United Presbyterian Missions  2
Unitarian  I
Universalist  2
Woman's Christian Union  4
Total  463
The above enumeration does not include the
wives of missionaries who are engaged in church
work, nor the Catholics. The latter are the most
numerous, and include one archbishop, four
bishops, eighty-four foreign missionaries, twenty-
two foreign friars and eighty-five sisters of St.
Paul de Chartres.
The Presbyterians and the Reforra Church in
America were the first in Japan, coraraencing
their work in 1859. The missionaries of the
Episcopal church followed the sarae year. The
Baptists came in 1 860, the Congregationalists in
1869, the Methodists and Church of England in
1873, the Scotch Presbyterians in 1877, the
Baptists in 1883, the Friends in 1885, the Uni
tarians in 1889 and the Universalists in 1890.
Even the Salvation Army has entered Japan.
There is a camp of ten men and seven women
at Tokyo. They have adopted Japanese names
and Japanese costumes, and live in the native
fashion ; but the women wear the poke bonnets
434

The Missionary Problem
and the wan and weary faces so familiar to us
at home. They came directly from New Zea
land, but are nearly all of English birth. There
is one native Japanese in the squad — Corporal
Isigimi — who was formerly a soldier in the
Japanese army, but later employed in San Fran
cisco, where he learned English and was con
verted to Christianity. He is their interpreter,
and is teaching them the Japanese language,
without which they cannot do much good, as
the souls they came to reclaim speak only the
native dialect ; but they are carrying on their
meetings in English, and attract a great deal of
attention and interest.
There need be no better evidence of the
effect of missionary work in Japan than that
furnished by the faith and confidence of the
government. When the army of Japan was sent
to Korea and China it was accompanied by
Christian as well as Buddhist chaplains, agents
of the American Bible Society and the Ameri
can Tract Society, who, with the permission and
approval of the Emperor and his ministers, dis
tributed Bibles and religious books among the
troops and camp-followers. They were allowed
the same privileges and received the same re
spect and courtesies that would be accorded a
chaplain in the army of the United States, and
when a committee of native preachers repre
senting the various denominations of the Pro-
435

The Yankees of the East
testant church called at the war department to
ask the privilege of sending missionaries to the
newly acquired colony of Formosa they were
informed that permission would be granted just
as soon as facilities for transportation could be
afforded ; that the conduct and services and the
influence of the Christian chaplains who had
gone to China with the army was so gratifying
that the government desired to show its appre
ciation by offering them the greatest freedom
and all the possible encouragement to work
among the soldiers.
This reception and acknowledgment were
not unexpected, because the secretary of war and
several of the most prominent generals have sev
eral times taken occasion to commend the good
work of the chaplains during the late war and
to express their sympathy in an unmistakable
manner. Nor was this the first official recognition of
the Protestant missionaries. The penitentiaries
of the government, to which are sent those sen
tenced for life and for long terras of iraprison
raent, are all in charge of Protestant chaplains.
Count Inouye, who is recognized as one of the
foremost statesmen in the erapire, when he was
sent to Korea to reorganize the government of
that kingdom after its independence was ac
knowledged by China, took with him two native
preachers of the Presbyterian and Congrega-
436

THE MARQUIS OYAMA.

The Missionary Problem
tional churches and intrusted to them the re
sponsibility of establishing an educational sys
tem there.
Count Inouye is not a meraber of the Christian
church hiraself, but his wife is, and he has always
shown the greatest personal and official inter
est in the evangelical as well as the educational
work in this country. Marquis Ito, the prime
minister, perhaps the only man that surpasses
Inouye in ability and influence, has shown equal
sympathy, and has never lost an opportunity to
acknowledge the effect of Christianity as a civiliz
ing force in Japan. Count Oyama, the minister
of war, perhaps the third raan of influence in the
empire, also has a Christian wife, and, although
not a member of the church himself, he has
abandoned Buddhism, contributed liberally to
Christian work, and has shown his sympathy in
a conspicuous manner on many occasions.
Miyoshi Taizo, chief justice of the supreme
court ot the erapire, is an active member of the
Congregational church and president of the
Young Men's Christian Association ; Mr. Ma-
kino, vice minister of education, Mr. Nirva, as
sistant raaster of ceremonies at the Emperor's
palace ; Mr. Kataoka, speaker of the Chamber
of Deputies; Viscount Aoki, ambassador to
Germany ; Viscount Okaba, counsellor of the
legation at London ; seven members of the
Chamber of Deputies ; two of the seretaries of
437

The Yankees of the East
the cabinet ; Dr. Wadagaki, dean of the Impe
rial University, and four members of the faculty
of that institution are active and conspicuous
members of the Christian church, as well as
many other officials who might be mentioned.
The raissionaries do not know what the Em
peror thinks of their work except by inference
and circumstantial evidence. They realize very
well that they would never receive the encour
agement that is given them by high officials of
the government without his knowledge and ap
proval, and they have felt his favor on several
occasions when it was not expected. They
know, too, that the Empress feels very kindly
toward them, and has frequently manifested a
deep interest in their progress here. Her fads
are schools and charitable institutions, which
she patronizes with more interest than any sov
ereign of Europe shows in such affairs, and fre
quently visits them for personal inspection. It
is well understood that her majesty prefers
teachers, physicians, nurses and other officials
and attendants in those institutions who were
educated in Christian schools. Those teachers
in which she seems to take the greatest interest
are merabers of Protestant churches, and several
of them were educated in the United States.
The Emperor is nominally a believer in the
Shinto faith, the ancient and inherited religion
of the country, and is supposed to go through
438

The Missionary Problem
some sort of ceremony on certain days which
has a religious significance. But Shintoism can
scarcely be ranked as a religion. As I have said
in previous chapters, it is simply the worship of
ancestors, heroes of war and other good or
great raen whose spirits are supposed to exer
cise a beneficent influence over mortals. An
cestral worship, however — and the same may be
said of all Shinto worship — is merely for tem
poral blessings, and the cereraonies at the Shinto
shrine are in a measure like our ceremonies on
Decoration Day at horae, the offering of tributes
to the dead.
It has been frequently published, and the
statement has found its way into several books,
that the Mikado at one time contemplated the
adoption of Christianity as the official religion
of Japan. It has also been frequently asserted
that some years ago he sent, or at least proposed
to send, a commission around the world to in
vestigate the different religions, with a view of
finding one that was better suited to the wants
of his people than the Shinto or the Buddhist
faith. I cannot ascertain that there is any
foundation for either of these stories beyond the
mere fact that when an embassy of nobles, of
which the present prime minister was a member,
was sent to Europe and the United States in
1872, they were instructed to investigate the
various features of civilized society " and to
439

The Yankees of the East
acquire for us those things our people lack
which are best calculated to benefit this nation."
But the government does not hesitate to ad
raonish the various religious organizations when
it thinks they need correction, and the depart
ment of home affairs in 1895 issued a circular to
the hierarchy of the Buddhist and Shinto
churches which is very significant, as it calls pub
lic attention to the immorality and general un
fitness of many of the clergy of these two denom
inations, which embrace 90 per cent of . the
Japanese people.
The minister of home affairs suggests that
priests charged with the grave duty of giving in
struction in religion and morals ought to cora
bine both learning and virtue, so as to comraand
the full respect and set a good exaraple to the
people, but asserts that it is notorious that raany
of those now in holy orders are distinguished for
neither and are entirely unfitted for their posts.
This, he says, exposes the government to the
danger of a decline of morality araong the peo
ple, and the council of ministers takes occasion
to notify the bishops of both the Buddhist and
Shinto sects that they must relieve from respon
sibility as teachers and preachers all those priests
who are mentally and morally disqualified, and
adopt more rigid tests to determine the fitness
of those who are hereafter appointed. They are
required to frame new regulations for ascertain-
440

The Missionary Problem
ing the qualification of future candidates for the
priesthood and submit them to the home depart
ment for approval.
The Protestant missionaries in Japan are not
entirely pleased with the results of the Congress
of Religions that was held in Chicago during the
World's Fair. They nearly all agree that the
prominence and applause that were offered to the
representatives of the Buddhist faith have had a
serious effect upon evangelical work in the East.
Buddhism is very different in theory and in
practice. The theory is beautiful, but the prac
tice, as every one who travels in Japan will tes
tify, is very far from appealing to the intelligent
observer. The raissionaries say that the recog
nition given to the Buddhists at Chicago has
given that sect greater stiraulus than it has
received for a century, and has enabled its apos
tles to inform the people that the Protestants of
the United States do not manifest the same
opposition to their church or criticize its doc
trines as the missionaries have done.
Education is compulsory under the laws of
Japan. Every child between the ages of 5 and
14 is enrolled in the public schools, and is sup
posed to attend regularly. The law is not en
forced, however, and its enforcement would be
difficult, because child labor is the common rule
in Japan, and very few youngsters of more than 3
or 4 years of age are allowed to be idle or spend
441

The Yankees of the East
the whole day in play. The first duty of a child
is to 'tend the baby. When a little boy or girl.
reaches the age of 5 or 6 years his or her little
brother or sister is strapped upon his or her
back, and the child carries such a burden until
the next in succession is old enough to take his
or her place. The shops and factories of Japan
are filled with children. They are employed in
all the stores, and you will find boys and girls of
12 or 13 years doing work that is never at
tempted in Europe or the United States by any
but adults, except, perhaps, in Switzerland. The
rigid enforcement of the education law would
therefore be very unpopular, and might be re
sisted. But at the same time there is an eager desire
for learning araong all classes. The people of
no other nation appreciate the advantages of
education raore than the Japanese. This applies
to the coolies as well as to the nobility. Nor are
there any people that learn raore rapidly or are
raore studious than they. I have visited schools
of all grades in Japan, raany of them taught by
teachers who have had experience in Europe and
the United States, and the invariable answer to
my question is that the Japanese children as a
rule are rauch more studious and attentive at
their recitations than those of the same age in
Europe and Araerica. The courses of study are
not so high, however, as they are with us.
442

The Missionary Problem
Some of the mission schools are under the
direction of the minister of education, and the
course of study in nearly all of them is the same
as in government schools of the same grade.
The only advantage in attending the govern
ment schools is a partial escape from military
service. Under the law every boy of 17 has to
serve three years in the army, and it is easy for a
pupil in the government schools to escape all or
part of that duty. They may let him off with one
year, perhaps with two, and sometimes, when he
is a particularly meritorious student, he is
allowed to stay out of the barracks entirely.
This is to encourage education.
It is also easier for graduates of the govern
ment schools to obtain official positions, but
that is not an advantage there any more than it is
in the United States. While no schoolboy can
aspire to be Emperor of Japan, as he does to be
President of the United States, he may be prirae
minister or hold a seat in the cabinet or be
a raember of Parliament, and the civil service
has the sarae attraction the world over, although
it is equally discouraging and deraoralizing to
arabitious and industrious young men elsewhere
as with us.
The best reason for retaining the missionary
schools in Japan is that public education is limited
to the development of the intellect and neglects
the morals. There is a weak and lifeless kind
443

The Yankees of the East
of ethics taught in the government schools, but
the teachers are appointed for their educational
qualifications solely. Their raorai principles
and practices are not considered, and too raany
of them are reported to be dissolute and immoral
men. Their influence and example is often
unwholesome, and the present minister of edu
cation, realizing that this evil is spreading, is
trying to introduce reforra, both in the character
of the teachers employed and in the lessons
they give. But this is difficult because so many
are selected for political reasons.
Another defect in the public school system is
learning by rote. For centuries the literary
and educated classes in Japan have been taught
by the ancient Chinese method, which was
largely made necessary by the peculiarity of the
language. I saw in a printing office one raorning
a " case" of Japanese type. It contained more
than six thousand different characters, and
the compositor is supposed to remember them
all. There are many more characters in the
classic language of Japan. Six thousand char
acters only are necessary to set up ordinary
editorials and news items. When a work on
theology or philosophy or science is to be pub
lished the printer has to add several thousand
"sorts." Although the departraent of educa
tion has reduced this enormous task as much as
possible the tendency in Japanese schools is
444

The Missionary Problem
to develop the raemory at the expense of the
reason. The Japanese memory is one of the wonders
of the country. For example, it is the custom
to number the houses on the street in what you
may call their chronological order, instead of
their sequence ; that is, in the order of their
erection, so that No. ii raay adjoin 999 on one
side and No. 70 on the other. No. i may be
three miles from No. 2, and No. 10 midway
between them. In the city of Tokyo there are
1,330 streets, and, by the last census, 318,320
houses, which are divided into fifteen ku, or
wards. When a street passes through raore than
one ward the houses are renurabered in each
so there may be five or six numbered 20
and eight or ten numbered 2 — perhaps miles
apart. Therefore when a stranger sets out to
find No. 217 Motomara raachi, which is the
name of the street, and Azabu, the name of the
ward, in which our friend, Tsuda Sen, who was
a commissioner to the Chicago exposition, lives,
he might as well look for a needle in a hay
stack. After hunting for three or four hours and
finding seven or eight houses with the same
number on the same street six or eight railes
apart, he better sit down in the nearest tea-house
until he gets cooled off. Then he can hire a
jinrikisha raan, write the address on a piece of
445

The Yankees of the East
paper, and go whirling up and down streets and
alleys, around corners and through short-cuts
until he is landed at the proper place without
the slightest physical, mental or raorai daraage.
The jinrikisha men are coolies, without edu
cation or mental training. Most of them can
read and write the names of streets and men and
merchants and factories. They know the location
and the number of every one of the 318,320
houses in Tokyo if not the narae of almost every
one of the 1,500,000 inhabitants. They are
very seldom puzzled to find an address, even
though it raay be given incorrectly, and if you
will tell them accurately where you want to go
they will take you without the slightest delay
or hesitation. The same phenomenal meraory appears in
other classes of the people, and you have to be
careful about telling a Japanese gentleman the
the same story twice. This is the result of cen
turies of training, but the reasoning powers have
had no such exercise. The tendency, as I have
said, in the public schools is to acquire inforraa
tion by rote, without reason or morality, and
that is what the missionaries who appreciate the
effect try to avoid. It has resulted in what is
called the soshi class, whom I described in a
recent letter — young men with a fair degree of
intelligence and education, without moral stam
ina or principles or reason. They are patriotic
446

The Missionary Problem
to the highest degree, and their ambition is to
reform all the evils in politics that appear to
them. But their moral perceptions are so dull
that they cannot distinguish between right and
wrong, and, therefore, their crusades are so
dangerous. They demonstrate the old adage
that "a little learning is a dangerous thing "
The teachers in the public schools are not
allowed to have anything to do with politics or
religion, and their religious belief is never the
subject of inquiry in their examination. Sorae
of them are Christians, having been educated in
the missionary schools. Some are Catholics.
A larger proportion profess Buddhism, but a
majority have no religion at all. The tendency
of educated natives is to discard the national
religion and to become materialists. Their in
vestigations in science and literature demonstrate
to them the insufficiency of the Buddhist faith,
while they do not pursue their studies far enough
to ascertain the merits of other religions. Al
though the school of free-thinkers in Germany
and France has sent no missionaries to Japan,
their adherents in that country number hundreds
for every one who follows Christ, regardless of
the fact that millions of dollars and hundreds
of earnest and able men have been devoted to
the introduction of the Bible and the Cross.
The number of converts to Christianity
araong the higher classes and the educated men
447

The Yankees of the East
of Japan is comparatively sraall, but nearly
every one will acknowledge that the influence of
the missionaries upon civil affairs and the progress
of the country has been immeasurable. One of
the common sayings is that the only exports
from the United States to Japan are kerosene
oil and raissionaries. Commenting upon this
to rae one day, an eminent statesman of that
country, hiraself an unbeliever, reraarked : "Yes,
both have brought us light — light for the eyes
and light for the soul."
In almost every school-house in Japan you can
find an infidel. The works of Herbert Spencer,
John Stuart Mill, and other writers of the same
sort were translated into the Chinese language
as soon as the Bible, and reprints of raany scien
tific voluraes of the controversial sort can be
purchased in any Japanese book store for much
less than they cost in England. There are
weekly and raonthly publications devoted to
the discussion of scientific topics, which are not
only open but able antagonists of the Christian
faith, and it is from thera that the missionaries
meet with the greatest resistance and discour
agement. One of the native faculty of a Christian uni
versity, founded by the prayers and the contri
butions of pious people in the United States and
managed by the American Board of Foreign
Missions, himself a graduate of Yale College,
448

The Missionary Problem
has recently renounced the church that pays his
salary, and has made frequent public addresses
that would do credit to Colonel Ingersoll.
These things are discouraging, but the prog
ress of Christianity in Japan has been greater
than in any other country. Church spires may
be seen over the roofs of the cities, and through
the schools the greatest good has been and will
be done. A child who is trained in the truths
of the Bible seldom fails to follow its teachings
in after-life, and to close the missionary schools
of •Japan would be to deprive the Christian faith
of the fountain that feeds it there.
If either were recalled it would be better to
take the preachers away and leave the teachers,
especially those who manage the kindergartens
and the primary and the normal schools. The
portrait of the Emperor hangs in every school-
house in Japan, and the children are required to
bow before it as they enter and leave the build
ing, as a true Catholic bows before the crucifix
and the figure of the Virgin. Patriotism is
taught in every possible forra and on every pos
sible occasion. The Shinto religion, which is
the original faith in Japan, is siraply patriotism,
and it is utilized for political purposes. There
are 8,000,000 or more gods in the Shinto pan
theon, consisting of the ancestors of the Em
peror, and nearly all the famous soldiers,
statesmen, poets, philanthropists and heroes that
449

The Yankees of the East
have had a place among this people or appear
upon the pages of their history. Their spirits are
supposed to exercise an influence over the des
tinies of the nation and all its inhabitants, and
shrines, tablets, urns and other memorials are
erected to them, upon which their virtues and
their achievements are inscribed. Sorae of these
shrines are as raajestic in their way as the Wash
ington monument or the Arc de Triomphe in
Paris, and the people kneel before thera and in
voke the favor and intercession of the spirits of
those who were kind to the poor or proraoted
the good of the country.
There is an element of worship in it that per
mits one to call it a religion, but those who
kneel and mutter prayers before a shrine or a
tablet or an image do not ask for salvation, nor
for the forgiveness of sins, but for temporal re
lief and benefit.
One day we saw an old country woman pray
ing before the fountain that was opposite the
entrance of the Exposition building at Kyoto.
She stood where the spray could fall upon her,
and, with clasped hands, besought the interces
sion of a group of cherubs which were holding
the waterspouts, supposing they represented
some spirits of good omen. She probably
thought they were rain gods, and prayed for
showers to flood the ricefields, for the season
has been very dry. 450

The Missionary Problem
A man can accept the Shinto faith and be a
Buddhist and believe in the doctrines of Confucius
at the same time, but the educated people of the
country no longer believe in the faith of their
more ignorant ancestors.
Chinamen paint an eye on either side of the
bows of their boats, believing it to be necessary,
but there is no such superstition in Japan.
" No have eye, no can see," the Chinaman says.
But the Japanese are very superstitious in
other directions. They wear amulets and charras,
which they buy at the temples, just as we carry
the rabbit foot and similar raeans of protection,
and there are professional fortune-tellers, who go
from house to house or may be visited at their
own residences by the credulous. They go
through a forra of conjuring to dispel evil spirits,
and burn incense to attract the good before they
undertake to look into the future and usually
talk in riddles, so that their predictions raay be
verified, whatever happens.
There are fortune-tellers at the Buddhist tem
ples also, priests from whom you can buy charms
and amulets that will ward off danger and dis
ease, or you raay ascertain what is in store for
you by paying a small fee. If you are a traveler
you go to the temple of the god who protects
travelers ; if you are a farmer you go to the
patron of agriculture. There is a particular god
looking out for almost every occupation and
451

The Yankees of the East
having influence over almost every possible com
bination of circumstances, and by applying to
the proper one in the orthodox way you can
secure relief from existing evils and information
concerning those that threaten you.
I tried this plan one day. I went to the
shrine of the god Jizu, who is the patron of trav
elers, in the Asakusa temple, which is the raost
popular in Tokyo, and gave 5 sen to a priest.
He took up a wooden box about the size of a tea
caddy, shook it several times, then removing his
thumb from a little hole in the bottom allowed a
bamboo slip to drop out. This bore the number
seventy-nine, which he showed me that I raight
be sure there was no mistake or misrepresenta
tion. Then he went to a large case in which
there were three or four hundred little drawers,
and from that marked seventy-nine drew out a
sealed envelope which contained a printed slip.
The first part was a little allegory which may be
construed to mean alraost anything, written in
short jerky sentences after the didactic style of
the native poets. Then carae a few prophecies,
of which the following are translations:
"The raorning raoon will not withdraw its
bearas (which is supposed to be a good omen).
" Before the wine vat the tongue will not be
crippled. " There is no misfortune lurking behind the
door. 452

The Missionary Problem
"Pray to the gods for good fortune and
patiently await tidings.
" Wear smiles and dispense favors, be gener
ous and amiable, for such enjoy perpetual
spring. "The purpose of your journey will be ful
filled. " The sickness in your family will terminate
favorably. " The lost will be found."
Then followed a nuraber of Chinese ido-
graphs which are supposed to represent favor
able oraens.
It is remarkable how many Japanese visit
these fortune-telling shrines, and although they
will joke about it, and tell you that it is only a
method the priests have of making money out of
the ignorant and superstitious, they nevertheless
regard the process with a certain degree of rev
erence, and the most intelligent often patronize
such industries before starting on a journey or
undertaking a new enterprise.
There are 7,817,570 buildings in the empire,
according to the census, and probably 7,000,000
of them are insured by the priests against fire,
thieves, plague and pestilence. A wooden pol
icy is purchased and nailed upon the walls. If
the family is educated and intelligent it is hid
den away in some back hall ; if they are ignorant
and are not ashamed of such things it occupies a
453

The Yankees of the East
prominent place along with an idol or two, a little
offering of rice and other sacrificial symbols over
the lintel of the door. This policy is a narrow
piece of wood about six inches long, with certain
symbols branded upon it with a hot iron, which
represent both seal and certificate. These are re
newed annually upon the payment of a fee, and
a great majority of the people have absolute con
fidence in them.
Japanese soldiers carry amulets in their caps.
Gentleraen carry them in their purses or on
their watch guards. Although, like the rabbit's
foot, they are a mixture of folk-lore and reli
gion, few fail to regard them with confidence as
having power to ward off evil. In the houses
of the rich and the most highly educated you
will find shrines which they tell you are erected
for the benefit of their servants, who believe in
such things, but although they pretend to take
no stock in them they would feel very uncom
fortable if some one were to carry them away.
But the Japanese are no more superstitious in
this respect than the Catholics of America, and
even less so than those of Spain and Italy and
the Latin-American republics.
Every year at the beginning of the fishing
season in the South American countries the
effigy of Saint Peter is taken from its pedestal
in one of the churches and conducted up and
down the river or around the harbor or the bay
454

The Missionary Problem
with great ceremony in order to insure a large
catch, and the officials of the state, province and
city usually participate.
Santiago, Chile, is one of the most highly
civilized and progressive cities of the world, but
every year, upon May 5, a certain ugly image of
some unnamed saint, which is believed to have
brought about the earthquake that devastated
that place half a century ago, is carried through
the principal streets, escorted by the president
of the republic, the members of his cabinet,
the senate and house of representatives and
other high officials of the nation and the
municipality. This is intended to propitiate an
unknown power that can prevent a recurrence of
the calamity.
The Buddhist religion forbids the taking of
life even of birds and animals, and their confine
ment in cages or away from their natural habitat.
Therefore any person who releases a bird from
captivity is believed to set free some soul that is
restrained from reaching Nirvana. This belief
has led the peddlers of caged birds to haunt the
grounds surrounding Buddhist temples, and
raost of them go home every night with a lot of
erapty cages. Knowing ones say that many of
these people are sharpers who have trained the
birds to fly back to their homes as soon as they
are released, and that they sell the sarae ones
over and over every day. But it does just as
455

The Yankees of the East
much good to the pious Buddhist who sets them
free and he never knows the difference.
Sunday is a legal holiday in Japan, author
ized by the government on the theory that all
men need a day of rest, and equally out of re
spect to the Christian religion. The governraent
offices and courts are all closed and official busi
ness is universally suspended, although raany of
the shops are kept open and some of the fac
tories continue in operation seven days in the
week. But under the law those who work seven
days receive extra wages.
You see many similarities between the Shinto
and the ancient Jewish rites. The Shintos regu
late the diet, have feast and fast days and puri
fication offerings, and some of their regulations
are sirailar to those found in the book of
Leviticus. They also have an ark, a holiest of
holies and tablets of stone.
There are both Christian and Buddhist as
sociations araong the young men of Japan. The
Young Men's Christian Association of Tokyo
has a fine building and hall, and maintains a
night school, a lecture course, libraries and read
ing-rooms. There are sixty different organiza
tions of the Young Men's Christian Association
in Japan.

456

HIGH PRIEST AT IKEGAMI.

XVIII
Christianity from the Buddhist Point
of View
The original and the national religion of
Japan, which is observed by the Emperor and
the court, is called Shinto. It is, however, noth
ing raore than patriotisra, hero-worship and the
adoration of the spirits of the dead who are dei
fied under new naraes as they pass away. The
gods of the Shinto pantheon are almost innum
erable, and each has a shrine. Some are known
only to a limited locality, and are worshipped,
perhaps, by a. single family. Others, like the
long list of emperors and heroes of history,
have many shrines dedicated to their raemory,
and accept the incense of raillions. Shintoism
is a form of spiritualism highly developed and
entering into all the affairs and transactions of
life. While the worship of ancestors, inherited
from the Chinese, was undoubtedly the basis of
the Shinto faith, it has become much liberalized
in Japan, and families worship not only their
own ancestors, but those of other people who
were powerful on earth, and are supposed to re-
457

The Yankees of the East
tain their influence over the fortunes of men
both for good and for evil. The Emperor wor
ships his ancestors and the spirits of certain
other historical personages who have been active
and influential in promoting the welfare of
Japan, and if any misfortune overtakes the na
tion it is attributed to his neglect or indiffer
ence. By a natural process the more prominent
deities of the Shinto calendar have been assigned
to certain definite duties, like the god of war,
the god of agriculture, the patron of the
wrestling guild, the deity who presides over the
destinies of peddlers, the corapassionate protec
tor of widows and orphans, and the marine deity
who gives good luck and bad luck to fishermen
and watches over poor Jack in the fo'castle while
the tempest rages.
In each house is a shrine dedicated to the
gods that are habitually worshipped by the
members of that family, with tablets of lacquer
and gold upon which their names and their at
tributes are inscribed, and, whenever the mem
bers of the household undertake any new enter
prise or start upon a journey, or make a con
tract, or when they are in trouble or distress,
either physical or mental, they apply for the in
tercession of the proper deity just as a good
Catholic prays for the aid of a saint. At the
common temples are priests who attend to the
458

Christianity
affairs of the particular god that is enshrined
there, keep things in order, sell charms and
amulets, tell fortunes, offer prayers for any special
purpose, for which they charge fixed fees, and
instruct, comfort and admonish the worshippers
who belong in their parish. There is never
preaching or public prayers. Shinto is essen
tially a private religion. It describes the rela
tion between the living raan and the souls of
those who have gone before, but the essence is pa
triotism. The priests teach and the people be
lieve that the Emperor is of divine origin and
that he passes among the gods when he dies ;
so they worship him now and hereafter with
equal reverence. The government holds a
nominal title to all the Shinto temples, and the
beautiful parks which usually surround them.
A subsidy is paid annually to the Shinto priests
for political purposes, and they are, in a meas
ure, under the authority of the minister of edu
cation. This is a matter of some importance, as
the priests exercise a powerful influence over
the common people, and by the sale of charms
alone may affect public sentiment to a degree
that cannot be fully understood in this country.
They are even more important as a political
factor than the Catholic priesthood in the United
States. The Buddhist religion is beautiful in theory,
but invariably disappoints its admirers when
459

The Yankees of the East
they see it in actual application. It teaches
peace, purity and the subjugation of the pas
sions. A true Buddhist is very much like the
members of a sect called Perfectionists that used
to be more coramon in the United States than
now, and his ideas of a hereafter reserables the
theories of Emanuel Swedenborg. He eats no
flesh or fish or fowl ; he fasts frequently ; he
spends days and nights in contemplation and
prayer ; he becomes ecstatic and is willing to
make any sacrifice for the benefit of his fellow-
man. He teaches love, benevolence, unselfish
ness, and, above all, purity of heart, and many
of the priests live up to their creed. But viewed
from a practical standpoint the " Light of the
World " has not illuminated the lives of his dev
otees. The influence of Buddhism has un
doubtedly enlivened art and encouraged
morality, and the influence of Christianity upon
the habits and morals of its believers is much
less than that of Buddhism upon its adherents.
When the first erabassy left Japan to view the
world, and recoraraend such features of foreign
civilization as they thought would be for the wel
fare of the people, they made a sad report con
cerning the influence of Christianity upon crime
and the habits of the people compared with the
conditions that Buddhism had brought about in
Japan. But, at the sarae time, the latter religion
thrives best araong the ignorant. This has
460

Christianity
also been demonstrated in Japan. Educated
men have no use for the church, except a few
sentimentalists and assthetics who recognize in
the teachings of Buddha a beauty and refine
ment that more practical creeds do not possess.
Buddhism, like Christianity, is divided into
nine sects, the result of a difference in the inter
pretation of the teachings of "The Xight of
Asia." Some are liberal and some are conserva
tive. Some favor the education of the masses;
sorae are opposed to it. Some offer a highly
seasoned consolation in sorrow and distress, and
inspire the noblest aspirations in the cultivation
of character. Others are narrow and bigoted,
and flourish where superstition saturates the
minds of the people and ignorance is most
dense. There have grown up around the prac
tices of the priests a great many curious customs
that are offensive to the higher Buddhist clergy,
such as the sale of charms, fortune-telling and
fetish worship, but education will correct all
that, at the expense of the numbers and the in
fluence of the church.
There is no doubt that Buddhism is in a
state of rapid decay, although the able men of
the church are endeavoring to stimulate the
faith of the people by organizing among the
young men and women societies similar to the
Young Men's Christian Association, and by using
the printing press and other agencies.
461

The Yankees of the East
Renjo Akamatzu is a Buddhist priest of the
Shiu-Shin-Monto sect and is attached to the
Nishi Honganji teraple at Kyoto, the largest
and most beautiful in Japan. It is one of the
very few and perhaps the only large temple that
has been erected during the present century. It
cost several millions of dollars in cash, without
including an equal amount of contributions in
the way of labor and materials. Thousands of
people throughout the erapire furnished aid in
its erection. One man gave timbers, another
stone, a third tiles. Artists, raechanics and
laborers gave their time and talent, and with a
love of the cause in their hearts produced results
that surpass in beauty and grandeur everything
else in Japan except the mausoleum and mortu
ary shrines of the great shogun leyasu at Nikko.
It was for the building of this temple that
the women of Japan gave their hair to make
the cables that hoisted the timbers in place,
which, having perforraed their functions, now
lie in an old shed in the neighborhood awaiting
final disposition in some chapel connected with
the temple. Every one of thera is composed of
tresses of jet-black hair shorn frora the heads of
the women and girls of Japan. A piece of one
of the ropes was/sent to the national museum in
Washington some years ago as evidence of the
devotion of the Japanese to their religion.
Mr. Akamatzu was educated in Europe. He
462

Christianity
spent some years in England, and afterward
went to Germany, where he was a pupil of the
famous Max Miiller. The latter alludes to him
in one of his books.
I asked him one day if he desired to say any
thing concerning the anti-foreign crusade that
now prevails in Japan, which is popularly attri
buted to the Buddhist priests and their desire to
drive Christian missionaries out of the empire.
"I think," said he, in reply, "the anti-
foreign feeling that has sprung up so suddenly
and has extended so rapidly over Japan is due
raore to the development of national pride and
independence than to any religious prejudice.
Our people are naturally vain of their own
achievements and have reached a point now
where they consider theraselves able to get along
without foreign assistance. They want to throw
away their crutches and walk alone, and you can
scarcely blame them for such an ambition. It
is the natural and logical consequence of their
advancement in knowledge. No doubt many
priests of my own church and the Shinto faith
have taken advantage of this national spirit of
independence to promote the interests to which
they are devoted. It would be natural and
logical for them to do so, but I,- think there is
more liberality and religious tolera.nce among
the people of Japan, particularly among the
younger generation, than ever before.
463

The Yankees ofthe East
" We recognize Christianity as a permanent
institution. I think, judging from observation
alone, that the Christian church here can get
along without aid from abroad. Formerly there
was a great deal of friction and distrust. The
Buddhist did not know what Christianity is,
and very few Christians now understand what
Buddhism is. They came here with violent
prejudices, which have been exaggerated by con
tact with indiscreet and unreasonable persons,
but many of the ablest of the Christian teachers
and many of the ablest of the Buddhist priests
recognize that there is merit in both religions,
and that both are capable of doing good. There
is no reason why Buddhism and Christianity
cannot exist in Japan without friction, because
both appeal to the hearts and minds of men, and
there are those who would be better satisfied
with one than with the other. The Christians
have gathered in a great many Japanese who had
left the Buddhist church and were without a
religion. Religion has becorae a raatter of
individual opinion araong the educated people
of Japan, as it is among similar classes in other
countries, and they should study both and find
out which is raore suitable to their wants."
" You believe that Buddhisra is the only true
religion ?"
" No. I am not so bigoted as that. I do
believe, however, that it is the most suitable
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Christianity
religion for this people. It is impossible to say
that one religion is better than another. They
are all based, raore or less, upon faith and
mysteries, and every one has his own tests as he
has his own wants. The effect of all religions
should be to make men good, just as the effect
of science is to make thera clever. Individually
I believe that Buddhisra is better for the Japan
ese than Christianity, and it is probable that
any Christian you might ask would express the
same belief regarding his own religion as applied
to America and Europe. At the same time, I
fancy an impartial and disinterested raan raight
say that both have their value and usefulness,
because the huraan raind is so constituted that
different principles and dograas are accepted by
one and rejected by another, just as among
Christians. Your church is divided into different
sects, such as Presbyterians, Methodists and
Catholics, on the line of their natural tendencies
and their individual interpretations of the teach
ings of Christ. Buddhisra is divided into sects
in a similar manner over differences of opinion
regarding the meaning of the teachings of
Buddha, but all genuine religions and all honest
sects have the same purpose and the same
tendency, and I suppose that all good men will
enjoy immortality together in the place where
the souls of the good will spend eternity,
whether we call it heaven or nirvana.
465

The Yankees of the East
"I encourage all of my students and friends
to study Christianity and other religions because
it makes them broad-minded. It can do no
harra to any intelligent man to investigate other
religions than his own. I do not believe in
proselyting. I would never ask a Christian to
become a Buddhist, but if he should come to me
and ask me to explain the creed and the prin
ciples of my religion I should take great pleas
ure in doing so. Thus far I approve of mission
ary work. I believe, too, that it is fair and
proper for the different churches to send out
missionaries capable of teaching the principles
upon which they are based, but I do not think
it is right for a Buddhist or a Christian mission
ary to try and coax people to leave one religion
and accept another. I should simply encourage
all men to study all religions and adopt that
which is most suitable to their tastes, just as
travel develops a man and enables him to choose
the most agreeable country to live in. I have
traveled in the United States and Europe, but I
returned to Japan satisfied with ray own country.
A little couplet says :
" ' Go east or west,
But home is best.'
" In the sarae way I have studied all religions
and have come to the conclusion that I will
reraain a Buddhist." 466

Christianity
" Are the Buddhists of Japan becoming more
tolerant ? "
" I think Buddhisra is the most liberal reli
gion in the world. Some Buddhists are very
intolerant. All religions have narrow-minded
men as well as broad-minded men, but one of
the chief principles of Buddhism is toleration.
The Buddhist priests came to China and to
Japan from India, not to destroy other religions,
but to offer consolation to those who desired it.
Our church never carried on a propaganda by
force. It never attempted to overthrow any
church that existed before it, but practically
amalgamated with Shintoism and Confucianism.
All three tolerate each other, and it is not incon
sistent for the same man to accept certain doc
trines in each of them. I am a Buddhist, but I
accept certain points in the Shinto faith."
" What is Shintoism ? "
" That is difficult to explain. In a single
sentence Shintoism may be described as the wor
ship of the Emperor and other great men of the
nation. It teaches patriotism. I also accept
many of the doctrines of Confucius."
" Have the Christian missionaries done any
good in Japan ? "
"Some have done a great deal of good;
others have done harm. The Christian religion
has attracted many raen who left our church and
were drifting into raaterialisra. They have
467

The Yankees of the East
adopted Christianity and amended their lives.
Christianity has also been influential in the in
troduction of raodern methods and the sciences
of civilization. It has not been necessary to
accept the Christian religion to enjoy those ad
vantages. The Buddhist colleges now teach
modern science. We encourage the study of all
modern methods and are glad to have foreign
teachers. The more a raan learns the raore lib
eral he will be in raatters of religion, just as he
will be more useful as a citizen. It was not nec
essary, however, to import a new religion into
Japan, as Buddhism was sufficient for the spirit
ual wants and moral education of the people.
Nevertheless, Christianity has benefited the
country and I am glad the missionaries came."
" Do the Christian and Buddhist clergy asso
ciate with each other ? "
" No, I am sorry to say that they do not. I
hope that by and by, after the new treaties go
into effect, that the clergy of both religions will
intermingle in a friendly manner, just as the
representatives of the different denominations do
in America. Let each preacher preach his own
doctrine and let the people choose that which
suits thera best."
" Would you send the foreign teachers away
frora Japan ? "
" No. It is not necessary to send the foreign
teachers away, although it is not necessary to

Christianity
keep thera here, except in some particular cases
where their instruction is needed in special sci
ences. I think, however, it would be much bet
ter for our young men to go to America and
Europe and get a genuine foreign education in
the institutions there than to receive simply a
veneer from foreign teachers in Japan. They
would have better advantages there and they
would absorb the real spirit of American civiliza
tion into their entire beings instead of having it
administered to them in small doses by imported
experts. " I hope that there will be more frequent in
terchanges of ideas and hospitality like the Con
gress of Religions at Chicago. I hope, too, that
there will be peace and good will and cordial
feelings between members of different churches.
Religion should make raen friendly and charita
ble, as they were taught both by Christ and
Buddha. It is incoraprehensible to rae when I
hear of violence used in propagating or defend
ing religious doctrines. True religion as Christ
taught it is peace and love, yet his followers
have been fighting each other for eighteen cen
turies. The followers of Buddha have not done
that. We have had bad men in our church and
there has been much fighting araong Buddhists,
but it was only about worldly raatters, and not
concerning doctrines. Our church is divided
into several sects, also, representing difterent
469

The Yankees of the East
shades of belief, but they have never used vio
lence against each other."
I was invited one day to the temple of Ike
gami, a few miles south of this city on the Yoko
hama road, to attend a "segaki" or raemorial
mass, if I may call it such, which the monks of
the Nichlren sect of Buddhists were to sing for
the repose of the souls of the soldiers that lost
their lives in the war. It was a great occasion
and we were especially favored. The Nichiren
Buddhists are the largest, richest and most influ
ential of the eight sects of that faith in Japan,
and may be corapared with the Presbyterians of
Araerica in raany of their characteristics. Ikegami
is their headquarters, and it is one of the oldest
and raost celebrated of the teraples of the East.
It is situated upon a group of low hills sur
rounded by little farras of araazing richness that
look as if they belonged to children and were
cultivated with a trowel and a fine-tooth comb.
The farm villages are picturesque, the roads are
lined with hedges of green, the rice paddies
were flooded at the planting time until they
looked like miniature lakes, and the barley,
wheat and oats had ripened into gold.
From the station named Oraori, where are
only a few little shops and tea-houses, to the be-
terapled hills was a continuous line of straw-
thatched cottages and shops, which, in recogni
tion of the occasion, were strung with lanterns
470

Christianity
and with red and white flags. Bamboo poles,
driven into the ground and covered -«'ith paper
flowers, were set out like sign-posts at frequent
intervals, which is the conventional announce
raent of a feast or festival in Japan. By the
roadside were hundreds of peddlers, men and
women, with their toys and trifles spread upon
pieces of matting, who tried to attract the trade
of passers-by with honeyed compliments and
cordial greetings. They had all sorts of sweet
meats, cakes and confectionery and ginger and
lemon pop, just as we have it at home, badges
and decorations appropriate to the occasion,
penny whistles which they sold for a " rin" (one-
fifth of a farthing), and every possible form of
toy. Sorae were very ingenious, and the prices
were astonishingly low.
The streets were crowded with peasants car
rying gay parasols and big paper umbrellas.
The women were tightly wrapped in kimonos,
with a little touch of red or yellow in their elab
orate coiffures, while the men were bareheaded
and barelegged up to their thighs. There seemed
to be a dozen dirty-faced children for every
adult, and all the women and children above the
age of 5 years were carrying babies upon their
backs, as .^Eneas is said to have carried his father
frora the ruins of Troy.
The roadway leads to a. long flight of steps
fifty feet wide, raade of cut granite and polished
471

The Yankees of the East
with the shuffling sandals of the millions upon
raillions of worshipers that have clirabed to pray
in the temples for the last 600 years. A huge
gate painted a brilliant red, just like those you
see on Japanese fans and pictures, overtowers
the stairway. Similar ones are found at the en
trance to every teraple. There was a crowd of
people ascending and descending continually
all day, for the services commenced at 7 o'clock
in the morning and lasted until 6 o'clock at
night. At the top of the stairway, in the grove on
either side, are shrines to the various saints in
the Nichiren calendar, pagodas, towers, tea
houses and several small temples that have been
erected from tirae to time by wealthy devotees
to certain gods and goddesses in the Buddhist
mythology who have brought them good for
tune. There is a temple to the north star, es
pecially patronized by fishermen and sailors; and
another to Jizu, the compassionate Buddhist
protector of people who are in trouble. He is
the patron of travelers, too, and the believers
always come and pray to hira and leave a votive
offering before they start upon a journey. Jizu
is represented as a shaven priest, with a benevo
lent countenance, holding in one hand a jewel
and in the other a staff, which syrabolizes the
toil of the traveler, and his image is seen more
frequently than any other in Japan, for among
472

Christianity
his numerous duties he is supposed to watch over
women who are expected to become mothers.
Daikoku, the god of riches and abundance,
has one of the handsomest temples, and seems
to be almost as popular as Jizu. He is a fat little
fellow, who sits forever upon a bag of rice and
wears a complacent smile. Before each shrine
is a large wooden box, with a slit in the top for
offerings, and the worshipers can obtain printed
forms of prayer at a convenient stand for a
copper coin. The favorite way of praying, how
ever, is to pull the cord that sounds the gong
and to clap the hands to call the attention of
the god, and then, clasping the hands below
the chin, to mutter in simple terms the object of
the petition. Then, if you want to make sure,
you can buy one of the paper prayers for pro
tection on your journey, if you please, or for a
safe delivery, and paste it up on the shrine
where the god will be constantly reminded of
you. Perhaps, on the whole, that is the safer
way. And there is a method of testing whether
the prayer is to be answered that is simple and
convenient. Buy another prayer, chew it into
pulp and throw it through the bars of the shrine
against the body of the divinity, as boys throw
"spit-balls" against the ceiling in a country
school. If it sticks your prayer is likely to be
answered. If it does not you had better pray
again. 473

The Yankees of the East
Before every temple is a great stone basin
of running water, with much-used towels hang
ing from a rack near by. These are for the
benefit of worshipers whose religion teaches
them the injunction of Christ, that he who hath
clean hands and a pure heart is acceptable.
Thus before approaching the sanctuary every
pious Buddhist bathes his hands.
Sheltering the temples of Ikegami is a grove
of majestic trees, under which Nichiren, the
founder of the sect that bears his name, and one
of the foremost characters in Japanese history,
taught his disciples six hundred and fifty years
ago. He was born in 1222, and his life is full
of amazing activity and romantic adventure.
At the age of twelve, by a miracle, he acquired a
thorough knowledge of all the canons of Bud
dhism, and when he was fifteen years old he was
consecrated to the priesthood and took the
name of Nichiren, by which he is known to his
tory and religion. It signifies " The lotus of
the sea."
He was a fiery patriot, the Ignatius Loyola
of Japan ; an ecclesiastical soshi, unrelenting
and intolerant, denouncing all other creeds as
heresies, and elevating himself to a niche in the
pantheon second only to that of Buddha him
self. It was to him that Shichimen appeared, the
great god of the seven faces, which is identical
474

Christianity
with the Hindoo deity Siva. According to the
legend, while Nichiren was worshiping at the
town of Minobu, a beautiful woman made her
appearance, explaining that she dwelt among
the mountains of the west, and, seated on one
of the eight points of the compass, dispensed
blessings to the other seven. She begged a
vase of water, which was given her, and as she
dipped her fingers the beautiful woman was at
once transformed into a snake twenty feet long,
covered with scales of. gold and armed with iron
teeth. A terrible blast swept down the moun
tain and enveloped Nichiren in a cloud of dust.
When it cleared away the snake was gone.
Nichiren was a great controversialist and
attacked the other sects so violently that he was
banished for severa,l years. When he came home
he renewed his agitation and demanded that the
government should adopt his creed instead of
the Shinto, which was the faith of the state.
For this he was condemned to be beheaded, but
by a miracle the executioner's sword fell in frag
ments, and the Mikado dared not touch the
holy man again.
He founded the monastery of Ikegami in
1282, and when he died there his body was
cremated and his dust divided among the several
raonasteries of his sect. His followers are fa
raous for zeal, aggressiveness and intolerance,
and it is said to be the only branch of the Bud-
475

The Yankees of the East
dhist church that is growing in numbers in
Japan. As we entered the raain teraple we were met
by a group of priests, and at their suggestion
took off our shoes, for one raight as well dance
upon the polished cover of a raahogany piano
as to enter a Japanese sanctuary in leather shoes.
They gave us felt slippers, and we followed our
escort, who led us with gestures and smiles of
welcome to the kyadu-den, or reception-room,
where, with a great many bows and palavers,
they brought modern chairs and placed them in
a row upon a pair of red Araerican blankets
which had been spread to protect the delicate
matting that covered the floor.
There was a good deal of rushing around
and jabbering, and many motions that we could
not coraprehend, until two young neophytes
brought us cakes and tea, served in the most
delicate of china upon trays of beautiful lac
quered ware. It was near noon, and the priests
had taken a recess from their worship for a little
rest and " tiffin," perhaps, for we could detect
odors of cooking from their apartments, which
occupied the neighboring wing of the monastery.
As we found rauch difficulty in communicating
with the priests by gestures, they brought from
somewhere a long-bearded raan with raost benev
olent intentions, who said he could speak Eng
lish, and struggled desperately to give us the
476

Christianity
information the monks had tried unsuccessfully
to communicate. Pretty soon he led us through a long series
of rooms into the temple, and the young men
followed, bringing our chairs, which were placed
within the sanctuary, only a few feet from the
altar and facing the high priest.
The temple proper covers perhaps an acre of
ground — a low, rarabling building with a raas-
sive roof covered with heavy tiles that curl up
at the corners, as you always see them in Japan
ese pictures. It has accommodations for three
hundred monks, with reception-room, libraries,
reliquaries, treasure-houses, apartments for the
priests, kitchens, wardrobes — perhaps five hun
dred rooms in all, which are arranged in the
Japanese style and separated by sliding parti
tions. Sorae of the screens are of beautifully pol
ished wood and others of small panels, in which
paper is pasted instead of glass. The great
chamber of worship is perhaps two hundred feet
square, with frequent pillars handsomely carved
and painted red. The interior is a mass of
lacquer, gilding banners, streamers and bronzes,
with immense lanterns of brass and copper
filigree, bronze images and lotus leaves, gongs
and drums placed upon pedestals or hanging
from the roof, gilded screens, portraits of famous
priests, and quaint pictures in the Japanese style
representing scenes in the life of Buddha and
477

The Yankees of the East
Nichiren, who seems to have been a sort of St.
Peter. The altar was a pyramid of gaudy decora
tions, candlesticks and paper flowers, with
myriads of candles, burning incense sticks and
bundles of paper prayers before the images of
the different gods. On the sumrait and in the
center is a massive effigy of Buddha, wearing
the invariable complacent smile. The peasants
think it is a solid mass of gold, but it is only a
block of wood gilded. At the right of the altar,
behind gilded doors, is a similar image of the
sainted Nichiren.
The priests came from their retiring-rooms
in a long procession, raarching awkwardly and
unevenly, some with long strides and some with
short, and their faces furnished a most interest
ing study for a physiognomist. Some were
gross and gluttonous ; others wore a sanctified
expression, as if they had acquired the supreme
ambition of every Buddhist, which is the entire
suppression of the passions and the enjoyment
of a holy calm. Some were old and tooth
less ; others were young, almost boyish. Several
had strong, intellectual faces, others were vicious
and almost idiotic, and it did not require a
Lavater to decide that all sorts of characters have
found their way into the Buddhist priesthood.
The procession was led by priests who wore
robes of distinctive color and fashion, hand-
478

Christianity
somely embroidered. Then came two acolytes
bearing trays covered with napkins, which they
placed on the altar. I learned afterward that
they contained food for the gods. Following
thera was the high priest, who wore a long, white
beard and looked like a patriarch. He is the
bishop of the largest Buddhist diocese in Japan,
and is reputed to be a man of proper life, pro
found learning and great influence in public
affairs. His robes were gorgeous brocades, scar
let and purple and gold. He carried an elab
orate lacquer staff like a crosier, and a horse-tail
switch, which is used in the distribution of bless
ings. It is waved before the image of Buddha
and then over the heads of the worshipers to
distribute the beneficent influence of the god
through the atmosphere. The other priests
wore robes of different colors, which seemed to
indicate their rank — white, yellow, green, pur
ple, blue, and scarlet. Some were embroidered
and some were plain, and every priest carried
in his hand a folding fan which he used fre
quently through the service. We counted two
hundred of them and there were many raore.
The high priest knelt in front of a reading
desk before the altar and muttered a prayer,
switching his horse-hair wand to and fro at in
tervals, while the other celebrants took their
places in long rows at either side of the altar,
facing each other and squatting upon their heels
479

The Yankees of the East
in front of low lacquer tables covered with boxes.
I noticed that the tables corresponded in color
-with the robes of the priests.
There was a strong odor of incense as the
high priest led a chanted service from a parch
ment roll spread out before hira, and a muscular
monk over in a corner beat a suspended drum
about the size and shape of an oil barrel with an
instrument that looked like a baseball bat.
Whenever he struck the drura the priest chanted
the sacred formula of Nichiren : " Namu mio
oho renge kyo," which literally means, " Glory
to the book that brought salvation, the blossom
of religion." The high priest then arose frora his reading
desk and, followed by the acolytes bearing rice
and other foods on lacquered trays under em
broidered covers, took his place at the other end
of the aisle under an immense red umbrella.
His attendants threw over his shoulders a scarlet
robe, and, as he touched a gong, all of the
priests lifted the covers from their little lacquer
tables and disclosed piles of books — the sacred
gospels of Buddha. Then, under the leader
ship of the high priest, they commenced to in
tone the contents of these volumes in concert,
while two or three priests struck gongs occa
sionally, first one and then another, without any
apparent regularity or order, but I suppose they
understood their business. 480

Christianity
As the gong would strike, the monotonous
intonations would swell in volume, as if the
sleepy ones were aroused to raore zeal in the
tedious service. Then the rauscular monk with
the baseball bat would go over and pound the
big drum with an energy that showed that he
was in earnest. They told us that the terrific
racket he made was intended to attract the at
tention of the gods, and he did his best to keep
them awake. Occasionally an attendant brought
the high priest a cup of tea, which he drank in a
swallow while the sing-song, sing-song of the
service went on. It lasted for five hours con
tinuously. We got enough of it in two.
This was said to have been one of the most
solemn and momentous ceremonies that has
ever occurred in Japan, and is believed to have
brought into Nirvana, the Buddhist paradise,
the wandering souls of all the soldiers who fell
in the war.
Another remarkable service was held in this
sarae temple in 1889, when the same priests
chanted a similar litany for the repose of the
souls of the sailors of the American raan-of-war
Oneida, which was sunk with her officers and
crew near the raouth of Yeddo bay in 1870.
The bones of many of the lost were afterward
recovered by wreckers and buried in the grounds
that surround the temple at Ikegarai. At the
service five years ago the American admiral and
481

The Yankees of the East
his staff attended, with one hundred sailors from
the fleet, including one frora the solitary boat's
crew that escaped the disaster.
Weary with sight-seeing, we sat on lovely day
upon an immense block of moss-covered granite
that for centuries has supported the pillars of a
portico before a Buddhist temple at Nikko. We
had followed bare-footed monks through a wild
erness of marvelous carving and gold lacquer
until we were bewildered and willing to let the
rest of the gorgeous spectacle go by default.
The face of the young priest who had been our
cicerone was scholarly and refined and wore
that expression of calm contentment that can be
acquired only by those to whora the world has
offered everything they covet. His pallid skin
and his blue veins indicated the student and the
recluse, and his simple robe of white was very
becoming, although that fact never entered his
mind. He asked me a natural question — how
the Buddhist religion impressed me — and I
made a natural reply — that while it might ap
peal strongly to the sentimental as a corabina-
tion of peace, purity and coraposure, a practical
raan of modern ideas could not be expected to
place much faith in a religion whose believers
ring a bell to awaken the god before they offer
a prayer and then throw spitballs at an image of
the deity to see if he has heard it.
An expression of raingled pain and reproach
482

Christianity
replaced the usual calm serenity of his face and
he rebuked me thus :
"You ought not to speak so thoughtlessly.
You have no more right to judge of my religion
by the excrescences the ignorant have attached
to it than I have to judge of the Church of
England by the Salvation Army which I saw in
the streets of London. No one can understand
or appreciate Buddhism without serious study
any more than any other religion. I understand
that the comparative study of religions has been
introduced into some of the theological schools
of your country, which is a wise thing, and I
hope your teachers will adopt such text-books as
do justice to the Buddhists. The comparison of
religions is necessary for a man to understand
and appreciate his own, and, while I do not ex
pect any of your theologians will be led to
accept our faith by individual investigation, it
will certainly broaden their minds and make
them raore tolerant toward a church that has
done much good among men and is better
suited to the conditions of the people of the
East than any other. I have studied the Chris
tian religion and have spent years of reflection
upon it, and I will tell you what I think of it,
if you like."
"Hold on," I said, "until I sharpen my
pencil. I would like to print what you say if you
have no objection." 483

The Yankees of the East
"I would be glad to have it printed," he
replied, " but please do not mention my name,
lest some missionary might claim rae as a con
vert. They claim everyone that nods during
their sermons," and he smiled gently at his own
witticism. " I confess that I am a raember of the most
liberal sect of Buddhists. We have broad men
and narrow men in our church, just as you have
in yours. We have ignorant men and learned
men, and we have wise men and foolish men,
also. Perhaps we have a larger proportion of
narrow, ignorant and foolish priests than are
found in the Christian church, because of our
limitations, but you have your share. Our
priests have not had the same opportunities for
learning and seeing the world that your clergy
men have had. We are several hundred years
behind the times, but you will find many men in
the Buddhist church who believe much as I do
and who find in the Christian religion much that
almost parallels our own.
" I can accept nearly everything in your con
fession of faith ; by that I mean the Apostles'
Creed that you recite in your church service,
and which I take to be a condensed form of
your belief. I, too, believe in ' God, the Father
Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,' al
though I may not call Hira by that name or
worship Him as you do. I believe in Jesus
484

Christianity
Christ, who was one of the most sublime and
beautiful characters that ever existed and is
worthy of the worship and the emulation of
every Buddhist. There is nothing in the life or
the teachings of Christ that conflicts with those
of Buddha. You will find a very striking similar
ity in their teachings. Buddha preceded Christ
by 500 years, and if Christ was not familiar with
his writings — it is entirely possible that he may
have been — there is a most remarkable parallel
in their lives, the channels of their thought and
their code of morals.
"I do not accept, but I do not deny the
dogma of the immaculate conception ; no ra
tional man can deny it who witnesses the
mysteries of nature occurring constantly before
him. It is no raore iraprobable than the growth
of flowers and fruits frora little, insignificant,
dried-up seeds.
" I do not understand what your creed raeans
when it says that Christ descended into hell, but
I do not deny that he rose frora the dead and
ascended into heaven, as described in your
Bible. Of course, you cannot expect rae to say
it is true. No raan can know a thing unless he
sees it or has evidence in which he places confi
dence, but I adrait its possibility. And it may
be that Christ is ' sitting at the right hand of
God, from which he will come to judge the quick
and the dead,' although, perhaps, that sentence
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The Yankees of the East
may convey a different meaning to different per
sons. I interpret it as a figure of speech, that,
like our saints, like Buddha, perhaps, Christ's
pure life and martyrdom, his wisdora and just
ness and his other attributes, make him power
ful in controlling the fate of ordinary beings.
Hence, it is not only proper but a satisfaction to
pray to him and ask his favor. We do the
sarae with Buddha for the same reason, and I
can pray to your God and to your Christ for
blessings with the same faith that they will hear
me and answer my requests.
"I do not understand your doctrine of the
atonement. I never could understand it. It
does not seem logical. I cannot see how the
blood of one good man can, as you say, wash
away the sins of multitudes of millions of others
who have the same intelligence and the same
opportunities to practice good morals and live
sinless lives, but have neglected to do so. What
is the use of a man trying to be good if the
blood of Christ is sufficient to save him from the
penalty of his sins? All he has to do is to be as
wicked as he likes up to a certain period, when
the termination of his life is approaching, then
repent of his evil ways and accept what has cost
him nothing. It does not seem fair to those
who have lived correct lives and done great good,
at the cost of years of labor and suffering and
self-denial, to have some rascally fellow share the
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Christianity
same blessings, just because Christ was crucified.
Still, that is one of the many points bt theology
upon which Christians differ, and I may be par
doned for not understanding it.
" I believe also in the holy Catholic church
— that is, a church universal, a religion that may
apply to all men, and under whose shelter all
suffering souls can find rest. I presume that is
what it raeans. And I believe in 'the com
munion of saints' — that is, the intercourse of the
spirits of the dead — and ' in the life everlasting'
— that is, the immortality of the soul.
" The great Creator implanted in the breast
of every man an instinct which leads hira to
worship a Supreme Being which raay be called
by any narae. The term does not affect the ex
istence nor the omnipotent power that belongs
to such a Being, but the instinct is ever present
and unerring, like that which leads the fish to
swim and the bird to fly. Without it man would
be deformed. This instinct has developed among
raankind into what we call religion, and that
development has been governed by local condi
tions, customs and habits. For example, the
people of the desert worship water, which repre
sents to them the source of life, their greatest
blessing. Other people worship the sun for a
similar reason. Different forms and ceremonies
have become attached to these religions, and are
practiced by believers, but they are simply the
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The Yankees of the East
expressions of religious emotions and not an in
tegral part of the religion itself. You ring a bell
and play an organ and have choirs to sing in
your churches. We pound a drum for a similar
purpose. Nobody with sufficient intelligence to
understand the Buddhist faith believes that this
drum is beaten to awaken a god. Superstition
has become attached to it by the ignorant peo
ple, but there is no use in trying to correct the
impression, because the superstition is harmless.
" Nor do we worship idols. Your raissionaries
have misrepresented Buddhism in this respect
ever since they first saw our form of worship.
The image is nothing of itself — a block of wood
or an ordinary stone would answer the same
purpose — but it is a symbol of an invisible be
ing, soraetiraes beautiful and soraetiraes rude,
according to the art and intelligence of the man
who makes it. It represents the object of our
worship, just like your cross and the iraage of
Christ and the Virgin Mary. We have no image
to represent our Supreme Being. We cannot
conceive what he looks like. But we have rep
resentations, raore or less rude, of our deities,
just as a Catholic church has pictures of its
saints, and we dedicate our teraples to this or
that deity, just as your churches are dedicated
to St. Paul and St. John and St. Thomas.
" I believe, generally speaking, in the Mosaic
account of the creation. It corresponds with our

Christianity
own theory of the origin of things. There is a
similarity in all theories of the creation of the
world, which differ more or less as the people
who entertain them are ignorant or intelligent.
They are about as near each other as the same
story would be told by men of different races
and accustomed to different habits of thought
and expression.
" The development of the religious instinct
to which I have referred is like the development
of art, literature and industry. It follows an
evolution as civilization advances and the human
raind acquires culture. The African savage who
worships a fetich is inspired by the same raotive,
and is just as sincere as the pope when he says
mass in St. Peter's. The only difference is in
the degree of civilization acquired by the wor
shiper. Your own church was once in the same
condition in regard to intelligence as the Bud
dhist believers are now. Perhaps it was worse
than we ever were, because our priests have
always taught peace and love, while millions of
innocent persons have been sacrificed in sup
porting theological controversies in the Christian
church. I believe a long and bloody war was
once fought to decide whether the sign of the
cross should be made with three fingers or two,
and if I am not mistaken the good Puritans who
settled your own country believed in witchcraft,
and not many years ago were burning people
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The Yankees of the East
who were supposed to be possessed of the devil.
You do not believe in witchcraft now. Our
people do. You have advanced beyond that
point. We have not, but are approaching it,
and, as we are educated, what you consider
absurd and ridiculous ceremonies at our teraples
by the poor and ignorant will be abandoned for
a raore intelligent form of worship. Your peo
ple had sirailar ceremonies when they were in
our stage of civilization, and our people will act
more rationally when we become as highly edu
cated as you are.
" It is a serious question whether your morals
are any better than ours. An American friend
of mine in Yokohama recently showed me a
book written by a great English humanitarian
that tells what Christ would see if he came to
Chicago. I am very sure he would not see any
such wickedness in Japan. Suppose our Em
peror should be induced to accept Christianity
as a national religion, as some of your raission
aries have suggested he might do, and before
doing so he should send a commission to the
great Christian nations to ascertain what effect
your religion has had upon, the morals of your
people. They would be corapelled to report
that there is no such folly and wickedness and
degradation in Tokyo or in any of our other
cities as they would find in London and Paris,
New York and Chicago, and when the statistics
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Christianity
of poverty and crime were compared I am very
sure the Emperor would be convinced that
Buddhism was better suited to the welfare of
Japan." According to the Shinto and Buddhist cal
endars the 15th of July is All Souls' day in Japan
and everybody celebrates it. Loving hands
have laid fresh flowers and foliage before the
tombs of the dead as we do on Decoration day,
and in every house bouquets and bowls of rice
and sweetmeats have been placed upon the
shrines and before the ancestral tablets, for their
spirits are abroad that night and pervade the at
mosphere to receive the homage of the living.
It is a great holiday and a time especially favor
able for changing a residence or occupation or
commencing new work. Services have been go
ing on since dawn in the temples and will con
tinue until midnight — prayers and raasses for
the souls of the restless dead — while sampans, the
long, clumsy boats they use in Japan, decorated
with bright colors, have been poled up and
down the canals, bearing priests of the Buddhist
faith and temporary altars at which prayers have
been offered continually for the repose of the
souls of those who have died by drowning.
Holidays in Japan are very frequent. The
banks recognize forty-one, and suspend business
as they occur annually. Each district and pre
cinct in the city of Tokyo has its own anniversa-
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The Yankees of the East
ries, and they occur so often that a festival is go
ing on somewhere nearly every night. But on
the 15th of July everybody in Tokyo is inter
ested, and, in fact, everybody in Japan.
And the Feast of the Lanterns, which occurs
for three days about the ist of September, are
great holidays in Japan, when hundreds of
thousands of country people, in their best
clothes, flock to the cities to visit their relatives
and friends, and take part in the ceremonies.
The Feast of the Lanterns is purely a Buddhist
affair, and expresses the extreme reverence with
which the devotees of that religion regard the
meraory of the dead. At all times the mounds
in their graveyards are decorated with flowers
and scarcely any Buddhist grave is without a cup
of rice and a jar of tea for the benefit of the
spirit of the departed if it should see fit to revisit
the scene of its earthly career. The graveyards
are generally small, and are usually situated
upon a hillside sheltered by groves of majestic
trees. Upon the first day of the Feast of the Lan
terns the ghosts of the departed are supposed to
leave the spirit land in order to revisit their
homes upon earth; therefore the head of each
family, clad in rich rairaent, at sunset sits at the
door of his house to receive thera. At frequent
intervals he bows ceremoniously, and utters
words of welcome to the dead. This ceremony
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Christianity
is often carried far into the night by those con
scientious Buddhists who have numerous and
influential ancestors.
On the second day, when all the spirits are
supposed to have arrived, the household shrine,
which is a small apartment in the house of
every believer in Buddha, is gaily decorated in
flowers and supplied with bowls and jars of fruit,
rice, tea, wine and other delicacies. The family
sit in the room adjoining this spirit chamber,
eating and drinking, and enjoying themselves
after the Japanese fashion. They extol the
virtues of the dead, read poems to their memory,
and even drink toasts to their happiness and
welfare. The spirits of the dead are supposed
to be around the table, joining in the feasting
of the living, which continues through the
wiioie of the second day and usually until the
*ening of the third.
On the lii ght of the third day, when the
gufcics must return t.; th<--ir eternal aboct in the
spirit land, the yoai.g and the old go to the
cemeteries and deck the grave,; -wiib bright
colored paper banners and lanterns wai^-h are
lighted when darkness falls. This illumination
is made as brilliant as possible so that the last
glirapse of earth by the departing spirits raay
be happy and pleasing. At raidnight, when all
the spirits are supposed to have departed, the
people forra into processions and return to their
493

The Yankees of the East
homes, each carrying aloft a lighted lantern
suspended to a bamboo pole.
At some places there is. another ceremony
quite as unique and beautiful. Boats are made
of plaited straw, and after the model of the
ordinary native craft. They are then decorated
with flags and streamers and a stock of provisions
is put on board. Then at nightfall on the third
day, having been trimmed and decorated with
lighted lanterns, these brilliant little barks are
launched upon the waters of the rivers, or the
lakes, or the bays, or the ocean, amid the cries
of the people, the chanting of the priests, the
clanging of gongs and the rausic of kotos and
samisens, and sail away to the far off Nirvana,
the land where the sun and the stars go to rest,
and the souls of the just spend a peaceful and
happy eternity.
The Japanese " tori," a peculiar kind of ar^i
or gateway, that appears in front of all the
Shinto temples, is as familiar as the cross in
Italy or Spain. The word is written in the
native tongue with two characters, and literally
raeans "bird dwelling." This indicates its
origin, for the tori was originally a perch for the
birds and fowls that surrounded the temples and
were considered sacred. It is still believed that
they carry messages between mortals and the
immortals, and one of the highest acts of re
ligious service among Buddhists is to release
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Christianity
caged birds from confineraent. In later times,
after the introduction of Buddhism, the original
significance of the tori was forgotten, and it has
now become only a gateway, and is raade of
bronze, or stone, or wood painted red.
Contrary to the general impression, Buddhism
has done much to encourage art and literature
in Japan. The passion for the decorative that
is found all over the East burst into profusion in
the Buddhist temples centuries ago, and the
priests, next to the princes, have been the most
liberal patrons of the fine and industrial arts.
Buddhism has also taught the poor a spirit of
resignation that is now characteristic of the
Japanese masses, and it is expressed in the term
"Ingwa," which means the inexorable. The
conversation and literature of the country are
overloaded with that word.
By the census of 1894 there were 117,718
Buddhist teraples, 52,511 priests, 44,123 raonks
and 8,996 students in the theological schools.
There were 75,877 Shinto priests, 136,652
teraples, 163 national temples or cathedrals, and
1,158 male and 228 female students.
Before every Shinto temple you find two
rudely carved stone dogs or foxes, one on either
side, watching the gates. These are the body
guards of the gods who preside at that particular
shrine, and are supposed to have great influence
with them. It is therefore customary for people
495

The Yankees of the East V
who are in trouble, or who desire some favor
from the deity, to appease these animals by
offerings, which usually take the form of bibs of
blue, white or pink cotton hung around their
necks. Just why bibs should be chosen for this
purpose I have never been able to understand,
but you see them at the entrance of every shrine.
Another curious feature is the prayer-wheel
— a machine for worship which is said to have
been introduced by the Buddhists frora Thibet.
It is based upon the theory that the perpetual
succession of cause and effect resembles the
turning of a wheel. The believer throws a
written prayer into the box and turns the crank,
with an entreaty to the compassionate god, Jizu,
to ward off misfortune or aid in the accoraplish
raent of his pious desires.
Around every temple stone lanterns are
erected, some of them handsomely carved, which
are intended to comraeraorate iraportant events
or acknowledge the beneficent services of some
divinity in behalf of the person who erects them.
Some of these lanterns are fine works of art, but
most of them are rude. They are all involved
in the general system of worship, and a person
who desires the favor of the god in whose honor
a lantern has been erected pays him the delicate
attention of placing a stone within the globe.
There is a celebrated lantern at Nikko which,
according to the story, was formerly in the habit
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Christianity
of wandering about the town at nights and cut
ting up all sorts of didos, but finally a brave
knight " laid for it " and hit it a good whack
over the head with his sword. This frightened
the lantern so that it has since reraained in the
temple grounds and behaved itself as all pious
lanterns should. If you don't believe the story
the priest will show you the dent the sword made
in the top.

497

XIX
A Peculiar Institution
Social reformers, philanthropists, police
authorities, and indeed all others who are
engaged in repressing and correcting the follies
of raankind, are furnished a unique and inter
esting subject of study in the methods used by
the Japanese government to regulate that raost
perplexing of all municipal problems, the social
evil. Their system, which is novel and severe,
appears to have been originally an accident, and
although it would be opposed by those who object
to licensed licentiousness, it has certainly proved
a marked success from a police and sanitary
point of view, and is worthy of serious consider
ation from a moral standpoint. It must be
assumed, however, that the Japanese regard pros
titution with a greater degree of toleration than
raost other people, but they believe it should be
regulated in such a raanner as to protect both
the health and the raorals of the public.
The present systera is the outgrowth of an
ancient custora, but was not authorized by law
until 1881. When the shogun made the city of
498

A Peculiar Institution
Yedo, now known as Tokyo, his capital, all
classes and conditions of men and women
flocked thither to seek his favor and their own
fortunes, and it was natural that the fast and
frail should accompany those sturdy old knights
that formed the retinues of the one hundred and
eighty princes who were required to maintain a
residence in Tokyo for at least one-half of the
year. Prostitution became such a public nuisance
that, at the suggestion of a reformer named Shoshi
Jin-emon, in 1656, the shogun ordered all profes
sional courtesans to remove their residences and
confine their business to a certain quarter in the
suburbs of the city called Yoshi-Wara because of
the large number of rushes that grew there — the
term meaning literally "rush moor." Nowadays,
this custom of separating vice from virtue having
become law, and generally adopted, the localities
given up for this purpose are called " yoshi-
waras " in all the cities of Japan. These districts
are usually walled or fenced in, and can be ap
proached only through a single gate which is in
charge of the police, who may thus exercise cora
plete surveillance over all who enter, and, if they
think necessary, over all who leave.
Under the present law, whoever wishes to
open a brothel or a kashi-zashiki, as such an in
stitution is known in Japan, raust present a writ
ten application to the police authorities, accom
panied by a certificate of good character. The
499

The Yankees of the East
private history of the applicant is investigated by
the police, and if he or she is found to have a
criminal record a license is refused. If the ap
plicant proves to be sober, honest and well-
behaved, it is usually granted, but the business
raust be confined to the liraits of the yoshiwara,
and the proprietor raust give a bond that his
house will be conducted in an orderly manner
and in obedience to the law and police regula
tions. On the last day of each raonth he is re
quired to pay a tax of ten per cent upon his
gross receipts, three cents for each visitor, and
seven cents for each inmate of his house, the
proceeds being devoted to paying the expenses
of the yoshiwara police. An additional fee
must be paid for permission to exhibit signs or
exterior decorations of any sort, and for dances,
buffoonery, or theatrical entertainments.
The proprietor is also required to keep a rec
ord of all persons entering his house, and the
amount of raoney each expends. At the entrance
to each kashi-zashiki is an office, at which the
proprietor or manager presides, with the assist
ance of a bookkeeper and cashier. Visitors are
there required to register their names, residences
and occupations, and a heavy fine is imposed
upon those who make false entries. This book,
like the register of a hotel, is open to the inspec
tion of the public, as well as the police, and the
latter may at any time make an investigation to
500

A Peculiar Institution
ascertain whether the entries are accurate. The
admirable police system of Japan makes it easy.
A visitor to the yoshiwara raay register a ficti
tious name and give a wrong address once or
twice, but he takes great risk in attempting it a
third time, for he is likely to be brought into the
police court for such a violation of law, and pub
lic opinion pronounces it one of the most dis
graceful of misdemeanors.
When a visitor leaves the house he is pre
sented with a bill, just as if he were in a hotel,
which must be paid at the cashier's desk, and
contains an itemized statement of his indebted
ness, including the regulation fee to the girl who
has been his companion. The bill is made out
upon a peculiar blank, and a duplicate is re
tained upon a stub in the book from which it has
been torn. Books for this purpose are furnished
by the police, who are authorized to examine
them at any time. Money paid directly to an
inmate of the house is considered a gratuity, and
is not credited upon the bill. The women are
required to keep a memorandum of all such
gratuities, and other gifts, whether they are flow
ers or jewelry, and those records are also subject
to police examination. The advantage of this is
apparent. If it appears that a patron is spend
ing an unreasonable araount of money in this
form of dissipation, a report is made to his
parents or employer, and it will be realized that
501

The Yankees of the East
the knowledge of that fact is a wholesorae re
straint upon the fast young men of Japan. Bank
clerks, cashiers of mercantile houses, and others
who occupy positions of trust are particularly
interested in this peculiar regulation.
The inmates of kashi-zashiki are called
"shogi," which means prostitute, but "yoju"
is a more polite terra that is used in addressing
them. It means " a lady of pleasure." They are
also required to obtain a license and subject
themselves to a medical exaraination by the
police surgeons at least once a week. If they are
found to be diseased or in ill health for any
cause, they are sent to an hospital, or given a
ticket-of-leave to go into the country for a rest
and change of air and scene. In such cases the
police authorities of the place to which they go
are formally notified. If they are healthy they
are given a certificate, which must be shown to
visitors on demand.
Any woman above the age of sixteen who
desires to enter upon the life of a courtesan may
apply for a license at police headquarters in per
son, accorapanied by at least one of her parents
or her guardian, and her application raust be
accompanied by a written certificate signifying
their consent. If a girl has no parents or
guardian she must bring a certificate from the
police magistrate of her ward to that effect, and
furnish such information as may be required con-
502

A Peculiar Institution
cerning her former employment and employers,
who are usually inquired of concerning her cir
cumstances and behavior.
Having obtained her license, the shogi makes
a contract with the keeper of a kashi-zashiki,
under which the latter agrees to provide her
wholesome food, lodgings and clothing, and pay
her or her parents, as the case raay be, a certain
percentage of her earnings raonthly — usually
one-half — and there may be other stipulations.
On the other hand, the shogi agrees to obey all
the rules and regulations, to conduct herself in
an orderly manner, to report all gratuities, etc.,
etc. Contracts cannot be made for more than
seven years. The usual term is three. They
raust be approved by the parents or guardian,
and the original or a copy filed at police head
quarters. If the woman violates her contract or behaves
badly her employer is not permitted to punish
her, but raust report the fact to the police, who
adrainister the necessary discipline. Nor is he
perraitted to detain her if at any tirae she
desires to abandon her profession before the ex
piration of the contract. She then seeks the
protection of the police, who give her a release
or ticket-of-leave, but require her to report her
whereabouts at police headquarters for a certain
length of time, in order that they may keep
their eyes upon her. But a shogi may not leave
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The Yankees of the East
one house and enter another before the expira
tion of her contract without the consent of her
first employer and the police.
No shogi is perraitted to leave the limits of
the yoshiwara during the terra of her contract,
unless she desires to reform and surrender her
license, but with the permission of the police she
can obtain a teraporary leave of absence for any
one of several reasons that are enumerated in the
law. These are sickness in her family which re
quires her attendance, the death of near rela
tives, the marriage of near relatives, and others
similar. The fees charged are imppsed by the police,
and printed schedules, with the regulations,
must be posted in conspicupus places for the in
forraation of visitors. Neither the keepers nor
inraates are allowed to solicit custom either
orally or by printed or written invitations ; and
they are forbidden to request or even invite
guests to partake of refreshments or accompany
the women to their rooms. There are many
other minor regulations of a similar character,
but these furnish a fair idea of the system and
the way it is applied.
Any woman detected in lewd conduct outside
the yoshiwara is arrested by the police. If it is a
first offense, they give her a warning, and notify
her parents or employer. A second offense is
followed by an investigation. If it appears that
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A Peculiar Institution
she is naturally depraved, the courts send her to
the house of correction. If she desires to con
tinue that mode of life for the purpose of earn
ing money, she is sent to the yoshiwara, where
she is placed under contract with the proprietor
of sorae orderly house, who is made responsible
for her good behavior.
The greater portion of the population of this
peculiar colony are led there by poverty and
natural inclination. Many recruits come from
the tea-houses throughout the cities of Japan,
for in them the nesans, or waiting maids, and
the geishas — the girls who sing and dance for
the entertainment of visitors — fall easy prey to
the men who frequent those places ; and it is a
coraraon custom among the lower class for
fathers, who have large farailies to support, to
place their daughters in a yoshiwara for the earn
ings they can contribute to the family treasury.
In former times girls were regularly and legally
sold, and, although theoretically such things
are no longer permitted, the practice is con
tinued to an extent that one can scarcely credit.
Men who are well posted assert that sixty per
cent of the inmates of the yoshiwara are there
not only with the consent but with the encour
agement of their parents, who sell the bodies of
their daughters to the keepers of brothels for a
term of years, and receive, as a consideration, a
bonus in cash (which is usually paid in the form
505

The Yankees of the East
of a loan), and a certain amount monthly, which
represents a percentage of the earnings of the
girl. It is often the case, too, that these loans
are advances to enable the father to establish
himself in business, to pay his debts, to build a
house, or to buy a piece of land, and are grad
ually paid off by crediting against them the
earnings of the girl thus sacrificed. This is not
only considered honorable for the father, but
for the daughter also, and she loses no respect
from her associates because she adopts such a
life for such a purpose. If she enters the yoshi
wara voluntarily, or selfishly retains her earn
ings, or wastes them in dissipation, she is des
pised. This distinction is very clearly drawn,
but it should be said that the practice is entirely
confined to the lower class of the population.
Many of the kashi-zashiki are owned by re
spectable and wealthy business men, who usually
receive larger profits from such investments than
from legitiraate enterprises ; but they do not
often give thera personal attention. They hire
managers or superintendents for salaries or for
a share of the profits. One of the largest and
finest houses in the yoshiwara of Tokyo is owned
by the president of a bank. He is also a con
spicuous officer of one of the comraercial organ
izations of the city, and stands high in public
estiraation. The largest institution of this kind
in Yokoharaa is owned by the proprietor of the
506

A Peculiar Institution
principal hotel at Miyanoshita, the Newport of
Japan. The houses have poetic titles and the
shogi, when they enter upon this business, drop
their real names and assume professional nom-
de-plumes, such as " Little Butterfly," " Golden
Cloud." " Harp of Pearls," " The Little Dragon,"
" Chrysantheraura," "Forest of Cherries," "Sil
ver Shrine," and similar quaint conceits.
In Tokyo there are three yoshiwaras, situated
in different parts of the city. In the principal
one are 153 houses with 3,289 inmates, and in
each of the other two perhaps half as many.
There are said to be 18,000 kashi-zashiki in
Japan, with 250,000 inraates.
On one side of the entrance to the principal
yoshiwara in Tokyo is a large weeping willow
tree. On the other side is a sentry box for the
shelter of the police — both having peculiar sig
nificance. The streets are wide and well paved.
The houses are larger, costlier and of better con
struction than prevail throughout the city out
side. Most of thera are of stone or brick, with
much adornment, wide porches, pillars, veran
das, cupolas and towers. In the center of the
raain street is a line of booths that are occupied
at night by hucksters who sell charms and cheap
jewelry, confectionery, fruit, flowers and plants,
ribbons, laces, and other knick-knacks which a
visitor would think appropriate to purchase as
presents for the woman he has come to see. An-
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The Yankees of the East
other street is divided by a line of parking about
six feet wide, in which there are sorae fine trees.
It offers an opportunity to display the peculiar
features of landscape gardening in which the
Japanese excel, and is filled with trees and
fountains and curious lanterns carved frora
stone, and erected upon high pedestals.
There is no suggestion of sin or squalor.
This colony of people who are compelled to live
apart from the rest of humankind seem to take
unusual pride in appearances. The grounds
about the imperial palace are not better kept.
The houses of the princes and nobles or the
ministry are not more pretentious, or furnished
in greater elegance or taste. Everything is at
tractive that one sees frora the outside, and
through the long, cool corridors you catch
glirapses of lovely gardens, filled with fruit and
flowers and splashing fountains. Gay colored
awnings shelter the western and southern
windows frora the sun. Marquees are stretched
over the lawns, and in the arbors and shady cor
ners are tables where refreshments may be served
to order. Tea-houses and shops alternate with the
kashi-zashiki, and most of them are of the better
class, if one raay judge from appearances.
Everything can be bought inside the walls that
the inhabitants may need, for, as I have said,
the women are not allowed to go beyond the
508

O

<

A Peculiar Institution
gate, except in cases of necessity. There is
even a Buddhist temple within the yoshiwara at
which they go to pray, not for the pardon of
their sins, but for many and generous lovers.
The comprehensive pantheon of the Buddhist
church has supplied special patrons for these
poor souls — Jizu, "the corapassionate," and
Benzaiten, who protects widows and orphans
and those who have no other friends. It is piti
ful to see the girls kneeling before the rude effi
gies of gods that occupy this temple, rubbing
strings of beads between the palms of their
hands, and muttering prayers for professional
prosperity. The Buddhists do not forbid prostitution,
provided it is not resorted to because of depraved
passions or for a love of pleasure. A woman
raay adopt such a raeans of earning money for
her own needs or for the support of her family
without coraraitting sin, if her motives are pure.
The phrase they use is, " While it defiles the
body it does not defile the heart.'' Besides,
Buddhist woraen have no souls to save. For
raen to patronize the yoshiwara is repugnant to
Buddhist principles. True Buddhism requires
the purification of the body, the entire suppres
sion of the passions, and a chaste and holy life.
But among the believers in that religion, as in
all others, there is a wide difference between pre
cept and practice, and the registers of the yoshi-
509

The Yankees of the East
wara will show that priests as well as laymen
often seek diversion from their pastoral labors
there. The temple, the tea-houses and the shops, as
well as the kashi-zashiki, are decorated with
banners and gay paper lanterns in which lighted
candles are placed at night, and raost of them
are an appropriate scarlet, although I read that
the scientists have recently discovered that the
color of sin is pink.

510

XX
The Advancement of Women.
The most radical reform that has taken place
in Japan since the restoration has been in the
condition of the women of the erapire. They
are gradually becoming emancipated from a
semi-slavery in which they existed for centuries,
and the changes which their release has brought
are greater than those enjoyed by the negroes in
the Southern States or the serfs of Russia. When
the reorganization of the government was going
on twenty-five years ago women were admitted
on an equality with men through the entire sys
tem of education, with the exception of the
university, and I am informed that degrees have
been conferred upon two women by that institu
tion. The change is largely due to the influence
of her imperial majesty, the Erapress, whose
broad mind and progressive ideas have been
felt in every part of Japan. What is known as
the empress' school for princesses of the imperial
family and the daughters of the nobility was the
first established in Japan for the higher educa
tion of women of the upper class, and was

The Yankees of the East
opened for instruction in 1886. A simi
lar school for princes and peers, opened in
1878, had a department devoted to the education
of young women, but only the most progressive
of the nobility had the courage to send their
daughters there. The greater portion of the
upper classes employed governesses and tutors,
who came to their homes.
When the Empress of Japan takes hold of
anything it goes, and one hundred and forty-
three students appeared for enrollment on the
day her school was opened. There are now
nearly five hundred pupils, with a faculty of
thirty teachers — raany of them women. The
president is a gentleman of great distinction
and a raeraber of the Eraperor's privy council.
The course of instruction covers six years,
and includes about the sarae studies that are
followed in the public schools of the United
States, from the kindergarten to the high school,
with the addition of music, drawing and paint
ing, etiquette and raorai science, English, French
and domestic economy.
The Empress visits the school frequently.
The teachers understand that she is liable to
drop in at any time to raake an inspection. She
has attended the coraraenceraent exercises every
year, and has presented diplomas to the gradu
ates with a neat little speech.
There is another private school in Tokyo for
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The Advancement of Women
the higher caste, conducted by Miss Otomi,
which is rauch larger and has graduated raore
than three thousand five hundred young ladies.
There is also an industrial school established by
well-known progressive woraen in Tokyo which
is also under the patronage of the Empress.
Most of her clothing and many of the supplies
at the imperial palace are raade there. There
are two courses of study — one for three and one
for four years — and they are open to young women
of any caste or condition under the age of thirty
years. Painting, drawing, embroidery, knitting,
weaving, the making of artificial flowers and
other industries are taught to about four hundred
pupils. No girls are admitted to the imperial school
of fine arts, but there is a large number of pri
vate institutions in which painting and drawing
are taught. There is a rausic school, which is also
under the patronage of the Empress, which is
described in another chapter. Besides these the
government sustains twenty-seven normal schools
for woraen and twenty-nine high schools, where
they can obtain an education similar to that
furnished by the ordinary seminary for young
ladies in the United States. In addition to
these there are 27,371 public schools, in which
nearly one raillion girls are being taught the
rudiments of education. There are 4,278 women
employed as teachers in the public schools, and
513

The Yankees of the East
973 are fitting theraselves for that occupation at
the expense of the governraent.
Within the liraits of this work I cannot enu
merate the many and various private institutions
for the education of girls and young women,
nor describe the excellent seminaries that are
sustained by the several missionary boards in
different parts of the empire and have been the
wedge that has split the social system of Japan.
But I have said enough to demonstrate how
great a change has come over the condition of
women in Japan, so far as education is con
cerned. Whatever may be said as to the cruel restric
tions which surrounded thera in the old days,
it is nevertheless true that the women of Japan
have always enjoyed greater freedom and respect
than their Asiatic sisters in China, India, Korea,
Siam, Burmah, Turkey, and other countries in
which the emancipation of the sex is not yet ac
complished. The ancient Japanese women were
remarkable for influence and usefulness, and
their unseen hands have often shaped the policies
and neutralized the power of men in the em
pire. Buddhisra from India and Confucianism
from China were the foreign innovations that
reduced Japanese women to subjection, but they
have never been so degraded and despised as in
the neighboring countries, from which that re
ligion and philosophy were borrowed. Yet,
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DANJURO IN THEATRICAj:. COSTUME.

The Advancement of Women
strange to say, women have done much to pro
mote Buddhism in Japan, and even now they
organize societies to resist the invasion of Chris
tian institutions that would relieve them from
oppression. Suiko, Koken and Danrin — three
women who ruled over Japan in the middle
ages — were zealous patrons of Buddhism. They
built temples and monasteries, and to their zeal
and influence rauch of the progress of the Bud
dhist faith is due.
Nine woraen, have reigned as empresses in
Japan, and several as regents. The oldest book
in Japanese literature, which they show you at
the imperial library, was written by a woraan's
hand. A woman — Hyeta-no-Are — was the first
historian of the country, and there have been
other authors, poets and artists of farae among
the gentler sex. But they were accidental and
exceptional ; the occasional assertions of genius
that could not be restrained by conventionality.
It was considered useless to enlighten the reason
and the judgment of woman or develop her in
tellectual powers further than was necessary to
enable her to perform her household duties and
carry out the will of that superior being, man.
Popular opinion considered her incapable of
attaining an intellectual position. She learned
to play the samisen and the koto, go through
the tea ceremony with neatness and grace, to
burn incense, to arrange flowers, to embroider
S15

The Yankees of the East
and to understand and perforra properly the
infinite technicalities of Japanese etiquette. Her
education was chiefly in raanners, refinement and
moral discipline that enabled her to suppress
her emotions and acquire calmness, graceful
ness and repose. It was based upon a famous
book called "Onna Dai Gakko" (Woraan's
Great School), by Kaibara Ekken, a faraous
Chinese philosopher, who suraraed up the duty
and destiny of woraen in " The Three Obedi
ences," which are defined in that work : " In
childhood a woraan must obey her father ; when
married, her husband ; when widowed, her son."
Widows in Japan seldora remarry. They
dedicate themselves to the worship of the
raemory of their husbands and spend the rest
of their days as serai-servants in the homes of
their fathers-in-law. When a woman erects a
tombstone to the raemory of her husband she
has her own name carved upon it. The husband's
name will be gilded ; the inscription that refers
to her will be distinguished by red ink. That is
a sacred pledge that she will not marry again.
When she dies and is burled by her master's side
the red is replaced by gold.
The ideal held up to a Japanese girl in
ancient tiraes, and in a great raeasure it is the
sarae today, is self-abnegation and obedience to
raan. More than 99 per cent of the woraen of
Japan are yet taught the standard of duty fixed
516

The Advancement of Women
by the Chinese sages, which is gentleness, sacri
fice and the suppression of the will — to merge
her own personality into that of her husband ; to
guard the family honor and perpetuate the
family name ; and then, perhaps, if she attains
these ideals, and her husband is generous, she may
have a borrowed soul in the great hereafter, so
as to live for his convenience and companion
ship in immortality ; for both Buddha and Con
fucius deny her that privilege in the present
life. The influence of Christianity and education
is gradually raaking itself felt for the betterment
of women, and social reform has been raore
radical in this direction than in any other. It
was only a few years ago that the laws of Japan
left everything that pertained to the welfare of .
women to their fathers and husbands and sons.
They could sell their daughters and wives and
even their mothers, if they liked, into a life that
is worse than slavery. A husband could send
his wife home or turn her into the street at any
time. A social conventionality required that
mothers and children should be properly cared
for, but there was no legal obligation if they
were wives. A woman could not hold or inherit
property ; she did not even own the kimono she
wore on her back ; she had no claim upon her
own children. Her condition in many respects
was even worse than that of the negro women in
517

The Yankees of the East
the South in slavery times. They were valuable
property, and would bring a large sum of money
on the block, while Japanese women were so
plenty that they were worth no price.
While there have been radical and wholesome
changes in these conditions, the great difficulty
today is to reconcile the seclusion and gentle
ness and refinement of the ancient system with
the self-reliance, the consciousness, the freedom
of thought, the aspirations and the dignity which
the cultivation of the intellect brings. In 1885
there was great activity in the higher education
of women, but recently a reaction has taken
place. Then raany schools and colleges were
established, and the doctrine of the equality of
the sexes was proclaimed both in the press and
in parliament, but now one hears very little on
that subject from the natives. They have alraost
ceased to talk about the higher education of
woraen, and many of them have withdrawn their
daughters from the progressive schools. In one
seminary for young ladies there are now less than
300 pupils where there were 750 four years ago.
In another the catalogue showed 686 in 1889
and in 1895 only 210, and the same is the rule
everywhere. The "progressionists," as the advanced
thinkers and advocates of foreign methods are
called, argue that the reaction is only temporary ;
that the women of Japan are too earnest and
S18

The Advancement of Women
anxious for educational advantages and social
emancipation to be restrained by their fathers
and husbands, and that a domestic revolution
will follow any atterapt to permanently restrain
them from reaching the advantages and privi
leges enjoyed by women of foreign lands.
But the trouble is that the reformation has been
too rapid and radical to permit the men-folk to ad
just their ideas of what is right and proper to the
new order of things. The home customs and
traditions of a country are more sacred and in
flexible than the religion, and while the laws
of Japan concerning women have been greatly
modified and liberalized, and the rainds of many
men have been broadened for the reception of
modern notions as to women's sphere, there has
been a collision between the sweet girl-graduates
and the customs of the country, and the system
under which their mothers and grandmothers
lived for centuries refuses to yield.
The educated girl is not willing to accept a
husband as her master, nor can her broadened
raind, full of a consciousness of her own individ
uality, passively subrait to the social serfdom
into which she was born. There have doubtless
been some cases of imprudence and immodesty.
I have heard painful examples of the self-asser
tion of young women with foreign educations
that have been recited and reiterated, I suppose,
to every ambitious girl in the empire. The
519

The Yankees of the East
graduate of some institution has occasionally
been too bold, mannish and independent con
cerning her own affairs to suit the traditional
ideas of gentleness, obedience and refinement.
This is not an unnatural result of hot-house
education. It is strange that more such cases
have not occurred, and it is human nature to
talk and hear a thousand times of one instance
of evil rather than once of a thousand exaraples
of good. Mr. Fukuzawa, the great editor and educator
of Japan, holds rather advanced views on this
as he does upon other topics, and his sanguine
teraperaraent gives hira great confidence that the
present reaction against the cultivation of the
feraale intellect will soon pass off.
" It is simply a spasm," he said, " temporary
resistance by the conservative element, and will
not last more than a year or so. Perhaps we
have gone a little too rapidly in our progress ;
perhaps too many ungainly weeds have grown
up with the crops of grain that we have culti
vated since raodern ideas invaded Japan. The
narrow-minded fail to distinguish between the
weeds and the grain, and judge one by the other.
There is no reason why an educated Japanese
woraan should not be as refined, as gentle and
as obedient as an ignorant one, and although
bold and rude spirits raay develop among edu
cated young ladies, they would probably have
520

The Advancement of Women
been equally unruly and disagreeable had they
been kept out of school.
"The woraen of Japan," continued Mr.
Fukuzawa, "have just as rauch right to educa
tion in art and science and literature as the men,
and it is even more important to the nation that
they be perraitted to enjoy it, because they ex
ercise an even greater influence than the men
upon the destiny of our country. A Japanese
mother forras the character of her sons more
than their father. This is quite as true here,
perhaps even more so, than in any other nation,
and she should be fitted to perform that import
ant duty. The world was not raade in a day,
and it has not been possible to revolutionize the
entire political, commercial, industrial and social
systems of forty-one million people in a quarter
of a century. It is too much to expect. We
have made very rapid progress. We are re
garded as a phenomenon among nations, but
there is a great deal yet remaining for us to learn
and do. The Japanese home is sheltered from
outside influences like the kernel of a nut, and
is therefore the last to feel the effect of the revo
lution that is going on among us. But men of
my age who were brought up under the old re
gime can see how different the women and girls
of Japan are now from what they used to be,
and measuring the change in their .condition by
the progress in other affairs I do not think they
521

The Yankees of the East
have lost any time, nor am I hopeless concerning
their future."
A few Japanese women have broken through
the social restrictions that restrain their sex, and
have become faraous as poets, painters and
teachers. I have heard of one woman physician
in Japan, Madam Muramut-su Shihi-ko, of
Tokyo, whose father was a doctor of the old
Chinese school, and was the private physician of
the last of the shoguns. In early life she mar
ried a native doctor, who took up raodern raeth
ods of practice, and whose studies she shared
with great interest. When he died she found
herself alraost destitute, and, realizing the demand
for trained raidwives, perfected herself in obstet
rics and commenced active practice. Then she
founded a school for trained nurses, of which
she is now the principal, having abandoned her
profession because she feels she can be more
useful in her new field. She is patronized by
the Empress, the Princess Komatsu, the Countess
Oyama and other ladies of the court, and also
by the medical profession of Japan, who depend
upon her to supply them nurses and assistants in
serious cases. One of the leading native physi
cians of Japan told me that his country owed her
a debt of gratitude.
Another of the faraous woraen of Japan is
Madam Koto, who, under the direction of the
rainister of education, has charge of the kinder-
522

The Advancement of Women
gartens of the public school system. She is only
thirty years of age. In 1870, when she was
fourteen, she came to the United States and at
tended school at Salem, Mass. She afterwards
graduated at Wesleyan College, and took a
special course in kindergarten teaching in Bos
ton. In 1886 she returned to Japan, took charge
of the training school for kindergarten teachers
at Tokyo, and since 1889 has been connected
with the government.
Another prominent teacher is Madam laya-
ki Tanahashi, who is the widow of a celebrated
blind scholar. When only sixteen years old she
became his private secretary and amanuensis. A
few years later she married him, and until his
death was his literary adviser and assistant.
After he died she completed his literary work,
and is now among the foremost women writers
of Japan. At present she is at the head of the
normal school for women.
Little Lord Fauntleroy was translated into
Japanese by Madam Iwamoto, who has also
been distinguished in the education of women.
There are two famous woraen artists. Madam
Noguchi, the daughter of a Nagasaki physician,
and Miss Yutoco, both of whom sent fine exam
ples of their work at the Chicago Exposition.
Madam Atsu-ko, the great poetess of the empire,
is a lady well advanced in years, who has pub
lished a number of voluraes of both prose and
523

The Yankees of the East •
poetry which rank very high in the native litera
ture. She is at present in London raaking some
investigations in behalf of the Empress, to whose
retinue she is permanently attached.
One of the most active and influential advo
cates of the advancement of woman in Japan is
Madam Oyama, wife of Field Marshal Oyama,
who is at the sarae tirae secretary of war and
coramander-in-chief of the army. The Marchion-
ness Oyama is a thorough English scholar, hav
ing been sent to the United States at the age of
sixteen, with a dozen or more girls, to be edu
cated. She spent nearly ten years in this coun
try, and was graduated at Vassar College in
1883, being the president and valedictorian of
her class.
She comes from an excellent family, and by
reason of her beauty, her intelligence and abil
ity is probably, after the Empress, the most im
portant woman in Japan to-day. Her brother,
Major-General Yamahawa, is a famous soldier,
and her sister. Madam Soh Yamahawa, also one
of the prorainent and influential ladies of the
court, is devoting her wealth and abilities to
benevolence. She was a widow before she was
twenty years old, and, being a woman of great
social accomplishments and personal attractions,
has declined many offers of marriage. She has
lived in Russia and in France, and speaks the
language of both those countries perfectly, as
524

THE MARCHIONESS OYAMA.

The Advancement of Women
well as English and German. For many years ¦
she has been the confidential secretary of the
Empress, and acts as her interpreter during in
terviews with persons of distinction. She also
attends the Empress upon occasions of cere
mony, and, in fact, is seldom absent from her
side. During the early days of the present
regime, when modern fashions were being intro
duced at court. Madam Yamahawa, because of
her familiarity with European manners and cus
toms, was selected as a sort of instructor in eti
quette and general manager of ceremonies about
the palace of the Empress. She receives the
highest salary paid to any lady of the court —
quite as much as a number of the ministry — but
she spends it all in charity. She supports a
nuraber of bright young ladies who are ambi
tious to secure an education, and is always giv
ing assistance to worthy students at the uni
versity. Although Madam Yamahawa adheres to the
Buddhist-Shinto faith, in which she was born,
her younger and more beautiful sister. Madam
Oyama, was converted to Christianity by the
Rev. Dr. Baker when she was very young, and
has given active and efficient aid to missionary
work in Japan. She has considerable literary
ability, and has written a good deal for native
publications as well as for periodicals in the
United States and England. Madam Oyama
525

The Yankees of the East
has also been the most active apostle of dress re
forra in Japan. Her influence had rauch to do
with the introduction of the European costurae
for the ladies of the court.
The effect of European clothing upon Japan
ese women is quite remarkable, for whenever it is
adopted raodern raanners and custoras usually
go with it. The educated Japanese say that
when a native woraan adopts modern dress she
insists upon the same treatraent and courtesies
her sisters in Europe receive. It is a curious
fact that when a woraan is dressed in the Japan
ese costume her husband always preceded her
when entering a room, or in walking the streets,
and treats her as Japanese husbands generally
treat their wives — that is, like servants. But
when the same woraan puts on raodern dress the
conditions are reversed. Her husband pays her
the same deference that European and American
husbands show their wives, and recognizes her as
an equal. Therefore, dress reform has had a
powerful influence in the advancement of Japan
ese women, and those who have embraced
Christianity and are laboring for the emancipa
tion of their sex are all working quietly, zeal
ously and effectively to promote the reform that
is going on in the home and the wardrobe.
The fact that education will open the eyes of
woraan in Japan to the injustice which she has
hitherto accepted as an inheritance explains the
526

The Advancement of Women
opposition she meets with from her fathers and
brothers in her desire to obtain learning. They
say it will unfit her for the life she must
lead and raake her discontented. Nobody will
deny that such is the certain and necessary result
of the conflict between foreign ideas and the
fixed social system of Japan, and when women
have the same intellectual training as the men
their legal status and liberty must be raised to
the same level to avoid friction. The problem
will, however, solve itself gradually. There will
be no upheaval in society, but there will be un
told private suffering and persecution, and some
woraen may be called to martyrdom for the ad
vancement of their sex. The light has already
entered the homes of Japan and cannot be shut
out hereafter. The pioneers have done their
work well. The advocates of the advancement
of women have the support of the government
and the most powerful social agencies. But at
the same time they will raeet with a prejudice
and resistance from the conservative masses that
will require more than ordinary tact and perse
verance to overcorae.
I was talking one day with a professional
woraan educator who has spent raany years in
Japan, and has watched the rise and growth as
well as the reaction that followed the original
deraand for feraale education.
"It is perfectly natural," she said, "and we
527

The Yankees of the East
expected it. They went too fast and overdid
themselves. Ten years ago the schools were
overrun with all ages of women, raarried as well
as single, simple as well as serious, but, like all
people who follow fads, they were soon tired
out, and those who went to school because it
was fashionable found that the road to learning
is not paved with cushions. Then, again, it has
been discovered that ordinary men do not care
for wives with a raodern education. They pre
fer thera to be taught on the old-fashioned
Japanese plan, simply etiquette and embroidery,
with a smattering of the ' three R's ' — reading,
'riting, and 'rithmetic — enough to enable them
to keep an accurate account of the family ex
penditures. " It is no advantage for the average girl to
have an education in Japan, and people are right
when they say it makes her discontented and un
happy, unless after she graduates from school she
can live among similar surroundings. If she is
compelled to go back into the close, conservative
atmosphere of ancient Japan she will be misera
ble, and, although it is an unpleasant thing to
admit, it is, nevertheless, the relentless truth that
we are not doing the average Japanese a kind
ness when we give her an education. Of course
there are exceptions to this rule. There are
many families where the daughters are just as
happy as any in America, but I am speaking of
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The Advancement of Women
the ordinary seminary graduate who is com
pelled to return to a home that hasn't a chair, or
a bookcase, or a piano, and who is compelled to
sit on the floor barefooted and eat rice out of a
bowl with chopsticks."
"Do not educated men prefer educated
wives ?"
" No; they do not. They want a good house
keeper, an amiable and agreeable servant and
one who will subrait herself entirely to their
will. Educated men are often rude and intol
erant in their manners toward their wives. I
have two cases in my mind that would call for
the interference of the police if they existed in
America. There is a very limited career for
women in this country. The government is
employing fewer of them in the public schools,
except the kindergartens, for which there is a
great demand all over the country. They are
beginning to do literary work, however; two or
three are practicing raedicine and a good raany
are trained nurses. The number of women in
the higher grades of schools is seventy-five per
cent less than it was six or seven years ago.
Then there were thirty government norraal
schools to which woraen were admitted. Now
there are only five or six. The minister of edu
cation arid some other merabers of the ministry
and higher officials are still firm and earnest in
advocating and promoting the education of
529

The Yankees of the East
women, and there has been little change in at
tendance or instruction among the pupils of the
schools for princesses and young ladies of no
ble birth. It is frora the middle classes, who
constitute fully fifty per cent of the entire popu
lation, that the greatest opposition coraes.
"Another reason for the reaction is the
growing prejudice against foreigners. The re
cent war with China has developed a vigorous
national spirit, and the people are beginning to
feel that they are able to take care of theraselves
without further assistance or advice from foreign
ers, who have taught them all they know. They
want to take charge of affairs theraselves and
elbow the foreigners out of the way. As the
higher education of woman originated with for
eigners and most of the schools for that object
have been conducted by thera, they naturally
suffer from this feeling, and it furnishes a good
arguraent for those who are opposed to educat
ing girls. There is now only one school for
girls in Japan under exclusive foreign control.
That is at Kobe, raanaged by Miss Searle, under
the American Board of Foreign Missions. And
leading Japanese educators have said that unless
it is placed under native control very soon it
will not have any but charity scholars."
" Are there raany charity students in the
girls' seminaries ? "
" Yes, a good raany ; but at the Kobe school
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The Advancement of Women
the fee for tuition is so low that it is scarcely
reasonable for any one who desires an education
to ask for charity. They charge only i yen, or
50 cents, for tuition, and only 3 yen, or J1.50, a
month for board. This nominal charge is made
to teach the students self-reliance and self-re
spect. It is a curious fact, however, that while
Japanese girls — and I understand the sarae is
true of boys — will accept charity, few of thera
work their way through college as our boys and
girls do in the United States. They will work
at horae, but when it comes to a boarding school
they will refuse even to wash dishes or take care
of the parlors. Each girl must look after her
own room, of course. She accepts that as a
natural necessity, like dressing herself or wash
ing her face, but will not do anything for any
one else. She considers it degrading. Why ?
The reason is difficult to explain. It seems to
be inborn. Nor do the majority appreciate dis
interested kindness. They care very little for
the raissionaries or the teachers who have helped
them get an education for 50 cents a month,
when you think they would be brimful of grati
tude all the rest of their lives. Of course there
are notable exceptions. Human nature is the
same everywhere."
" Why does an educated girl become discon
tented and unhappy when she goes back to her
home from school ? Because it is like going
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The Yankees of the East
into another planet. There is no such thing as
home life in Japan, as we know it. Family ties
are very much closer than with us, and the de
votion of the members of a family to each other
is much greater ; but there is no comfort, or
attractiveness, or cheerfulness, or sentiment
about a Japanese home when judged by the
American standard. One of our famous authors
has said that no sentiment can develop around
a furnace register, and a Japanese 'hibachi,*
which is a little bowl with live coals lying in a
cone of ashes, is a good deal worse. The Jap
anese houses are poorly lighted ; they are barren,
and the family sit around barefooted on the floor.
But deeper than this, there is no affection dis
played except between a mother and her little
children, and perhaps between a couple of young
girls. There are no terras of endearment, ex
cept for the use of mothers and children. A
mother will call her baby ' takara,' which raeans
precious one, or ' kawai,' which is equivalent to
our word ' darling,' but the husband never ex
presses any love for his wife nor the children for
their parents or each other. From babyhood the
girls are taught that they are inferior to boys.
If they eat together the boy sits in the raost
honored place, but in almost every family the
boys take their meals with their father and are
waited upon by their mother and sisters. There
is no such thing as courtesy between man and
532

The Advancement of Women
wife and brothers and sisters, such as we are
accustomed to. The sister always yields to the
brother, and serves him, for he is a superior
being. " Children respect and venerate their parents,
but love conveys the idea of passion, and is
only used in such a sense. In fact, there is no
definite synonym for the word ' love ' in the
Japanese language, nor any for the word 'virtue.'
'Horeru' and 'iro,' which are usually translated
love, cannot be applied to a mother or a wife or
sister, or, in fact, to any pure woman, for they
signify an improper relation. One describes
passion and the other an illicit admiration. 'Iro
toko' is a lover. 'Iro onna' is a sweetheart,
but no gentleman would apply the latter terra to
his wife, or to any woraan he respected, and it
would sound very strange to hear a good woman
apply the corresponding term to her husband.
"In olden times a married woraan was re
quired to make four changes in her personal
appearance. She changed her gay, girlish dress
for one of dignified and quiet modesty. If a
married woman should wear such gay colors
and such jewels as her sisters in the United
States are accustomed to she would be con
sidered crazy. Again, a married woman dresses
her hair differently from a maiden. It is usually
done by a hair-dresser who comes to the house
once a week and goes through the elaborate
533

The Yankees of the East
operation, which requires several hours and costs
from five to ten sen. But it stays fixed indefin
itely, because she does nothing to muss it. She
sleeps with a little rest of wood or bamboo or
wicker-work under her neck, instead of laying
her head upon a downy pillow. In olden times
she had to shave off her eyebrows and blacken
her teeth, although these hideous custoras are
going out of fashion, and are now only found
among the comraon people."
" Why did she blacken her teeth ? "
" The custom is explained on two theories :
One is that she adds to her beauty and raakes
herself raore attractive to her husband, which I
hardly think will go. The other, which is more
plausible, is that she makes herself unattractive,
in order that she may not excite jealousy in her
husband by attracting the admiration of other
raen." " Have there been any great literary woraen
in Japan ? "
" Yes, several. Dr. Griffis of Ithaca, who
wrote a history of Japan and several other books
on this country, says it was a woman's genius
that made the Japanese a literary language. He
referred to Murasaki Shikibus, who wrote the
greatest classic in Japanese literature as far back
as the tenth century. But it has been considered
unwomanly to publish literary productions, and
therefore women have not been able to take the
534

The Advancement of Women
place in the kingdom of letters to which they
are entitled. The composition of poems has
always been considered a very great accomplish
ment among women of the higher classes, and
it is custoraary to send a few original lines in
autograph with gifts or with congratulations on
birthdays or other similar occasions. Much of
such poetry is silly rigmarole, and would be very
amusing to educated people, but it is up to the
standard of the people and the conditions in
which the writers are living, and is usually much
admired. "Nearly all the women who have made them
selves distinguished in literature were the wives
and daughters of scholars and authors of fame,
from whom they inherited their talent."
"Are there any notable literary women in
Japan today ? "
" There are a few good writers, and others
who are yet amateurs, but promise to do well.
We have several excellent novels written by
women, but their best work thus far has been
translating the works of others into Japanese.
One of the teachers in the Empress' school at
Tokyo has published a number of widely cir
culated books, and Mme. Saisho, a lady of the
Empress' court, is making quite a reputation as
a poet. But the language of Japan is not quite
favorable now for literary development. It is
in a transition state. We are discarding the
535

The Yankees of the East
Chinese characters and are trying to frame a
language of our own. Some of the ablest phi
lologists are now engaged in the work."
" Tell me in a single sentence why the Jap
anese object to educated wives."
" Because they refuse to submit to the will of
their husbands. They violate the most sacred
traditions of the family by asserting themselves
and exercising their own reason and judgment :
they are not so gentle and deferential, and care
less for the infinite and intricate forms and fool
ishness that are involved in Japanese etiquette ;
they have learned the equality of the sexes —
that woman has a raind and a soul, and that
she is as good as a raan. These ideas unfit her
for the place her grandraother occupied."
The public-school teachers of Tokyo, in the
suramer of 1895, held a convention and organ
ized an educational association sirailar to those
we are accustoraed to in the United States. A
series of topics for discussion was subraitted by
a coramittee, and there was a storray debate over
some of thera. The results of the conference
were summed up in a series of resolutions that
were adopted before adjournment, of which the
following is a summary :
" I. The national idea and patriotism should
be stiraulated among the pupils of the public
schools.

536

The Advancement of Women
" 2. The Japanese alphabet and style of com
position should be simplified.
" 3. The education of women should be
encouraged. "4. Military training and physical culture
should be more prominent."

S37

XXI
The Theater and Wrestling Ring
The Japanese theater, like alraost everything
else in the empire, is becoraing modernized.
There is a so-called "reformed theater" in
Tokyo and others of a similar type in nearly all
cities of iraportance. To the unsophisticated
visitor they differ little frora those that are not
"reforraed," and are still in raost of their feat
ures very far from the orthodox play-house of
Europe and America ; but to the old-fashioned
Japanese there has been a great departure from
ancient custom. The theater, like wrestling, was
originally a part of the religious worship and
was generally the adjunct of a temple. Its his
tory can be traced back to the time when plays
were presented by priests and priestesses, and
the performances represented mythological
scenes, accompanied by religious dances and
chants sirailar to the old Greek dramas and the
modern miracle plays of Germany. Even now,
at the frequent matsuris or religious festivals
that are occurring every few weeks in different
wards of the cities of Japan, temporary stages
538

?J<i
W•AD
KOg

The Theater and Wrestling Ring
are erected in the parks and streets upon which
volunteer actors go through long representations
of incidents in Japanese mythology, usually
those pertaining to the god whose anniversary is
being celebrated. Their object is to please the
deities and entertain the people.
An improvement took place at the beginning
of the fifteenth century, when some cultivated
Buddhist priests wrote historic dramas and
pleasure-lovirrg shoguns provided platforms,
gorgeous costumes and educated actors for their
presentation. The Tokugawa dynasty of shoguns
was particularly liberal in patronizing the
dramatic art, but the plays kept their religious
character. What is still known as the " No "
dance was introduced, carefully trained choruses
were employed and accomplished elocutionists
from the priesthood raoved about the stage and
recited poems in a dramatic manner. There
was no scenery and the public was not adraitted
— only such of the nobility as the patron of the
play chose to invite. The performance lasted
the entire day and in the meantirae the guests
were entertained with elaborate banquets. It
was the custom for the nobility to attend in their
most magnificent costumes and the occasions
were of great cereraony.
Frora these private entertainments the theater
of today gradually developed. The general
character of the plays is still retained, being
539

The Yankees of the East
chiefly representations of incidents in the history
of Japan, performed by professionals, with scen
ery and properties that in a measure are natural
and rational, but often to the western spectator
appear ridiculous and absurd. The chorus,
which occupies a cage raised above the stage on
a level with the first gallery, still recites in a
monotone lines explanatory of the motives of
the actors and fill in the missing links of the
story. The claquer has a conspicuous place at
the right of the footlights with a couple of
blocks of wood, which he slams upon the floor
with great energy whenever the actors make a
hit or the situation becomes sensational. He is
supposed to guide the applause and encourage
the performers. On the other side of the house
is an orchestra which never plays between the
acts, but furnishes a sort of accompaniraent to
the actors when they indulge in pantorairae or
are struggling with great eraotions. It consists
of several samisens (the Japanese guitar), drums,
cyrabals and other instruments, which make a
great deal of noise, but no music. It is difficult
to imagine raore distressing sounds than are
produced by Japanese musicians, particularly
when they add their voices to the tones of their
instruments. All their music is written in a
rainor key and lacks harmony, melody and
rhythm. The real founders of the modern theater were
540

The Theater and Wrestling Ring
two women, naraed 0-kuni and 0-tsu, although,
strange to say, in first-class play-houses men
only are permitted to appear in the performance.
Female parts are taken by men whose voices are
trained for falsetto tones, who study to mimic
feminine raanners, and whose faces are made up
so accurately that a stranger can scarcely believe
they are not women. In the low class theaters
of recent years women have been introduced
upon the stage, but their performances are
often iramoral.
0-kuni was a priestess, and, falling in love
with a swashbuckler named Sanza, eloped with
him. Her extraordinary beauty led to other
flirtations, but Sanza killed his rivals. At Kyoto
0-kuni and her lover gave representations of
the sacred plays in the dry bed of the river, and
afterward raade a tour of the whole empire, be
coming famous for their dramatic power. After
the death of Sanza, O-kuni established a school,
in which she gave lessons in the dramatic art;
and, beirig a reraarkable poetess, wrote several
plays' which are still presented. She raay be
considered as the Shakespeare of Japan, and
until recently her descendants were supported by
pensions from the theatrical profession.
Actors were honored in ancient times when
they were attached to the households of princes,
but as the theater became public the drama was
debased to suit the popular taste and pander to
541

The Yankees of the East
the instincts of the vicious, who were its most
profitable supporters. The profession was de
graded also until its members became outcasts
and were classed with mountebanks, beggars,
butchers, executioners, undertakers and others
of the Eta class, whose business was to take life
and care for the dead. When a census was taken
they were never nurabered, nor were they ad
mitted to citizenship until 187 1.
With the revolution of 1868 the theater was
reformed, a censorship was established and, al
though indecent plays are still produced in low
resorts in the slums of the large cities, a repre
sentative of the police is supposed always to be
present, in a box reserved for him, for the pur
pose of prohibiting iraproper or unpatriotic
features. During the recent political excite
ment, after Japan was compelled to return the
territory she had captured from China, several
performances were suspended and theatrical
managers were fined because their actors inter
polated sarcastic comments and criticisms upon
the policy of the government. Many news
papers were suppressed for the same reason, for
public indignation was intense and the prirae
minister feared a revolution. But usually the
censor's box is considered a perquisite of the
police. Actors are ostracized no longer. The raost
of them nowadays are educated men and are
542

SCENE ON JAPANESE STAGE.

The Theater and Wrestling Ring
gradually being elevated among the honorable
professions. They rank socially very much as
they do in England and the United States, and
Ichikawa Danjuro, the Henry Irving of Japan,
is a great lion, whose presence is always wel
comed at the clubs and social gatherings of men,
although, I understand, he is not invited to
parties where women appear. I have been told
that he charges a fee for appearing as a guest at
the houses of lion-hunters and at dinner parties,
but the story is contradicted. A gentleman who
knows him well tells me that he only charges
rich people who expect him to recite for the
entertainment of their other guests.
Ladles of the higher class do not yet attend
the theater, although there is a well-founded be
lief that they sometimes witness a performance
from a screened box when they wish to indulge
in a lark, but it is not considered good form.
The audiences are usually composed of the mid
dle classes, merchants, mechanics, artisans and
young men about town. Gentleraen who have
friends in from the country take them to the
theater by way of entertainment, but it is not
considered entirely reputable.
The plays now presented at first-class houses
are usually from the classics of ancient Japanese
literature, although there are some popular
dramatists living, and occasionally a scene depict
ing contemporary events, like incidents in the
543

The Yankees of the East
war with China, is rendered. The stage is still
and will continue to be the only mirror in which
modern eyes may see old Japan.
Usually all the theaters are on the same street
and adjoining, and are surrounded by tea-houses
and restaurants, from which refreshments are
sent in. The proper way to attend the theater is
to go to a tea-house or a restaurant for breakfast
and there arrange for the use of a box. All the
boxes and the best seats are purchased by the
year or season by the proprietors of the tea
houses for the accommodation of their patrons.
No gentleman ever buys a ticket at the entrance,
and, in fact, it is irapossible to obtain there any
thing except admission to the galleries, which
are filled with hoodlums, similar to those who
occupy the peanut galleries of American thea
ters. The performance begins at lo or ii
o'clock in the morning and is an all-day affair,
concluding at 8 or 9 o'clock in the evening, with
intervals of half an hour or so between the acts,
when waiters from the tea-houses where tickets
are obtained serve tea and sweetmeats, and at
noon and sunset more substantial refreshments.
The floor is divided into little pens about six
feet square, covered with matting and red blank
ets, and surrounded by railings eighteen inches
or two feet high. The spectators sit on the
floor. On either side and at the rear of the
house in the first and second galleries are rows
544

The Theater and Wresding Ring
of boxes similarly arranged, for which higher
prices are charged. At Danjuro's theater the
price is $5 for a box in the gallery and $4 on the
floor, each box accommodating four persons.
Cushions are supplied by the ushers for a small
fee. Admission to the galleries is 20, 25 and 50
sen, which is equivalent to 10, 12 J^ and 25 cents
of our money; The actors reach and leave the
stage by long platforms or passageways over the
heads of the audience, as for some unexplained
reason their dressing-rooms are over and under
the entrance, instead of the stage.
The costumes are superb. Danjuro's ward
robe is valued at thousands of dollars, and is
protected in a kura or fire-proof vault in the
garden that surrounds his theater. It includes
old brocades and embroideries that are worth
raany times their weight in gold, and his armor
and swords are said to be the finest in Japan.
The scenery is elaborate, but after the Japanese
style of art, which is conspicuous for an entire
absence of perspective and the violation of all
physical laws. Electricity has been introduced
into the best theaters for spectacular effect, but
the footlights are suspended upon a frame which
is hoisted and lowered during the performance,
as the stage manager directs. When he wants to
represent a darkened room he does not turn off
the lights, but hoists the whole business in a very
awkward- rrianner to the ceiling.
'545

The Yankees of the East
The ordinary actor assuraes a raost unnatural
make-up and the most exaggerated strut that
can be imagined. He never speaks in a natural
tone of voice, but roars and rants in a preposter
ous manner. His tones are distressing, and
when he endeavors to be impressive he is usually
comical. Formerly raasks were used, with abund
ant wigs of long red or purple silk hair, but of
late the raore accoraplished raerabers of the pro
fession have learned the art of "making up"
their faces, which is much raore rational, but is
still far frora nature. The properties are equally
unnatural, but often ingenious. The popular
play is a raixture of blood and thunder and mil
linery sensations, and the playbills always an
nounce the presentation of historic brocades,
armor and weapons.
Danjuro, who, by the way, is the ninth of his
narae upon the Japanese stage, is the introducer
of the modern school, and his genius is unques
tioned. His voice and stage presence are equal
to those of any actor I have ever seen. His man-
nerisras and elocution are soraewhat exagger
ated, but he is so far in advance of his genera
tion that he offers a raost striking contrast to
those who support hira on the stage. He would
be regarded as a great actor in any country, and,
although he has had frequent and generous offers
to appear in London and Paris, for some reason
he refuses to leave Japan and has never been
546

The Theater and Wrestling Ring
outside the limits of the empire. In private life
he is a quiet, unassuming gentleman, a charming
conversationalist, a man of excellent morals and
habits, and enjoys a beautiful home and an in
come exceeding that of the prime minister. He
is now nearly 60 years of age ; he owns his thea
ter in Tokyo and has an interest in several other
playhouses elsewhere, in which he sometimes
appears. Wrestling is not only the national amuse
ment, but, unlike pugilism, baseball, cricket and
the sports of other countries, it has a religious
association. The Shinto god, Nomino Sakune
Jinsha, who was the first ordained wrestler, is
the patron of the profession, and the great an
nual festival is held on his anniversary, which is
June 25. Then the tests are raade and the raera
bers of the guild are promoted, after passing
what may be termed a competitive examination.
They are divided into four classes or grades,
just as prize-fighters are classed as heavy-weights,
middle-weights, feather-weights, etc. But in
wrestling the weight of a man does not govern
his grade. He is promoted upon his strength
and skill and the number of raatches he wins.
In order to be promoted a man must throw
every one in his class.
The profession numbers between 300 and
400. They are gross, sensual creatures, enor
raous eaters and enormous drinkers and some of
547

The Yankees of the East
them are raountains of flesh. In fact, judging
from the pictures of wrestlers that are sold at
the festivals, the Japanese have the same idea of
perfect athletic proportions as the Turks have of
female beauty, because the heroes of wrestling
combats are always represented with enormous
stomachs and very fat. You see their effigies in
the Shinto teraples, where the wrestler seeras to
be recognized as partaking of divinity along
with the saints and heroes of war, and in the
rauseums and curio shops, where statues and
statuettes, kakemonos and other pictures are so
frequent as to demonstrate the popularity of the
profession. Human nature is alike the world
over. The champion wrestler is as much ad
mired and courted there as great actors are in
England, as bull-fighters in Spain, or baseball
pitchers and pugilists in the United States.
The wrestling contests usually take place in
the groves and gardens surrounding the Shinto
temples, the headquarters of the guild being at
Honjo Midoricho temple in Nichoeme (second
ward) of Tokyo; but during portions of the year
the wrestlers travel in a body from city to city,
giving exhibitions under contract or for the
benefit of charity.
Like the feudal lords of Europe in the age of
chivalry, the daimyos and princes of Japan had
wrestlers attached to their courts, and struggles
for superiority in forraer days used to bring out
548

The Theater and Wrestling Ring
the best physical prowess of the empire under the
patronage of the shogun at his palaces in Tokyo
and Kyoto. The first wrestler of whom we
know anything came from the province of Ya-
raato in the seventh year of the reign of the Em
peror Suinin, twenty-three years before Christ.
His name was Tagimano Keheya, and he was so
boastful of his strength that he went to the im
perial palace and informed the Emperor that he
was ready to whip any person in the land.
Suinin was amused at his bravado and sent a
proclamation through the country asking for
volunteers. A man by the name of Nomino
Sukune came down from the province of
Idzumo and a rough-and-turable match was held
in the palace garden, the Emperor himself pre
siding as umpire.
Sukune not only overcame the boaster, but
punished him so severely that all his ribs were
broken and he died on the spot. The Emperor
was so pleased with the victor that he made him
a retainer at the palace, and from that date to
this, a period of 2,017 years, his descendants
have been the managers or chief promoters of
the wrestling guild. They were ennobled dur
ing the sixteenth century, and their representa
tive today is Viscount Gojo, who resides in
Tokyo, is an active member of the house of
peers and owns a glass factory and a newspaper,
the Jiron Nippo. 549

The Yankees of the East
Contests usually take place in a large tent or
canopy made of bamboo poles and matting, for
shelter from the sun, with an elevated bank of
earth in the center about twenty feet in diarae
ter and two feet high. The surface is sprinkled
with clean, soft, black sand, and a ring is made
with a brush by sweeping it up into a little
ridge. At the four corners of the arena the
judges sit, like Chinese mandarins, upon piles of
cushions, with their legs crossed, and fan them
selves complacently until their services are re
quired, when they get together in one of the
corners and decide disputes with as much gravity
as the justices of the suprerae bench. They are
always retired wrestlers, veterans, who, by age
and infirraity, have been corapelled to leave the
ring. In addition to the judges, who often sit silently
through the entire festival without being once
appealed to, there is an umpire, who moves
rapidly around the ring, doing his best to watch
every movement of the antagonists, and at the
sarae tirae to keep out of the way of the spec
tators, who yell at hira in a raost savage raanner
when he happens to place his body between
thera and the wrestlers. And sometimes, when
the audience differs from his decisions, they act
very much like the occupants of the bleachers at
a baseball game in America. He carries in his
hand a handsomely lacquered piece of board in
550

The Theater and Wrestling Ring
the shape of a fan, with tassels of gold cord and
other ornaments suspended from it, which is of
the same importance and usefulness as the b^ton
of a drum raajor.
As the family of Viscount Gojo are the per
petual patrons of the guild, so a family of the
name of Kimura are perpetual umpires and have
a monopoly of that business. Any person am
bitious of becoming an umpire of wrestling
matches must become a pupil of that faraily, and,
when he has acquired a sufficient knowledge and
proficiency, he must be adopted by them and
take their name.
Before the performance begins all those who
are to participate enter the arena in a procession,
like the grand entree at a circus, each one as
naked as he was born, with the exception of a
silken belt and a breech-clout, and an apron,
which hangs from his waist to his ankles, about
a yard wide. The apron is beautifully embroid
ered in gold upon silk or velvet of gorgeous colors.
The color represents the clan to which the wrestler
belongs, and it may be red, blue, yellow or pur
ple, while designs worked out in embroidery
represent his crest, his professional name and
any other insignia that may pertain to him.
The wrestlers' aprons are often the finest exam
ples of Japanese embroidery and are given them
by their admirers. A popular wrestler — and
each one has his following araong the public —
551

The Yankees of the East
often has several presented to him after con
tests in which he especially distinguishes him
self. Another mark of the profession is long hair,
which, I suppose, may be traced to the prece
dent established by Samson. They do not wear
it hanging on their shoulders, however, but it is
done up in the most elaborate coiffures on the
back of their heads, similar to those worn by
fashionable ladies. As they wear no beards one
might easily mistake them for women if only
their heads are seen.
After raaking a tour around the arena, to
allow the audience to admire them, the company
stand in a circle about the ring and go
through a very solemn pantomime, which is said
to be a custom inherited from ancient tiraes. It
used to have sorae significance, no doubt, but I
have not found any one able to give rae its
meaning. The urapire kneels in the center and
holds his wooden fan up before him while he
repeats a few sentences of admonition to the
contestants regarding their behavior, and ex
presses the hope that each will do his best. Then
in unison the -wrestlers extend their arms before
them and make certain gesticulations that end
with three claps of their hands and a funny
little twitch of their aprons, which they seize
with the fingers at each edge. They then march
solemnly back to their dressing-rooms.
552

The Theater and Wresding Ring
After each class or grade has gone through
this cereraony the champion of the empire
enters, attended by two retainers, who are se
lected for that honorable post as a prize-fighter
selects his seconds and trainers, from among the
played-out members of his profession. One of
them carries a box containing the medals and
decorations and other prizes which the charapion
has won, while the other bears a peculiar look
ing sword with a handsome handle and a beauti
fully lacquered scabbard. This represents the
scepter of the king of wrestlers, who, in the
opinion of the boys and many of the grown
part of the population, is second in greatness to
the Emperor alone.
He, too, is naked with the exception of his
breech-clout, belt and apron, which is of purple
velvet loaded with gold embroidery and a heavy
fringe. The apron worn last summer by the
champion is said to have cost $i,ooo, which is
an enormous price in that country, as much as
the Emperor would pay for his robes. It was
presented to the champion by his admirers in
Tokyo at the close of the previous season, when
he won the championship.
It is no disgrace for the champion to be de
feated in the arena, but when he once loses the
supremacy his honors are over. He cannot
compete again, and must go on the retired list
and live on the glory of his past fame until some
553

The Yankees of the East
new hero arises to eclipse him. He becomes a
judge and presides at future contests.
The championship is not decided by a single
contest, as in pugilism, but by the highest nura
ber of throws during the season.
The contestants present at a festival or tour
naraent are divided by lot into two sides — one
called Nishi (the west side) and the other
Higashi (the east side), according to the location
of the dressing-roora, and each side consists of
four grades or classes. The first is called Maku-
no-Uchi, which raeans literally " within the cur
tain," because, being coraposed of the best men
in the profession, its merabers have certain
privileges and distinctions that are not enjoyed
by those of lesser rank. The term probably
originated in the fact that the ablest wrestlers
were allowed the shelter of a dressing-room,
while the ordinary fellows had to arrange their
toilet behind a fence or a tree. The second
class are called Sekiwaki (the neighborhood of
the barrier) ; the third class are the Komusubi (a
knot that is difficult to untie), and the last are
termed Maye-Gashira (merabers of the van).
The latter class are ambitious young men
serving a sort of apprenticeship. They usually
begin by attaching themselves to a member of
the highest class in the capacity of servant or
valet, and in return for their services he teaches
them the scientific side of the business. They
554

The Theater and Wrestling Ring
serve two or three years sometimes before they
attempt to pass an examination for proraotion
into the Komusubi class, but now and then some
brawny youngster, with big limbs and quick wit,
comes down from the country without training
or apprenticeship and earns fame and position
by a single surprising struggle. In 1884 one
of these phenomena appeared in the ring, en
tirely unknown, and created a great sensation by
throwing some of the most skilful and experi
enced raen in the profession over his head.
When the champion raakes his appearance in
the ring after the grand entree he wears the
charapionshlp belt, which is a rope of white silk
about the size of a man's wrist, tied behind him
like a woman's obi, and suspended from it are
clusters of white cards representing the struggles
he has won during the season, each card being
handsomely inscribed with the date, the place,
and the names of his opponents.
The men are raatched by lot each day in
their proper class and the lists are published so
that the people may know who is to raeet the
champion and other favorites.
When the ceremonies of presentation are
over, a herald, called the Yobidashi (caller out),
steps into the arena and, facing the east and the
west by turn, in a sing-song tone drawls out the
names of the contestants who are next to appear
and comraands them to come forward. But
555

The Yankees of the East
they are already there, squatting in a row around
the platform, and they rise and enter with the
consciousness of the eyes and admiration.of the
audience. When they reach the center of the
ring the umpire announces their names, and
each goes through a certain amount of pos
turing and "showing off" before he gets
down to business. Instead of shaking hands, as
pugilists do, they dip their fingers into little
baskets of salt that hang near by and sprinkle it
upon the ground, which means that they have no
malice and will fight fair.
After they have shown their fine shapes to
their satisfaction they stoop at arm's length, sit
on their heels and look at each other like a pair
of roosters about to engage in a controversy.
The umpire gives the word, and each watches
the other eye to eye, with their noses almost
touching, waiting a favorable chance to spring.
Then they grapple and tug and strain and grunt.
Some of them have the habit of shouting, others
work silently. All of the rounds are very short.
They seldom last more than a few seconds, for
the strain is so great that they may rupture a
muscle or a tendon or burst a blood vessel.
When they become locked in a desperate em
brace, without any advantage on either side and
without any sign of either yielding, the umpire
separates them. They walk over to their re
spective corners, wash their mouths, rub their
556

The Theater and Wrestling Ring
muscles with pieces of soft paper which hang in
bunches, and otherwise kill time while they rest
a little and recover their breath. Then the
urapire replaces them exactly as they were be
fore, with the approval of the judges, and the
struggle is renewed. When these separations
have occurred three times without either having
secured the advantage a draw is declared. But
this is infrequent. One or the other of the con
testants usually throws his antagonist or forces
hira to the ground or outside the ring in short
meter, for they rush at each other with tremen
dous energy, often striking wild blows with the
palra or the back of their hands — the clinched
fist is barred. If the foot of either touches the
soil outside the ring, or if any portion of his
body except the sole of his foot touches the soil
inside the ring, the urapire shouts something
and they separate. The victor steps to his
corner and stoops, while the umpire, holding up
his fan in an impressive raanner, declares the
result, and the vanquished retires to the dressing
tent. The most remarkable feature of these contests
is the good nature of the participants. They very
seldom lose their tempers or question the de
cision of the umpire, which is very different
from the habit of professional athletes and sport
ing people in other lands. Nor do they often
resort to jockeying. I witnessed a tournament
557 •

The Yankees of the East
in which sixty-two wrestlers participated. It
lasted frora i o'clock in the afternoon until
nearly 7, and there was not a single dispute ; the
decision of the urapire was not once questioned,
and there was but one foul, which was instantly
granted without protest frora the accused. While
the wrestlers are usually dissolute men, and often
lose their skill and strength by yielding to con
vivial temptations offered by their admirers, they
are noted for a high sense of honor. Any man
who resorts to dishonorable raethods may be ex
pelled from the guild. The judges, whose posi
tions are for life, are supposed to supervise their
raorals and their training as well as their con
tests in the arena, for wrestling is encouraged as
a national sport and has always had the patron
age of the Eraperor and the church on the the
ory that it tends to improve the physical condi
tion of the people.
It is a science, just like "the manly art of
self-defense," only a great deal more so, and a
teacher of wrestling can be found on almost
every street. They are as comraon as teachers
of rausic. And they will tell you that there are
384 devices, grips or positions which a wrestler
may assume during a struggle. These are rec
ognized as legitimate and are approved by the
judges. Occasionally some raan of genius in
vents or discovers another, which, however, must

558

The Theater and Wrestling Ring
have the approval of the board before it can be
adopted, but is not necessarily made known
to the profession. They will find it out them
selves as soon as it is introduced in a match, for
while the famous wrestlers are at it the younger
merabers of the profession stand by watching as
closely as students at a clinic where some great
surgeon is performing an operation.
The most dignified and impressive personage
I saw in Japan was Nishi-Ni-Oh-Me, the cham
pion wrestler. His serene highness came into
the dining-room at the hotel one day clad in a
dark-blue kimino and barefooted. He moved
across the room toward the table with the stride
of a Roman senator, and after dinner posed
about the hotel for the admiration of the guests
like a prize ox or a Percheron stallion at a fair.
There was no bravado, but simply dignified
deliberation, and he is really a fine-looking raan.
His stature is enormous, and great tales are told
of his strength. One day at an entertainraent
given at Tokyo in honor of General Yaraaji a
nuraber of wrestlers were present and perforraed
their custoraary feats for the amusement of the
guests. After Nishi-Ni-Oh-Me left the ring he
went to the dressing tent, where a barrel of water
had been provided. There was a faucet in the
end and a bamboo cup for drinking purposes,
but the monster seized the rims of the barrel

559

The Yankees of the East
with his hands, and, lifting it as easily as he
would a bucket, placed the bunghole to his lips
and drank a deep draught. Then he sat down
in the shade and fanned himself as if he had
done nothing unusual.

560

XXII
Japanese Art and Artists
It is surprising to see how the recent exposi
tion has advertised Chicago in' Japan. Every
body knows about it. Three or four years ago
the ordinary Japanese tradesman and raechanic
knew of the existence of London, Paris and New
York, and many of them were farailiar with the^
narae of San Francisco as the port from which
the steamers sail for their country ; but now
every school-boy and girl, even the little tots in
the kindergartens, are familiar with the name
and the location of Chicago and with the ap
pearance of buildings of the exposition, and
when an ordinary merchant or mechanic heard I
was from that city he looked up with a gleam of
gratified recognition as if he had met an old
friend. They call the World's Columbian Expo
sition "Dai Bankoku Hakuran Kwai," which,
being literally interpreted, means "all countries
— great — objects seeing — meeting place," or,
the great place for seeing objects from all coun
tries. There is no reference to Columbus, and
561

The Yankees ot the East
the average citizen over 21 years of age never
heard of him, because the discoverer of America
is not considered of any special importance over
there, and is not half as big a man in the estima
tion of the people as most of the shoguns.
In visiting the shops and manufactories of
Japan you frequently run across Mr. Thatcher's
diplomas and soraetiraes those issued by Mrs.
Palmer and Mrs. Meredith to women who con
tributed to the production of articles that re
ceived awards at the exposition. Sometimes you
discover thera in the raost unexpected places — ^
in shabby little workshops where two or three
almost naked raen are squatting around with
their heads bent over something they are manip
ulating, and their fingers busy with little tools ;
but it is from such places that the finest speci
mens of industrial art emerge. The treasures
most sought by connoisseurs do not come frora
the large factories, but are made in humble
hovels where some genius is working in solitude
and often in privation, with the ardor of a re
ligious zealot, to produce a piece of porcelain or
cloisenn6 that will make him famous forever.
Several of the greatest artists in Japan attach no
signatures to their products, because they believe
that those who value such things will recognize
their work without a label.
I have found in the Osaka Mainichi (news
paper) a touching story of one of these imprac-
562

Japanese Art and Artists
tical geniuses, who, after years of patient effort,
has succeeded in producing a new kind of por
celain he calls "gan-ju-yaki" (jeweled ware).
His narae is Higuchi Haruzane, and he conceived
the idea one day when he was trying to reraove
a flaw frora a piece of ordinary earthenware. A
certain brilliant effect that was apparent in this
flaw attracted his attention and suggested that
if it could be applied to an entire piece of por
celain it would add another beautiful speciraen to
the various classes of ceraraics. That was in
1882, and frora that tirae until 1893 he was con
stantly at work endeavoring to reproduce what
had been accidental. One of his raost devoted
and trusted artists, naraed Matsuoki, who had
worked patiently with him trying to develop the
new process, died from a disease that was due
to exposure, overwork and insufficient food, and
he himself was reduced to absolute destitution
before he accoraplished the result he aimed at ;
but he was finally successful, and the first pieces
of any consequence that he produced in per
fection were sent to the Chicago exposition —
vases of porcelain decorated with translucent
figures of flowers and birds upon a pure white
ground. The diploma from the committee of awards
was the first public and official acknowledgment
of Mr. Higuchi's success, and when he received
it he went to the cemetery where Matsuoki, his
563

The Yankees of the East
devoted partner, is buried, decorated the grave
with flowers, placed a habachi before the head
stone with a pastille of the most fragrant incense,
and then proceeded to read in a loud voice the
decision of the committee of awards, so that
the spirit of the dead might participate in his
triuraph. The reraarkable and expensive decorations
which Mr. Yerkes of Chicago secured from
Japan for his New York residence were raade at
the Bijitsu Gakko, the Iraperial Art school at
Uyeno Park, which, curiously enough, occupies
a building formerly used as a temple for the
worship of Confucius. It is altogether appro
priate that the Seido should be devoted to such
a purpose during the regeneration of Japan, for
since 1868 a million images of Buddha, a rail
lion suits of armor and two raillion swords
have become bric-i-brac.
The Bijitsu is under the direction of Mr.
Okakura, an artist who possesses a business and
executive ability that is very rare in his profes
sion. He has studied in Germany and France,
is farailiar with England and America, and is
in full sympathy with the spirit of modern prog
ress in Japan. He himself designed raost of
the Yerkes collection, with the assistance of Mr.
Van Ingen, the decorator who ordered thera.
The whole collection is to be placed in a single

564

Japanese Art and Artists
room in the palace which Mr. Yerkes is now
building in New York.
The designs are from what is called the Fu-
jiwara school, and many of them are adapted
from the decorations in the Momoyaraa palace
at Kyoto, which was considered the most beau
tiful building in Japan and to represent the
height of Japanese art. The Fuji wara is more
ornate and elaborate than other schools, and is
not so popular in Japan as the more simple and
quiet, but those who are able to discuss such
subjects intelligently tell me that Mr. Yerkes
secured the most beautiful collection of decora
tive material that was ever sent out of Japan.
At the art school they teach all branches and
have several hundred students, who are under
the patronage of the imperial government. Paint
ing, carving, embroidery, designing, lacquer,
cloisonne and porcelain work, bronze and mar
ble, silver and gold, gem-cutting and every other
feature of the fine arts is fostered by this in
stitution. The pupils in painting do not use
easels, but lay their canvas flat on the floor, and
all the other work is done in a similar manner.
There is a departraent devoted to instruction
in the ancient Japanese style of painting which
Mr. Okakura thinks should be preserved, al
though it disregards all laws of perspective,
light and shadow and anatomy. The ancient

565

The Yankees of the East
Japanese artist never troubled himself about
such raatters. Our painters of the impressionist
school undertake to render their own feelings in
the presence of certain scenes. The Japanese
goes a step farther. He not only endeavors to
represent the emotions awakened by the memory
of the beautiful, but throws behind him all
natural laws, and raakes a picture that presents
the irapossible. He does this in portrait paint
ing as well as in landscapes and mythological
scenes, and the result is a combination of the
beautiful and the grotesque that amuses you while
you adraire it.
Those who believe in this sort of art call it
bold and free and broad, and deny that mechani
cal symmetry and accuracy in reproduction should
be considered in discussing its merits. And the
most highly educated people of Japan agree
with thera. Mr. Okakura thinks that ancient
Japanese art should be ranked with that of
Greece and Rorae, although he adraits that it
cannot be judged by the sarae standard or fairly
discussed from the sarae point of view.
One of the raost highly educated gentleraen
in Japan, who has spent years of travel and was
educated in Europe, who speaks English, French
and German fluently, and writes upon all sorts
of topics for the foreign periodicals, was showing
us his art treasures. He brought out first a
painting which he said was by one of the most
566

Japanese Art and Artists
famous artists Japan had produced — worthy to
rank with Raphael or Titian : but we, in our
innocent Yankee way of looking at things, could
not find head or tail to the picture, and asked
him what it represented. He replied that it was
not a representation of anything in particular,
but a fantasy — ^an original conception of the
artist. We thought that was entirely probable,
for it resembled nothing that we had ever seen
or heard of in the heavens above or in the earth
beneath or in the waters under the earth, al
though the lines were distinguished by a vigor
and a dash that any one could appreciate.
"Perhaps you do not adraire this sort of
thing. Sorae people do not," he said, rather
apologetically. " Let me show you a portrait
of my father. This was also done by a great
artist, perhaps the greatest portrait painter that
has lived in recent centuries, and it is considered
one of his masterpieses."
It was difficult for us to repress our disap
pointment as he unrolled the kakemona. The
picture represented a noble of the shogun period
in court dress of brilliant brocade and gold
embroideries and two beautifully lacquered
swords poked through his girdle. The drapery
was exquisitely done. It was marvelous, but the
posture was ridiculous, and there was no more
accuracy in the drawing of the face and hands
than you see in one of the Japanese dolls that
567

The Yankees of the East
you can buy at any toy store in Chicago. The
great man sat on the edge of a chair, with his
legs stretched far apart and a hand spread out
on either knee. The head was pushed forward,
the hair looked as if it had been done with a
blacking-brush, and the face as if the silk had
first been whitewashed and then sorae child had
tried to draw the features of a man with his left
hand. When the work was held up for our ad
miration we could only say that it was remark
able, and it was.
The Japanese are undoubtedly superior among
all races as painters of birds, flowers, fish, in
sects and bamboo stems swaying in the breeze ;
but they have never yet produced one grand his
torical scene, nor have they ever succeeded in
accurately transfering " the human form divine"
to canvas. There is certainly no reason why
they should not have an accurate knowledge of
anatomy. An artist can find models au natural
in any direction he may look of both sexes and
all ages and conditions of men and women.
There seeras to be no desire for the concealment
of the outlines of the person, and those portions
which are usually draped in civilized countries
are exposed there without the slightest sense of
shame. The farther you go into the interior the less
drapery is used, and if you are so disposed it is
easy enough to find both men and women almost
568

Japanese Art and Artists
entirely without clothing in public places any
tirae of day. Of course they are not persons of
high social standing, or education and refine
ment. I refer to the peasant class, but even the
upper castes have not been taught the same rules
of modesty that we in America and the people
of Europe observe. The farmer's daughter has
never been told that it is iraproper for her to
go down to the stream and strip off her kimono
and take a bath with her father's employes, or
any friends that may be visiting the family, and
at the hot springs of Yumoto there is no regu
lation that prevents a party of gentlemen and
ladies of the very best society, or a father and
mother and sons and daughters going into the
sarae pool at the same time without a stitch of
clothing. There, as at all other fashionable
bathing-places in Japan, the bath-houses are
open to the public, and any one can, with per
fect propriety, and without giving the slightest
cause for offense, calmly take his seat upon one
of the stone benches that encircle the pool and
watch a party of young ladies splashing around
in the costurae they wore at their birth, like the
nyraphs in Bougereau's pictures.
An arcadian siraplicity prevails everywhere,
and every one feels and shows a freedom that is
innocent there, but in America would call for
the interference of the police. The water is
always very hot, and when the bathers — men
569

The Yankees of the East
and woraen, young and old, tourists or town
people, handsome and ugly — are sufficiently
boiled, they crawl up on the edge of the basin
and sit around and gossip just as the belles of
the beach at Narragansett pier and Atlantic City
do in their bathing-dresses on the sand.
To a stranger this extraordinary innocence is
startling, but after a while he becoraes accus
toraed to it just as he does to the habit the
Japanese women have of coming out on the front
steps when they want to give baby his dinner.
I counted eighty-seven women nursing their
babies in front of their houses in the open air
between the United States legation and the Im
perial hotel in Tokyo one day. And in the
hotels, and even private houses where one may
be a guest, in the interior of Japan, it is almost
irapossible to convince the woraen-servants that
bath-rooras should be used by one person at a
tirae, and that when a person is dressing he pre
fers to be alone.
These things are peculiar to Japan. I do
not know any other land In the world where an
edict has ever been issued against nudity, or
where the people are required by law to wear
clothing. And there it was a concession of
foreign sentiraent, and not due to any change
in the ideas of the people respecting raodesty
or raorality. It raust not be inferred that the innocence
570

Japanese Art and Ardsts
which sees no objection in the absence of cloth
ing excuses immorality in a similar manner. On
the contrary, the highest degree of morality is
found in the interior of the country, where the
manners and customs are the nearest to nature.
During the midst of the late war the atten
tion of the authorities was temporarily diverted
to the consideration of a rather curious question
of ethics. It appears that a young native artist,
fresh from the studios of Paris, exhibited at the
exposition at Kyoto a very striking picture of a
woman contemplating her own unadorned beauty
in a mirror. It was the first appearance of the
nude in Japanese art, and its display provoked
an outburst of indignant protest, although it
would cause no comraent whatever in any gal
lery in Europe or America. Until then native
artists had ignored the undraped female figure
altogether, and confined themselves to the re
production of foliage and flowers, natural
scenery, landscapes, bird and insect life, cov
ering almost the whole field of beauty except
that of anatomical symmetry. Their uniform
avoidance of the nude implies no special sever
ity of morals, however, but is due simply to the
fact that the woraen of their race are not famous
for fine figures, and the unclothed body has al
ways been associated with physical toil. You
see gods and mortals represented in gorgeous
draperies, but there are no statues of marble or
571

The Yankees of the East
bronze in any of the public or private collections
of art.The innovation was therefore startling to a
conventionalism that has not included such types
of beauty within its idea of propriety. The
director of the exposition refused to remove the
picture on the ground that it represented a recog
nized school of foreign art, which sooner or later
will be introduced intp the country, and sug
gested that if Japan, as is proposed, should
hold an international exposition grave difficul
ties would be experienced if the display of such
paintings or nude statuary should be prohibited.
He forwarded the protests with a photograph to
the rainister of education, however, and said :
" If you, frora your official point of view,
deera the picture objectionable, or if the author
ities consider such a course advisable, I will, of
course, reraove it."
But the papers were pigeonholed and no
official action was taken. The people who raade
the protests printed a book in which they pre
sented their reasons for objecting to ihe introduc
tion of the French school of art into Japan, but
curiously enough they only alluded casually to
the question of morality. The whole burden
of their argument was that a naked woman can
not be considered a type of the beautiful.
The noblest work of art in Japan, and per
haps the grandest example of bronze casting in
572

THE GREAT BRONZE BUDDHA AT KAMAKURA.

Japanese Art and Artists
the world, is the colossal image of Buddha at
Kamakura, one of the ancient capitals of the
empire, on the sea-coast, about thirty miles from
Yokohama. At the head of a pretty valley,
surrounded by a lovely garden and majestic
trees, the Light of Asia has sat for seven cen
turies upon a lotus flower, listening to the inces
sant surf of the Pacific that pounds upon a
broad yellow beach, and splashes with spray two
weather-worn granite promontories that rise on
either side abruptly from the sea. His head is
inclined slightly forward in holy conteraplation,
his fingers are folded in his lap, his eyes are half
closed, his face wears an expression of infinite
calm, and in his forehead is imbedded a jewel
such as Chinese sages wear in their caps.
The composition is copper, tin and gold, and
where it has been burnished by contact the metal
is a ruddy brown, but the general surface is dull
and weather-stained, with incrustations of green
mold where the raassive parts were welded to
gether. The height is forty-nine feet seven
inches, the circuraference of the head ninety-
seven feet, the width of the face from ear to ear
nineteen feet, and its length from the tip of the
chin to the edge of the curling hair, nine feet
nine inches. The eye is four feet long, the ear
six feet six inches, the nose three feet nine inches
and the mouth three feet two inches. There are
830 curls upon the monster's head. The cir-
S73

The Yankees of the East
curaference of his thurab is three feet. The
eyes are of pure gold and weigh thirty pounds
each. The idol was erected bythe Shogun Yoritomo
in 1195, much of the money being contributed
by the people.
Within the image is a temple forty-nine feet
in height, with an altar and other accessories of
worship, and its walls are defaced with the names
of thousands of irreverent tools. Like St. Peter's
at Rorae, the cathedral of Milan, the lion of
Luzerne and other great works of raan and
nature, it raust be seen many times to obtain a
complete irapression, for it is too raajestic and
imposing for the ordinary mind to absorb all its
beauty at a single view. There is a similar statue
in Kyoto of gilded wood, and one of bronze
still larger at the old town of Nara, but both of
thera are sheltered by rude sheds which ruin the
effect entirely. The Karaakura image is en
shrined only in foliage and is worshipped an
nually by millions of Buddhists from India,
Burmah, China and Korea, as well as Japan.
Around the statue is a group of insignificant tera
ples and cabins for the accoraraodation of priests
who protect it. In one of them I saw a woman
operating an American sewing-machine, which
offered a singular contrast to the antiquity and
the art in whose shadows she dwelt. The gate
way is a splendid example of religious architec-
574

Japanese Art and Artists
ture, and on one of the pillars hangs a printed
appeal in English, framed under glass, from the
superior of the Jodo sect of Buddhists for funds
" to restore the ancient temple, to preserve a his
toric landmark and to serve for the dissemina
tion of the everlasting and immutable law whose
doctrines, given to the world by ' The Light of
Asia,' the blessed Sakyamuni, have pointed the
way through dark and troublesome ages to the
holy path and the pure land, and have guided
the feet of countless weary pilgriras to the
heaven of eternal peace in Nirvana."
" Buddhism is no narrow creed, confined to
one coraraunity or nation," continues the ap
peal. " It is the law of the universe, which was
before the beginning, and is forever, without
end. It is the law of cause and effect. It teaches
a divine and transcendent power, vast and bound
less as eternal peace, and yet governing the raost
trifling circurastances of raen's lives and provid
ing a raeans of salvation and eternal happiness and
love as benevolent and as welcome as a beacon
in a dark night.
" We adore thee, O eternal Buddha ! "
I read these lines aloud as I copied them,
and then stood thinking for a moment.
" Yes," remarked Haturi, our guide, " Bud
dha velly good thing."
Kamakura was the andent capital of the
575

The Yankees of the East
empire, and was formerly an immense city, but
is now only a rural village, composed of the poorer
class of farmers. But there is no place in Japan so
rich in interest to historical students. It was
the seat of the shoguns from 1189 onward to
the middle ages, but forests and rice-fields now
cover the area that once afforded homes to
more than one raillion people, and nothing
whatever, save the great idol and a splendid
teraple to Hachiraan, the god of war, reraains
to remind one of its ancient splendor. Paddy-
fields, millet stalks and garlic now cover the
former sites of the proudest palaces in Japan.
Even the torabs of the emperors have been
swept away by eruptions of the earth and the
sea. The air is full of mythology, for some of
the chief gods in the Shinto and Buddhist pan
theons lived there, and the old-fashioned Japan
ese gentlemen will insist even now, under the
blaze of an electric light and within reach of a
telephone, that the stories of their deeds are
not mere legends, but historical facts, preserved
by the church to bridge over the mighty gulf of
mystery, forgetfulness and death that separates
modern Japan frora the age of fable.
It was there in the year 642 that the Mikado
kept his treasures concealed in a cavern, hence
the narae kama, which means cave, and kura,
which is still the term used to describe the fire
proof vaults that rich men erect in their gardens
576

Japanese Art and Artists
to protect their wardrobes and libraries and
treasures of art from thieves and fire. There,
also, another Emperor met an invasion of east
ern barbarians from China in the fourth century
and slew ten thousand men with a single poi
soned arrow from his raighty bow. There Hachi
raan, the god of war, performed some of his
greatest military achievements, and other famous
chieftains did valiant deeds. They count cen
turies in Japan as we count decades in America,
and when one sits down with a history of Kama
kura before hira, long processions of priests
and princes, soldiers and statesmen, demons and
divinities, pass and repass until the mind and
memory are bewildered with the multitude of
raen and events that are identified with this quiet
little hamlet.
Earthquakes have now and then startled the
Light of Asia from his holy calm, and have
raade him nod an acknowledgment of the
superior authority of nature. Tidal waves have
washed his feet again and again, in one of which
the entire city was destroyed and a hundred
thousand people perished, but his contempla
tions have been disturbed only for the raoment,
for the great weight of metal and the massive
foundation upon which the statue stands have
kept it unharmed.
Kamakura is now a delightful summer resort
for Yokohama people who like to sniff the salt
577

The Yankees of the East
air and enjoy a holiday, and during the autumn
months the place is crowded with thousands of
pilgrims who come to offer their devotions to
the colossal idol and soldiers who worship at the
temple of Hachiraan, which stands upon an
eminence at the end of a long avenue of cryp-
tomeria trees about a mile away.
This temple has been standing almost one
thousand years, and during that tirae has been
the Mecca of the railitary class who governed
the country until the restoration in 1868. There
were centuries of demoralization and devasta
tion, when thousands of men followed the trade
of war for lust and plunder, and the entire em
pire was given up to castles and to camps.
Under leyasu, about the tirae Colurabus dis
covered Araerica, reforms were accoraplished,
and toward the close of the sixteenth century the
military capital was removed to Tokyo, where a
certain degree of civilization asserted itself.
Hachiraan was the son of the faraous Era-
press Gingo. He died in the year 313, when
his railitary glory caused him to be deified as
the god of war. The present building is not
so grand as the forraer teraple — which stood for
nearly nine hundred years on the crest of the
great terrace — and was erected in 1828, but it
is one of the finest specimens of temple-archi
tecture in Asia, and for the soldier of Japan
will always be a sacred place.
578

Japanese Art and Ardsts
So firraly inbred are the instincts of idolatry
that most of the great generals and multitudes
of the minor officers of the Japanese army came
here to worship and leave votive offerings before
they left for the late war in China, and the rail
way trains that ran to Kamakura after the war
carried daily squads of handsomely uniformed
soldiers and sailors to this celebrated shrine to
offer thanks for a safe return and a triumphant
victory. The treasury of the teraple looks like
an arraory, so raany are the swords and sabers
that have been left there as thank-offerings.
Sorae of thera are very old and have lain on the
shelves of the temple for centuries. There is
nowhere a finer collection of ancient military
equipments, and a catalogue of the treasures
presented to that shrine is a list of the great
est military raen that have lived in Japan.
It is a significant fact that modern German
tactics and an education in the applied sciences
do not remove the superstition from the rainds
of the people. If proof is wanted of that fact
it is only necessary to go to Kamakura, and to
the great castle at Nagoya, where the attic is full
of little wooden slabs that are furnished by the
priests to protect it against fire and other perils.
Buddha is quite as rauch a historic personage
as Hachiraan, but is an imported god. He was
born near Benares, India, in 557 B. C, six years
before Confucius, and is said to have been of
579

The Yankees of the East
royal blood. At the age of twenty-one the Light
of Asia left his young wife and new-born child
and becarae a wandering raendicant, to seek the
way of salvation. At last, after years of fast
ing, privation and reflection, he discovered the
truth : that the way to heaven was a calm and
holy life, benevolence and love, self-denial,
purity and the subjugation of the passions.
Shinto was the primitive religion in Japan,
but it was overshadowed by Buddhism, which
was imported from Korea in the fourth century.
Confucian ethics have been taught in Japan since
the twelfth century, and the faith of the people
is an amalgamation of the three, which are not
contradictory. The old-fashioned Japanese de
pends for temporal good upon the gods of
Shinto, draws his maxiras and morals frora Con
fucius, and his hope of eternal life from Buddha.
Behind them is a dead level of inherent pagan
ism that impregnates every caste. Appalled at
his own helplessness among the sublime rays-
teries of nature, the uneducated Japanese wor
ships the shadows upon his own mind, and
accepts the superstitions that are suggested by
the priests in explanation of what he does not
understand. He peoples the earth with invisible
spirits, who control and regulate affairs, and
bring good or evil as they feel disppsed, so that
they must be appeased and propitiated by rites
and incantations, by sacrifices and offerings of
580

Japanese Art and Artists
money. Christianity was welcomed and inves
tigated by many educated men, but raost of
them when they discard their native religion be
come materialists. They go from one extreme
to the other. There is no doubt that Buddhism
is in a state of decay — decay from rottenness
and corruption. The thinking raen of Japan
today have no religion.
With the infusion of foreign ideas and the
disintegration of the old frame-work of poli
tics and society, there was a weakening of the
ties of loyalty and obedience which gave shal
low and hysterical people an opportunity to
make demonstrations that caused concern among
the serious and conservative. A society of half-
bred students, called the soshi, was organized,
who attempted to reform society, religion and
politics, and dictate the policy of the govern
ment. It seeraed for a time as if they might
break out in a revolution like the Tai Ping in
China, and they raay yet give trouble. In 1892
the governraent gave substantial encourageraent
to the Shinto priests, who preach practically
nothing but patriotism, and provided that the
portrait of the Emperor should be exhibited and
saluted in every school, and the allegiance of
the people to his sovereignty is thus implanted
in the minds of children, and daily confirmed.

581

XXIII
Odd Things You See and Hear of
One sees lots of odd things in Japan, and
Mr. Kaneko, the assistant minister of coraraerce
and agriculture, told me that he was writing a
book on the peculiarities of his people.
Newsboys do not cry their papers on the
streets, but have little bells attached to their gir
dles, which jingle as they move along. Street
peddlers, however, pound drums, blow bugles
and make no end of noise. There is a raan go
ing about the streets selling patent medicines
who wears a uniform like a British soldier. He
plays a tune on a bugle and then beats a drum.
Groups of magicians and dancing girls ac
corapany confectionery peddlers through the
streets. Jugglers are also itinerant. They
have no stated place to give their performances,
but travel the streets with their kits, and go
through their tricks wherever they can get a
crowd to witness them. The same is true of
acrobats, who are distinguished by red flannel
turbans, with long streamers hanging down their
backs. 582

Odd Things You See and Hear of
Messenger boys in Japan always run at the
top of their speed, and the postraen — who wear
a neat blue uniform in winter and white linen in
summer, with a blue or white hat shaped like an
inverted washbowl — travel their routes at a jog
trot. There is no excuse for untidiness in Japan.
You can get a hot bath for i cent and laundry
work is 15 cents a dozen.
Little children at the kindergartens and pri
mary schools wear brass tags upon which their
names and residences are inscribed.
It is considered a great advantage by Japan
ese tradesmen who are seeking the custom of
tourists and curio-hunters to have an American
name, and some of thera have been imposed up
on by conscienceless wags to whom they have
applied for suggestions. "Whisky Boy" is the
leading jeweler of Yokohama; "Cock Eye" isa
fashionable tailor and ladies' dressmaker;
"George Washington" keeps a picture store;
"Handy Andy" is a barber, and other natives
with sirailar titles, which they consider very
dignified and respectable, are engaged in busi
ness on the principal streets of that city. One
sees farailiar signs like " Dew Drop Inn," " Sail
or's Snug Harbor," "The Last Chance" and
"Happy Hollow" hanging over the entrances
to Japanese saloons, and one very confiding liquor
seller, who applied to an ironical American for a
583

The Yankees of the East
proper sign to hang over his place of business,
got this: "Sin and Sorrow Sold Here."
"Whisky Boy" came by his name when he
was the servant of a bibulous Englishman who
lived there some years ago, but has long since
gone to a place where there are no bars or bot
tles. His constitution required stimulants very
frequently and he used to roar "Whisky, boy 1"
at his servant every half-hour or so all day long
in a tone loud enough to be heard throughout
the house. The particular servant who attended
to his spirituous wants got his nickname in that
way and he clings to it as if it were an heir
loom. "George Washington" was christened by Mr.
James R. Morse of Yokohama, to whom he carae
for assistance in adopting a title that would at
tract the trade of Araerican tourists.
The queer signs that appear on the streets
in Japanese cities are evidently the result of a
close study of Englishrjapanese phrase-books.
The syntax of some of the advertisements is
amusing. One tailor announces " Stylished suits
raade of the very raoderat price." Another in
forras the public of "Special attention given to
clerical and sporting suits."
One raan advertises that he is "A Dealer in
Coke and Coal for both Ship and Land."
Another announces that he has "Patent
584

Odd Things You See and Hear of
Shoes of Iron Bed" for sale, by which he prob
ably raeans castors.
"Phothagropist" is over the entrance to a
photograph gallery and "Tobacco Nist" over a
cigar-shop. Over a clothier's is the word
"Tailershep" and over a shop for the sale of
Oregon flour is this legend:
"American Washington Floul of Whole
SALE."
One of the most difficult spells that the Eng
lish has suffered in Japan is found on an awning
over the entrance to a shoe-shop near Uyeno
park in Tokyo, as follows:

^i^G;ga3A.Ai..fi|fl. rfrW u u.M'-'^

0 •* SHOES-SHOP 3 &
THE

585

The Yankees of the East
A Yokoharaa jeweler inforras the public as
follows: " Our shop is the best and obliging worker
that have everybody known. Work own narae
or raonograms on any design or orders. We
can works how much difficult job with lowest
price insure. Please try. Once try."
After much inquiry I found that " Gold Tail
Shop " was intended to mean a high-class tailor
ing institution, the word gold being used be
cause it describes the most superior of metals,
as the word diamond is used on the trade-mark
of a raatch company.
" Cow's Meat and Pig's Meat Here " is famil
iar to people who visit the temples of Tokyo,
and near by is a " Maker of Curiosity Shop."
Another artist struggles with an idea as follows:
" Embroidery stuf and worke hat hanger or
screen for purpose to any design and raake wall
paper." " Kinds of Glas " is intended to raean varie
ties of glassware, while " World Name Wine "
means a faraous brand. "Berbar" means a bar
ber. "The Improved Milk" raeans railk steril
ized and put up in bottles. " Internal Railway
Baggage Merchant's Office" means a forwarding
agency. It is observed on one of the principal streets
of Tokyo that there is a " Carver and Gilder for
Sale," and that a certain amiable gentleman
586

Odd Things You See and Hear of
sells "The Ribbons, the Laces, the Veils, the
Feelings." He probably means rufflings or veil
ings by the last word. Another announces him
self with unconscious candor as a " Ladies Out
Fatter," while still another offers "To Sell the
Insurable Watch," and another "The Best Per
fuming Water Anti Flea." Over the entrance
to a pawnbroker's in Tokyo is the following dar
ing announcement: "Sowing Machine and
Warious Article Belonged to Sale Repaired and
Buy Here. Moderate Prices." While on the
door of a school house in Nagoya is " Cheminary
English is Night," which raeans that the literary
gentleman who lives there desires the public to
know that he keeps a night school for instruc
tion in English.
In one of the hotels at Kyoto is the following
notice : NOTISS.
On THE Dinning Time Nobody Shall Be
Enter to the Dinning Room and Drow-
iNG Room Without the Guests Allow.
Any Dealer Shall Be Honestly His
Trade. Of Course the Sold One Shall
Be Prepared to Make Up His Passage.
The author of the above is supposed to mean
that nobody who is not stopping in the house
shall enter the dining-room or the drawing-
room without an invitation from some guest, and
587

The Yankees of the East
that dealers who corae to the hotel to sell goods
raust guarantee the articles they offer.
One of the novel ideas of decorative effect in
Japan is to catch fireflies, keep them in a cage
or box of wire until you have company, and
then release them in the garden for the guests
to admire and talk about. Men peddle caged
locusts (cicadas), singing crickets and other noisy
insects on the streets of cities.
There are 80,000 characters in the Japanese
language. She-hon-gok-ko in Japanese is a normal
school ; kaggo-gak-ko is a technological school
and yo-chi-en a kindergarten.
Every coolie has his business or the name or
trade-mark of his employer staraped or embroid
ered upon his kimono — the loose tunic which all
Japanese raen and woraen wear. If he is a car
penter or a bricklayer, if he is a porter in a
store or a tea-dryer for Middleton & Co., or any
other firra, he has that fact erablazoned in large
characters upon his back, or upon what corre
sponds to the lapels of his coat. If he is a foot-
raan or a coachraan in a private faraily he has
their coat-of-arms or monogram upon his kim
ono in the raiddle of his back, or if he is driv
ing for a livery stable he will carry its advertise
raent around with hira in a sirailar form. And,
by the way, a footman is a footman there. He
does not sit upon the box with the coachman
588

Odd Things You See and Hear of
to keep him company and look fine, and confine
his exertions to opening the carriage door for
my lady, but he usually runs along before the
carriage in the middle of the street, or by the
side of the horses. Soraetiraes, if his employer
is indulgent and does not keep him under very
strict discipline, he steals a ride when he gets
tired by juraping on behind, with his feet upon
the axle or springs of the carriage, and his
hands clinging to the back of the box or the
cover. Even the street scavengers carry their official
titles around with them, and their kimonos are
marked " Board of Public Works, Street Clean
ing Department," or something like that.
They use the American brass baggage check
upon the railways.
The express service is cheap and excellent.
One day we had eight small packages to
send from Tokyo to Yokoharaa. They left the
hotel at the forraer place about a half an hour
before we did, reached the hotel at the latter
place about half an hour after we arrived there,
and the charge was 70 sen (35 cents).
The telegraph service is also prorapt and re
liable. You can send a raessage of ten characters
in the Japanese language to any part of the
empire for 15 sen, which is 7j^ cents in our
money, but 5 sen a word is charged for messages
in a foreign language. Sometimes, however, it
589

The Yankees of the East
requires two or three Japanese characters to ex
press the meaning of a single foreign word.
There is no decoration on the walls of Japan
ese houses. The woodwork is usually polished
in the natural grain or covered with lacquer.
The walls are always of some soft gray color,
without the slightest thing to vary the monotony.
The ceilings are usually of polished cedar in
small panels. The partitions are made with
sliding screens, many of them being simple
frames of pine wood, with windows of oiled
paper or stained glass ; but, in the reception-
rooms and other portions of the lower floors
where company is entertained, they are often of
beautiful lacquer and gold work, and are some
times painted by faraous artists. Some of the
screens are very valuable. A single one may be
worth as much as all the rest of the dwelling.
The only other ornaments are placed in a little
recess called a "takomona" which is raised
about six or eight inches from the floor and is
considered the place of honor. The Emperor
would sit there if he ever visited the house, but,
as he does not enter the homes of his subjects
under any circumstances, his statue or his por
trait is often placed instead, with an ancestral
tablet, a kakemono, or picture roll, and a vase
of flowers. The Japanese address letters the reverse of
what we do, writing the country first, the state
590

Odd Things You See and Hear of
or province next, then the city, the street and
number, and the name last of all ; which, when
you come to think of it, is a very sensible
method, and would be encouraged by our post
men and the distributing clerks in our post-
offices. The Japanese carpenter has the blade of his
plane fastened edge upward in the top of his
bench, and shoves the board or the plank across
it. He pulls his saw toward him, instead of
shoving it away frora him, with his weight
upon it.
The needlewoman sews from her body instead
of toward it. The eye of the needle is at the
point, and the thread is not cut from the spool
until the seam is finished, but is drawn along
through every stitch. She uses a paper thimble,
oiled and waxed, instead of a raetal one.
When you buy a few yards of cloth the mer
chant always unrolls the whole piece and cuts
it off the inside end, in order that you may not
have to take the part that is faded and shopworn.
A tailor raakes the lining to a garment first,
and cuts out the cloth from it as a pattern.
Horses are hitched tail first in the stall, fed
from nose-bags, and an arrangeraent that looks
like a hararaock of knitted rope holds the hay.
The raane and the harness-fastenings of the
horse are on the left side, and the rider mounts
from the right side. 591

The Yankees of the East
A Japanese book begins at the last page and
reads frora right to left instead of the reverse,
as with us. The lines run up and down the
page, and the " foot-notes " are at the top. The
first coluran of a newspaper is on the right-hand
edge of the page, and the favorite place for ad
vertisements is in the middle instead of at the
top or bottom of a column.
Every house has a garden behind it, with
foliage plants and flowers, concealed from the
public, and generally a little fountain and a basin
of water with goldfish in it, while the apartraent
which we conceal as rauch as possible is usually
conspicuous near the front entrance.
The Japanese build the roof of their house
first upon the ground. It is then raised and the
walls are placed under it. The walls are usually
of braided baraboo, plastered inside and out,
then covered with clap-boards or a heavy coat
ing of stucco. Wooden houses are seldom
painted, but the natural color of the wood is
allowed to ripen. Stucco houses are painted
black, and the surface is polished, so that it
shines like a new stove.
The keys to Japanese locks turn in the oppo
site way from those of ours, and the lock is
placed upon the jamb instead of the door.
Articles upon the bills of fare in hotels and
restaurants are nurabered, and you order by
nuraber instead of the name. This is a great
592

THE WONDERFUL LANTERN AT NIKKO.

Odd Things You See and Hear of
advantage fo people who do not understand the
language or know how to pronounce it.
Police and railway officials carry paper lan
terns, marked with their names and numbers
and other useful information.
There are no eating-houses along the railway
lines, but tea is served at every station, with neat
little wooden boxes filled with rice and other
cold food, with a pair of chop-sticks slipped
through the cord with which they are fastened.
A pretty earthen pot of tea and its contents,
including a cup, costs only two and a half sen,
which is one and a quarter cents in our money,
while the box of lunch costs five cents.
The little economies that have made Japan
so rich raay be noticed everywhere. The dust
of charcoal is gathered up and mixed with the
chaff from wheat, barley and other grains and
with chopped straw. It is then moistened into
a paste, rolled into balls about as big as a bil
liard-ball and makes excellent fuel.
All the great irrigating canals are used for
navigation also. They are walled up with stone
and will last forever.
They make wrapping-twine of old newspapers
by cutting them into strips and twisting them
into cords as we used to make lamp-lighters in
the United States when matches were expensive.
Merchants keep their clerks busy at that sort of
work when business is dull.593

The Yankees of the East
Nearly all the hills of Japan are covered with
cultivated forests.
The first question asked of a stranger in
Japan is, "Oh kuni wa?" — "What is your
honorable country ? "
The Japanese wheelbarrow is a net of rope
hung by four cords to either end of a pole,
which is balanced on the shoulder of a coolie.
Single large ones are attached to the raiddle of
a pole and carried on the shoulders of two men.
In digging excavations, in grading on roads
and railways, and in all sirailar work, earth and
stone are carried in this way. Ships are loaded
with coal by several hundred half-naked men
and women who pass it along from one to
the other in little straw baskets about as big as
a wash-bowl. The public printing office is called the In-
setsukioku. In nearly all the cities of Japan, particularly
in the quarters where the poorer people live,
you see little bunches of vegetables like soup
stock hung up over the doors of the houses,
which are supposed to ward off cholera.
In the country towns bunches of dried liz
ards are sold in the markets and at tea-houses,
which are ground up into a powder and used in
making a tea. This remedy is supposed to cure
cholera morbus, cholera infantura and other

594

Odd Things You See and Hear of
diseases of the bowels, and is given to young
children as a preventative.
When a boy is born into a Japanese house
hold no effort is made to conceal the fact, and
it is usually the custora to display paper raodels
of the carp — a fish supposed to represent pros
perity — frora a flag-pole in front of the resi
dence of the happy father. The carp is believed
also to be the strongest of fishes, able to swim
up the raost rapid streams. The prayers offered
at the temples by the father and friends^ of a
new-born youngster ask that he may have simi
lar energy and strength.
At Kyoto we saw the word " fruit " on the
bill of fare at the hotel, and when we called for
some the waiter brought us roasted peanuts,
which are considered a great luxury.
There are very few vehicles in Japan. The
streets of the cities are usually too narrow for
carriages, and you find them only in Yokoharaa,
Tokyo and Kobe, where there is a large foreign
population. Most of the transportation in the
country, as well as in town, is done by raan-
power on two-wheeled carts, and it is amazing
how much a couple of coolies can haul.
They usually have ropes passed around their
shoulders hitched to the axles, while they steer
the vehicle with a long tongue. The carts are
heavy and clumsy, but the roads are smooth and
hard. 595

The Yankees of the East
Railroad tunnels and culverts are usually
made in the form of a Moorish arch like a
horse-shoe. There are no chiropodists in Japan. The
people go bare-footed except for straw and
wooden sandals and tabis, which are low stock
ings that fit closely over the foot. When it rains
they put on high wooden clogs, which are held
to the feet by cords that pass over the instep
and between the first two toes. There is a
Chinese chiropodist in Yokohama who attends
to the feet of foreigners, but the Japanese who
wear the native costume never need his services.
Japanese kites do not have tails, but a lot of
thongs are rigged upon them like an seolian
harp, which makes a noise like a buzz-saw.
The Japanese fold the kimono from left to
right upon the living and from right to left upon
the dead, and it is a very bad omen to get mixed
up on that matter, as foreigners usually do.
The children in the public schools are uni
formed according to grade.
The only lottery in Japan is owned and man
aged by foreigners on the foreign concession in
Yokohama under the protection of the consul
of a European nation, in violation of the laws.
It was formerly conducted by an Araerican, and
was started with Araerican capital ; but when
the Japanese government complained of it the
Consul-General of the United States ordered it
596

Odd Things You See and Hear of
off the reservation. But instead of closing out,
the institution was transferred to a nominal
European ownership, under the jurisdiction of a
consul who approves of the lottery business and
protects it.
The laws against garabling are very strict, as
are those against opium-smoking. The only
places where opium-sraoking exists to any degree
are in the foreign concessions in Yokoharaa,
Kobe, Nagasaki and other ports. There it is
not interfered with. Last summer in Tokyo two
men were sentenced to two years' imprisonment
each for indulging in the vice, and the man who
sold them the opium got six years.
On the Fourth of July the Japanese shouted
" Bei-koku banzai ! " whenever they saw the United
States flag. " Koku " means country, " banzai "
means live forever (literally ten thousand years),
while "bei" is the term used in both China and
Japan to describe America.
The roofs of the houses are thatched with
straw, sometimes two feet thick, or ornamental
steel-colored tiles of porous clay. Modern slate
is being introduced, however, by the govern
ment. In the country people plant the iris and
other flowers at the apex of the roof, which adds
much to the picturesqueness of their dwellings.
This custora is said to have originated in. an in
genious raethod adopted by the women to evade
an edict of the shogun. They used upon their
597

The Yankees of the East
faces a powder made from the roots of a certain
plant which disfigured them and ruined their
complexions, and he issued an order prohibiting
its further cultivation " in the ground." There
fore they planted it on the roofs of their houses.
The Japanese yell "Oi ! Oi ! Oi ! " into a tel
ephone. The Spaniards call " Oyez. "
The soldiers wear on the top of their knap
sacks little tin arrangeraents that have given rise
to the story that the entire array in China was
furnished with field glasses. But they are not
field glasses at all, but only little cylinders which
contain a day's ration of rice.
Before every temple is either a fountain or a
tank filled with running water, where people
may bathe their hands, and their faces, too, if
they please, before they say their prayers.
There is a suggestion of Palm Sunday in
the custdm of hanging a little bunch of green
over the door of a dwelling on the first day
of June. The farraers train their pear trees over trel
lises as we train our grapes.
On nearly every block in Japanese cities
is a public oven where, for a sraall fee, house
wives raay have their dinners and suppers cooked
for them. It is a great measure of economy.
They prepare the dishes ready for cooking at
horae, then take thera to the oven, and while
they are cooking sit around and gossip with
598

Odd Things You See and Hear of
others who are there on the same errand. This
saves them the expense of fuel and an oven of
their own, and in hot days their houses are not
heated up by the fires.
The "soroban," or counting machine, is used
by everybody — in the banks, shops and count
ing-houses. All of the cashiers in the large commercial
houses of Japan, particularly those of foreign
ers, are Chinamen, and are called "shroffs."
They have a guild, whose headquarters is in
Hong Kong, and the whole guild is responsible
for each meraber. In other words, each shroff
has every other raan in the guild on his bond.
The eraployraent of Chinaraen for this service
is explained by the stateraent that, as a rule, they
are raore accurate and honest than either Japan
ese or foreigners. A Chinaraan will cheat you
if he gets a chance, but if you trust him with
money it is perfectly safe ; and if he raakes
a contract or utters the words "Can do! " he raay
be depended upon. The Japanese are not so
reliable. The raanager of the Hong Kong and
Shanghai bank, in a public speech at a banquet
given him recently, when he was retiring frora
active business after a service of forty years,
declared that he had never known a Chinese
defaulter. But in Japan they tell of two. One
Chinese shroff ran away with about ^50,000 of
his eraployer's raoney, and another forged orders
599

The Yankees of the East
upon the governraent customs warehouse by
which he secured 84,000 cases of kerosene oil
and sold it for his own benefit. Before his dis
honesty was discovered he retired from the era
ployraent of the corapany, and his whereabouts
are unknown.
Mr. Georges Racine, the buyer for a large
Paris silk and fur house, told rae that in deal
ing with Japanese he always made written con
tracts with a heavy forfeit, but never required
any writing from a Chinaman, whose word is as
good as his contract. Mr. Racine says : " If a
Chinaman says ' Can dol' to rae it is equivalent
to a bond with good security."
It is also the custom of foreigners in Japan
to employ Chinese superintendents or foremen
to take charge of Japanese laborers. These are
called "compradors." It is also customary for
business raen to have a Chinese " banto," who
is a sort of private secretary, confidential clerk,
valet and raessenger combined. A business
house requiring a large number of laborers con
tracts with its comprador to furnish so many
coolies at a fixed price a day, and he gets his
commission or " squeeze " out of the coolies —
perhaps one or two cents a day from each.
A foreign merchant in Yokohama very seldom
handles any of his own money hiraself. His
shroff will not permit it, but receives all that is
paid in, pays all bills, keeps the bank account,
600

Odd Things You See and Hear of
and is the only one who knows the combination
of the vault in which cash is kept. If his em
ployer wants raoney he writes what they call a
"chit," which is equivalent to a bank check,
and it is cashed by the shroff just as it would be
by the paying teller of a bank. It would be
quite as irregular for the president of a bank in
the United States to take in or pay out cash as
for a business man in Japan to do so if he
employs a shroff.
The street cars in Tokyo charge only one sen
for a ride — that is, half a cent.
They make their own bicycles in Japan now
and call them jin-ten-sha, which means literally
man-wheel-vehicle. There is a Chinaman in Yokohama named
Ah Look.
The most rapid growth in the exports of
Japan is in floor mattings, which now go to
the United States and Europe in lots of one
hundred thousand bales at a time. The second
increase is in cotton rugs.
Rear-Adrairal Matsuraura and Commodore
Kunitomo of the Japanese navy, who covered
themselves with glory during the Chinese war, are
graduates of the naval acaderay at Annapolis. The
vice-minister of education in the Japanese cabi
net is a graduate of Cornell University, the vice-
minister of finance of Yale, and the vice-minister
of agriculture and comraerce of Harvard.
6oi

The Yankees of the East
The Japanese use paper towels and napkins
and wrap their packages in cloth.
No betting or pool-selling is allowed at
wrestling-matches, horse races or any other pub
lic sports.
Breakwaters and dams are raade by filling
long bamboo baskets with stone and sinking
thera one upon the other.
In the rural districts of Japan one often sees
houses and fences built of charred wood that
looks as if it had narrowly escaped destruction.
The boards are intentionally passed through a
fire to prevent decay and the ravages of worras.
Ropes and fish-nets are preserved by soaking
thera in the juice of the persimraon.
Rivers are often raised above their natural
beds for irrigation purposes and the railroads
run under them through tunnels.
When a Chinaman or a Japanese says that any
article " belongs proper kind," he means it is all
right. When he says it is " ichiban," he means
it is first-class. When he refers to a " learn
pidgin," he raeans an apprentice, and if he raen
tions a "joss pidgin," he means a missionary.
A gentleman remarked to the waiter at din
ner that the chicken was very tough.
" No guess he chicken belong this year,"
was the reply.
When the passengers on the steamship City
of Rio de Janeiro were going to sing hymns one
602

Odd Things You See and Hear of
Sunday the captain told one of the Chinese boys
to bring the hymn-books. He hesitated a min
ute and then said :
"No sabe."
"Joss sing-song book," remarked the captain,
and the boy responded :
"All light."
At the coraraenceraent exercises of the Im
perial University at Tokyo in 1895, eighty-six
students were graduated in law, twenty-five in
raedicine, twenty-eight in engineering, twenty-
six in literature, seventeen in science and twenty-
five in agriculture.
There are hospitals for contagious diseases
in every city in Japan, and the recent excite
raent about cholera has demonstrated the value
and efficiency of the public-health service.
Every physician is required to report the name
and disease of every one of his patients at police
headquarters every raorning, and deception is
punished by a heavy penalty. Wherever a con
tagious disease appears it is taken charge of by
the health authorities, the patient is reraoved to
a hospital and the place is quarantined until
thoroughly furaigated. The hospitals are con
ducted upon a combination of German "and
Japanese systems. Nearly all the instructors
in the medical schools have been Germans, and
nearly all the young men who have gone abroad
to study medicine have attended German univer-
603

The Yankees of the East
sities. It is perfectly natural, therefore, that
they should make their influence felt. The hos
pitals look comfortless compared with ours,
because the patients sleep on the floor.
The Japanese bury their dead with great cere
mony. Until recently all funerals were con
ducted by Buddhist priests, even those of the
Shinto priests themselves, but now the Shintoists
are allowed to bury their own believers. The
Shinto coffin is a square box, and the corpse is
fitted into it in a sitting posture, with the head
bent to the knees. In a Shinto funeral profes
sional mourners are employed, who precede the
coffin, which is carried like a sedan chair, sus
pended from long poles. The mourners carry
banners from the temples and large clusters of
artificial flowers, and are followed by the family
of the deceased in carriages, kagos or jinrikishas.
White is the color of mourning among the
Shintos, as it is in China, but at funerals con
ducted according to the Buddhist ritual the pall
bearers wear dark-blue, and are followed by
shaven priests, who carry curious representations
of the lotus flower in white or gold. The Bud
dhist ritual used at both the house and at the
grave is very impressive, but there is never
rausic. The family are usually followed to the
grave by a large concourse of friends on foot,
who return with them to the residence of the
dead and are feasted with sweetmeats and sak^.
604

XXIV
The Political Crisis in Japan
While the people of Japan fully appreciate the
privilege of constitutional and representative
government, they are not entirely satisfied. The
exercise of the limited liberties that have been
given them has sharpened their appetites, and
they want more. Ever since the first parliament
assembled in 1890, until the declaration of war
against China in September, 1894, there has
been an active, and at times an undignified,
demand by that body upon the throne for an
extension of legislative power. It insists upon
controlling the cabinet and the appropriations.
The Japanese Ministry is independent of the
Diet, and responsible to the sovereign alone.
The ministers may or may not be members
of Parliament. In fact, but few of them have
been, but the possession of portfolios gives them
the privilege of the floor and the right to par
ticipate in debates, although they have no vote
unless they are regularly elected by a con
stituency. 60s

The Yankees of the East
The budget, or the estiraate of appropria
tions necessary to sustain the government, with
the exception of the Emperor's privy purse, and
certain other allowances that are permanently
fixed by law, are submitted annually to parlia
raent, with the expectation that the money asked
for, or as rauch as may be considered proper,
will be voted from the public treasury. But, if
the parliament for any reason shall fail to thus
provide for the ordinary expenses of the gov
ernraent, there is a clause in the constitution
which extends and continues the appropriations
of the preceding year.
Thus parliaraent has no control over the
purse-strings nor the executive departments of
the empire, and its first three sessions and a
part of the fourth were chiefly devoted to as
saults upon the existing systera for the purpose
of extending its own authority and responsibil
ity. Addresses to the throne, resolutions of
censure, declarations of principles and re
fusals to approve the budgets were unavailing,
although they were persistently reiterated for
four years. The struggle was reaching an acute
stage when war was proclairaed. In an instant
the patriotism of the people was aflame. These
issues were absolutely ignored, political differ
ences were forgotten, and the parliament, without
a question or a dissenting voice, sprang to the
support of the ministry, voted every dollar that
606

The Political Crisis in Japan
was asked for, and unanimously adopted every
measure that was recommended. And, further
more, there was not a newspaper nor a political
association that did not promptly approve the
action of the executives, and indorse with en
thusiasm the support that was given them by
the parliament.
This display of national pride and patriotisra
is without precedent in any nation. Every man
and woman, frora the princes to the coolies —
all classes of society, the members of all reli
gions, merchants, farmers and laborers, were
welded together for the war. There was not a
note of discord from any quarter when the
national hymn was sung, nor was there any need
of going outside the country for raoney or re
sorting to conscription to recruit the ranks.
Every able-bodied man in Japan was anxious to
enter the army. Every soldier's proudest hope
was that he raight be placed in the front rank of
the battle. Mothers and fathers were willing to
sacrifice their sons, and wives their husbands,
provided they fell with their faces to the foe, as
every Japanese soldier has fallen. In Japan
loyalty to the Emperor and filial devotion rank
above religion. The cornerstone of the whole
social system is patriotisra, and that great trait
of the native character has been aroused to such
intensity as to reach fanaticism. As a leading
English writer asserted, " An inordinate love of
607

The Yankees of the East
country controls the Japanese in everything,
good and bad."
There are those who believe that Marquis Ito,
the prime minister, appealed to this " inordi
nate" patriotisra for the purpose of averting a
domestic revolution, and used the universal con
tempt and hatred of China as a solution of the
constitutional problem. He is an exceedingly
wise and sagacious man. He is one of the
ablest statesmen of this age, and no one under
stands his countrymen more thoroughly than
he. He has a nerve that never quivers, caution
equal to any emergency, and his coup de etat
was successful for the time being. But he was not
able to foresee the complications that arose later
frora the interference of Russia, France and
Gerraany in disarranging the terras of peace,
and requiring the surrender of the Liao-tung
peninsula and other spoils of victory.
While it is no doubt fortunate for Japan in
some respects that she was forcibly relieved of
the expense and embarrassraent of raaintaining
an army and a governraent in the conquered ter
ritory, which would have added little to her
wealth and prosperity, and been a continual drain
upon her resources, it was nevertheless a pro
found hurailiation, that enraged and embittered
the entire nation. The action of the ministry
in submitting to the demands of the European
powers was emphatically condemned by the
608

The Political Crisis in Japan
public and the press, and for a few weeks dur
ing the early suraraer of 1895 Japan passed
through the raost critical period of her history.
The interference of Russia in the plans of
Japan for the reformation, of the governraent of
Korea, and the apparent purpose of the Czar to
control and occupy the Hermit Kingdora as a
terminus for the great Siberian railway, aggra
vated the discontent. The postponement of the
usual meeting of parliament in the fall of 1895
prevented an outbreak ofdissatisfaction with the
ministry for submitting to the dictation of the
European powers, and, by clever political man
ageraent, when it assembled in February, 1896,
Marquis Ito and his associates succeeded in
consoling the opposition, so that the policy of
the government was sustained by a vote of 170
to 103.
There is little doubt that it is for the advan
tage of Japan to leave the development of the
Korean peninsula to Russian enterprise, but a
hysterical people did not stop to consider that.
The degradation and helplessness of the Korean
government and people alraost passes corapre-
hension, and, in undertaking the proposed re
forras, the Japanese accepted a responsibility they
are scarcely corapetent to assurae. Whereas,
whatever Russia does to develop the enorraous
natural resources of Korea will directly benefit
Japan. Russia is an agricultural nation, with an
609

The Yankees of the East
area that includes more than a fourth part of
theworid. Most of it, still in a primitive con
dition and much of it in a state of serai-civiliza
tion. Japan is rapidly becoming one of the
great work-shops of the world, with almost every
acre of her limited territory in a high state of
cultivation, and an industrial capacity that can
scarcely be measured. The settleraent and de
velopment of Asiatic Russia and the Korean
peninsula will provide the raw materials Japan
requires, and at the same time furnish a market
for her manufactured merchandise that will be
convenient and profitable. And what is equally
important, the extension of the Siberian railway
to Fusan, the southernmost port of Korea, only a
few miles from the Japanese coast, will afford direct
and rapid means of transportation to European
raarkets that are now reached only by circura-
navigating the vast continent of Asia, a distance
that equals more than one-half the circumfer
ence of the globe, and requires from fifty to
sixty days of sailing by steam. At the same
time, the Japanese will be able to apply their
surplus energy and capital and population to
the development of Formosa, whose raines,
forests and agricultural resources are equal to,
if they do not surpass those of Cuba, and
will be a continual and increasing source of
wealth to the people and of revenue to the
governraent. 6io

The Political Crisis in Japan
The future will demonstrate that the inter
vention of the European powers and the occu
pation of Korea by Russia was a blessing to
Japan, but the precocious and plucky people of
that little empire are at present difficult to con
vince on that point. Nor was it easy for thera
to realize the wisdora of avoiding a war with a
powerful nation like Russia, with France at its
back, even at the sacrifice of national pride.
Japan was not prepared for a contest upon even
terms, and the result of hostilities with Russia
would have been not only humiliating but dis
astrous. It is irapossible to predict, and difficult to
conjecture, what raay occur in the future, either
in her domestic affairs or her foreign relations ;
but the patriotic spirit of the people, and their
willingness to fight any nation, upon any terras,
at any time for the defense of their honor or the
vindication of their rights, is greatly to be ad
mired. While the war with China was not a fair
test of the railitary power and resources of
Japan, it nevertheless developed a devotion, a
courage and a national arabition that is phe
nomenal, and exhibited to the world her pro
gress in civilization with an emphasis that could
scarcely have been otherwise displayed.
The spirit of the people may be judged by
an announceraent for a teachers' convention in
Kyoto. It read as follows :
6n

The Yankees of the East
" The sole aim of education is to establish a
foundation for the social system by raeans of the
dev.elopment of the abundance of our national
wealth on the one hand and the expansion of
the national power abroad. Now that the war
between Japan and China has shown the dignity
and power of our country to other nations, the
national fortunes are to be increased by com
mercial and industrial pursuits. The spirit of
patriotism which has been nourished for 2,500
years has at last found an opportiinity to ex
hibit itself, and now there is a chance for us
educators to stimulate true nationality and nour
ish the national power as a grateful act of appre
ciation of this glorious period."
After this a list of topics to be discussed at
the meeting is enumerated. The following are
saraples :
" What shall we do to inculcate the spirit of
glory in war and the endurance of hardship
araong the young of the nation ? "
" Should real guns be used in school military
actions or wooden ones ? "
" Shall pupils in the public schools be taught
fencing as well as marksmanship ? "

612

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A JAPANESE CEMETERY.
The Political Crisis in Japan

THE JAPANESE NATIONAL ANTHEM.

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I - wa - o to na - ri - te Ko - ke no

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" mu - - su ma"^ '- - de.
" May the life of our Sovereign be thousands, eight
thousands, of ages, — until the pebbles become the
moss-grown rocks ! "
For several weeks after the enforced return
of the Liao-Tung peninsula to China, by the in
tervention of the European powers, all Japan
was in a state of suppressed agitation. There
was the prospect of a political eruption at any
time. It was a matter of serious apprehension
among foreign residents, as well as with the
governraent, until the radical eleraent was
persuaded to abide by the will of the author
ities, for there was no telling when or where an
outbreak might occur. Many people thought
613

The Yankees of the East
an attempt at revolution would be a good thing
for the country ; that the pressure would be
perraanently relieved by letting off a little steam;
that it would afford the government an excuse
for exercising a little wholesorae discipline upon
a faction of malcontents who have been a source
of constant irritation ever since civilization has
been blossoming in Japan, and that at the same
time, and, what is raost important of all, it would
keep the array engaged in active service and
protect it against infection from the dissatisfied
elements and critical politicians.
That was the raost serious problera the gov
ernraent had to meet. Four hundred thousand
men, raore or less, drawn from all grades of
society, but raostly from the lower classes, had
been actively engaged in war, either in China or
Korea. Having been compelled to surrender
the captured territory, this army must of neces
sity come home, and the greater portion was
disbanded within a few months. It brought
cholera and other contagious diseases, and a
spirit of dissatisfaction and disappointment that
was even worse. The soldiers did not have half
enough fighting to satisfy their greed for gore
and glory. They had only tasted blood, and
there is plenty of the savage still remaining un
der the skin of the Japanese peasant. Further
more, they saw the choicest fruits of their victory
snatched away from their government, and when
614

The Political Crisis in Japan
they were exposed to the fever of indignation
and resentment that pervaded the entire popula
tion, they were a hard lot of men to handle.
Many of the soldiers belong to the samurai
class. Their fathers were professional fighters,
and raany of thera are not too old to have been
themselves trained as retainers of the proud
daimios, or feudal lords, who ruled Japan before
the reforraation and the adoption of constitu
tional governraent. They are well born and
proud, and without the sense of fear. They
used to commit suicide whenever they could not
avenge an insult, and are still extremely punc
tilious in the observance of their own code of
honor. When the change came that turned two
million of Japanese swords into bric-a-brac the
government found great difficulty in providing
them with peaceful eraployraent and preserving
discipline araong those who were organized into
a standing army, with modern arms and modern
raethods. It was only a few generations ago that the
soldiers of Japan carried grotesque banners,
pounded gongs and wore hideous lacquer raasks
to frighten their enemies, and were led to battle
by a man with a fan in his hand. The infantry
men wore chain armor, carried long bamboo
poles with knives lashed to them, and fought
with immense two-handled swords.
The soldiers returned by brigades from the
615

The Yankees of the East
seat of war and were disbanded in various
portions of the country. The streets were full
of raarching columns, followed by the excited
and patriotic populace. The railway stations,
the tea-houses and other places of resort
were crowded with the heroes just back from
Korea relating to their admirers the story
of their experience and the incidents of the
war. The bands came down the street, at
the head of columns of infantry, playing
" Marching Through Georgia."
The soldiers were received with great enthu
siasm by the people, but the public temper was
shown in a very decided manner when Prince
Komatsu, the generalissirao of the army, landed
at Kobe to place his sword at the feet of the
Emperor and render him an account of his
achievements. He was escorted from Port
Arthur by a large fleet and welcomed with the
highest honors and the greatest ceremony that
could be paid to any raan except the Emperor,
but it was all official. There was a large mili
tary escort, the public buildings were decorated
with quantities of bunting and banners and
lanterns ; there were bands in every direction,
and groups of school-children carrying flags and
singing patriotic songs. In the evening the
public places were handsomely illuminated, and
thousands of dollars were spent for fire-works.
But there was a conspicuous lack of enthusiasm
6i6

The Political Crisis in Japan
among the people, although Prince Komatsu
had always been a popular favorite, and is en
titled to rauch credit for the management of the
war. Very few private houses were decorated or
illuminated. There seeras to have been a studied
display of coolness and resentraent for the pur
pose of irapressing upon the governraent the
public dissatisfaction with its policy. So marked
was this that there were quarrels between the
owners and the tenants of certain property in
regard to its decoration, and there were two
suicides one day, both due to chagrin over the
policy of the governraent and its surrender to
the deraands of Russia.
When a Japanese has no other way of ex
pressing his disgust he falls upon his sword.
One of the suicides was a major in the imperial
body-guard. He fought all through the war,
but could not endure the taunts of friends who
met him on his arrival at Kobe. The other was
a coolie — a jinrikisha man — who was not aware
that the fruits of victory had been forfeited until
he heard the story from some persons who came
down to welcorae the prince. He at once be
came intensely excited, rushed through the
streets shouting that Japan had been disgrace
fully betrayed, and on reaching his home pro
ceeded to take his own life.
Of such men, with the coolies, who carried
their baggage, ammunition and supplies in
617

The Yankees of the East
packs upon their backs, was the array of Japan
composed ; and three-fourths of them were
turned back into the body politic, with no em
ployment, no taste for labor, the indolent habits
of the camp, an inordinate love for excitement
and plenty of raischief-makers to stir up their
natural discontent. It will thus be seen why
some people thought that a domestic revolution
would be a good thing for the country. These
raen will be loyal as long as they have no griev
ance and are retained under arras, but there was
for a tirae grave danger that they raight be
aroused to offer violent opposition to the gov
ernment as soon as they were released from
their obligation to support it.
For a people who have been so recently re
leased from mental, moral and political bond
age, the Japanese showed remarkable self-control.
Foreign residents and travelers complain of their
vanity, and it is conspicuous, but it is natural
and excusable. No nation on earth has more to
be proud of. But for months they were under
a terrible strain. Not only their vanity and their
pride, but their sense of justice, had been vio
lated. Nine-tenths of the impulsive people
thought that the government should not have con
sented to an armistice ; that the flag of Japan
should have been planted upon the palace at
Peking, and that the " Son of Heaven," as the
Chinese Emperor calls himself, should have been
6i8

The Political Crisis in Japan
humbled until he begged for raercy. There are
even those who think — and the opinion was fre
quently asserted in the newspapers — that the
empire of China should have been annexed to
Japan, or at least a protectorate should have been
maintained over it until a commercial and in
dustrial conquest could have been completed.
To such a people it appeared at first that their
government was guilty of criminal indifference
in accepting any other terms of peace, and it
exasperated them to see in the Chinese news
papers assurances from the Emperor to his own
people that, rather than annihilate the Japan
ese, he had generously given thera raoney from
his great abundance, and sent them back to
their little island to bask in the sunshine of
his favor.
Then when terms were finally raade and the
Japanese array agreed to stop fighting, to have
Russia corae in, with Gerraany and France at
her back, and corapel thera to relinquish the
most gratifying spoils of war, was about as much
as the patriotic Japanese could endure, and when
his own governraent calmly submitted without
even a recorded protest, his indignation could
not be repressed. For a time he ceased to
revile the Russians. His own rulers were the
object of his wrath.
There are very few Japanese who do not be
lieve they could have whipped Russia if they
619

The Yankees of the East
had been permitted to atterapt it. It is difficult
to convince thera that Germany and France
would have had any share in the fight. They do
not understand what interest those nations could
possibly feel in the affair, and a baseless story
that the Russian admiral laid his sword across
the articles of capitulation at Chefoo and told
the Japanese that they could not be accepted
added unnecessary fuel to a flame that was very
fierce before. As a consequence of these emo
tions, which were freely expressed, nearly half
the newspapers in the country were suppressed,
and the leaders of the opposition in parliament
were holding daily conferences to decide upon
sorae method of utilizing the popular indigna
tion for their own personal and political ad
vantage. However, they fortunately concluded
to support the rainistry.
It is not fair to say these men had disloyal
thoughts, but there is politics in Japan as in
every other country and raany ambitious men
are out of power. That part of the press which
was not in open opposition was divided into two
factions — one indulging in indirect and moder
ate criticisra, ingenious enough not to corae un
der the ban of the censors, and the other defend
ing the policy of the governraent and endeavor
ing to placate public sentiraent by plausible
explanations. The iraperial proclamation announcing the
620

GATEWAY TO THE MIKADO'S PALACE, KYOTO.

The Political Crisis in Japan
surrender of the Chinese territory was very
cleverly worded, and explained that by the
" friendly advice of Russia and other European
powers the end of the war finds Japan enriched in
territory to the fullest extent that her best friends
could wish, strengthened in the esteera and con
fidence of the world and enorraously enhanced
in her prestige as a civilized nation." But never
theless the exact terms of the relinquishment
were not published in Japan for many weeks,
and no paper was allowed to give a full account
of the proceedings that attended the ratification
of the treaty. One of the English newspapers
contained a column report of that iraportant
event, but treated it very gingerly, and a Jap
anese paper was suppressed raerely because it
announced that the thirteen Russian raen-of-war
in the harbor of Cheefoo cleared their decks for
action on the raorning of the day on which the
ratifications were exchanged.
There was gathered in the harbor of that
little Chinese city, about two hundred railes south
of Peking, the largest fleet of Russian vessels
that was ever seen on that coast, thirteen in
all, with two English, two Gerraan and one
French cruiser, and the little gunboat Machias
of the United States navy. While no explanation
has ever been raade of this display of force, it
was evidently the intention of the Russian ad
miral to provoke a collision. He expected that
621

The Yankees of the East
Mr. Ito Miyoji, the Japanese arabassador, would
be escorted across the Yellow sea from Port
Arthur by the large fleet of ships assembled
there, including the several vessels captured
from the Chinese. The Russians were to assume
that this display of force was intended to in
timidate the Chinese envoys, and order the fleet
out of the harbor. Under such circumstances
shots raust have been exchanged, and possibly
there would have been a battle unprecedented
in naval warfare. The hostile intentions of the
Europeans is shown by the fact that none of
their coraraanders except the Englishmen paid
the usual call of cereraony upon the Japanese
ambassador. The latter, suspecting the inten
tions of the Russians, decided to forego the
usual honors, and went to Cheefoo upon a small
raerchant ship, attended by no escort. The
Russian admiral several days previous ordered
all his ships to stow their rigging and clear their
decks for action, and they even went so far as to
hoist a supply of ammunition out of their mag
azines and pull the plugs from the mouths of
their cannon.
Many of the leading officials admitted pri
vately that the armistice was a mistake, and that
it would have been better for the army to have
occupied Peking, but the policy of moderation
was submitted to and approved by a conference
of railitary officers, including the commanders
622

The Political Crisis in Japan
- of the several armies. It is also asserted that
the Russian ultimatum that the conquered terri
tory raust be relinquished was submitted to a
similar conference, and that the prime minister
informed the generals that their action would
govern his policy. When the question arose
whether they would advise a modification of the
treaty in compliance with the demands of Russia
or fight, they all voted to take the bitter pill.
In the raeantime the rainistry at Tokyo was
united and had the cordial support of the army
and navy, whose higher officers were consulted
and concurred in all important matters. Several
of the political coraraittees, including the "re
forra party," the "national union party," the
"progressionist party," the "economical reform
party," the " central political association " and
other of the factions which represent the oppo
sition to the government sent congratulatory
addresses to the military officers upon their re
turn from the seat of war, comraending their
patriotisra and gallantry, and expressing regret
that the results of their achievements had been
lost by the imbecility of the ministers in power.
As soon as this portion of the comraunication
was discovered the congratulations were returned
to those who sent them without comment or
explanation. The comic papers and the caricature artists
did good work in keeping up the spirits of the
623

The Yankees of the East
people and showed a great deal of fine humor.
Thousands of cartoons were hung out in front
of the shops and pasted upon the dead-walls in
Tokyo and other cities and sold by the hundreds
of thousands by the peddlers upon the street.
The popular feeling against Russia, Germany
and France was intense, and extended in a
measure to all foreigners in Japan, except Amer
icans. Mr. Dun, the American minister, was
the only raember of the diplomatic corps who
was not attended by detectives. The American
legation at Tokyo was the only one that was not
under military guard, and the same was true of
the consulates at Yokohama. We heard of for
eigners being attacked and insulted upon the
streets at Kyoto, where an exposition was in prog
ress ; at Kobe, a neighboring port, and at
Osaka, the great manufacturing center, but no
Americans ever met with anything but the
kindest courtesies. The Russian archbishop
was warned to postpone the general meeting of
the clergy of the Greek church, and all of the
Russian churches in the country were under
police protection. But any American who was
capable of identification by the people was able
to travel around without the slightest fear of
insult or interference.
Fifty daily newspapers were suppressed in
one week. At no time since its existence was
the censorship of the Japanese press so stringent.
624

The Political Crisis in Japan
Of the twelve leading dailies at the capital seven
were under suspension, mostly because of their
vigorous indignation over the submission to the
demands of Russia. The few papers that were
loyal to the government made some very inge
nious arguments and explanations. One de
clared that " the return of the Liao-Tung penin
sula will be regarded by the world at large as an
act of chivalry well becoming the spirit with
which the war was undertaken and conducted."
Another, the Shimbun, said :
"Viewing the matter calmly, one realizes that it
is perhaps a good thing for Japan that she has been
compelled to be contented with only a part of her
rightful prize. Had she obtained all she asked for
she might have been satisfied with her present con
dition, which would have been very injurious to her
future progress and development. But as it is, the
national pride has been strongly affected by European
intervention, and the people are inspired with re
newed energy to increase their resources and strength.
Thus the loss of Liao-Tung may prove a blessing in
disguise." Some of the papers demanded an increase of
the indemnity as compensation for the surren
dered territory. Others took the high ground
that having "voluntarily" relinquished her
territorial occupation of China, it would not be
manly or consistent for Japan to deraand addi
tional raonetary corapensation. With commend
able but arausing pride, they asserted that the
625

The Yankees of the East
Liao-Tung territory was given back to China as
a mark of generosity and without any desire or
expectation of receiving material compensation.
As a consolation to the people the govern
ment made large promises in the way of public
iraproveraents, and an extensive programrae was
serai-officially announced of ship-building, navy-
yards, fortifications and other raeans of defense,
so that the country raight hereafter be in a con
dition to fight the czar and hold its own
with any of the nations of Europe.
It was promised that the indemnity paid by
China would be applied to the increase of the
national armament and defense. The two
hundred million taels, which amount to about
the sarae nuraber of dollars in our raoney, by
the treaty was agreed to be paid in eight install
ments, fifty millions in six months, fifty millions
more in twelve months, and the balance in six
annual installments with interest at five per
cent. The total of the indemnity is equivalent in
Japanese currency to two hundred and eighty
raillion yen, and exceeds the national currency
now in circulation by one hundred and thirteen
raillion yen, or an average of nearly four yen
per capita of the population. The yen is a
silver coin equal to the Mexican dollar.
It was also announced that a portion of the
indemnity would be used to redeem the war loans.
626

The Political Crisis in Japan
The expenses of the war amounted to about
one hundred raillion yen, raost of which was
expended abroad and was obtained by loans
frora the people. It is to the credit of Japan's
financial ability, as well as to the patriotism of
the people, that she has not been corapelled to
go outside her own limits for a dollar. She has
no foreign debt. This is the more remarkable
because of the fact that her treaties with other
nations prohibit her from imposing more than
five per cent duty upon any imported merchan
dise. She has never been allowed to regulate
her own tariff, but has been the victim of the
commercial selfishness of Great Britain, which
until recently has stubbornly opposed a revision
of the treaties.
The first war budget voted by parliament was
for one hundred and fifty raillion yen, and the
second was for one hundred raillion, but only
two loans, araounting to only eighty raillion yen,
were floated. The surplus funds in the treasury
when the war broke out were twenty-seven rail
lion, and these, with the loans, covered the
entire expenditure.
¦ The administration organ expressed an opin
ion that prevails throughout Japan with a most
remarkable unanimity, from the Eraperor down
to the coolies that work over the furnaces in the
tea go-downs. It said that the result of the war
with China has demonstrated that Japan has be-
627

The Yankees of the East
come one of the great powers of the world.
The article continues :
" The time has gone by in which China and Korea
were the only opponents to be considered by Japan.
Russia, France, England and Germany are now to
be dealt with, and in the future we must be prepared
to hold our own with those countries. Japan must
be so strengthened and equipped as to make herself
felt among those powers, and to that end, within the
next five years, the naval force of this country must
be so increased as to be on an equality with the
squadrons of any two of the strongest European
nations combined, while also within the same period
the standing army must be increased to double its
present strength. But it should be understood that
this increase of the naval and military strength of
the empire is for the purpose of defense and not
aggression. More naval stations should be opened at
once, the number of military and naval colleges,
schools of navigation and arsenals increased, and
ship yards enlarged, while the industries of the
country should be developed and all superfluous
national expenses should be reduced as much as
possible. At the outbreak of the war a great deal raore
money might have been raised for such a pur
pose than now, for then patriotism was at fever-
heat. Many interesting tales are told of indivi
dual ardor that are both pathetic and amusing.
Lieutenant-General Baron Yaraaji, coramanding
a division, who happens to possess a single
eye, and is called in popular literature "The one-
eyed demon," had considerable property, which
628

A JAPANESE SAWMILL.

The Political Crisis in Japan
he sold at auction before he left for the front,
and distributed the proceeds among his soldiers.
He raade an address to thera upon presenting the
raoney which was borabastic and ludicrous, al
though entirely sincere. He declared that he
should never need his property again, because
he intended to die on the field of battle or re
main permanently in China, with the permission
of the government, as a governor of captured
territory. Although he was at the head of his
men in every battle, he escaped with a whole
skin, and the captured territory was given back
to the enemy under pressure from Russia, Ger
raany and France. He therefore returned to
his horae a sadder and poorer raan, and is now
entirely dependent upon his sraall pay.
On the southern side of Yokohama, leading
up to a bluff upon which most of the foreigners
live, is a steep stairway known to tourists as
" The one hundred stone steps." They lead to
a tea-house and shrine which are both famous
and are otherwise reached by a beautiful road
way winding among the lawns and groves of the
rich residents of that city. One day in the
summer an elderly Japanese in the costume of
the samurai, who were knights to the feudal
lords in ancient times, attempted to ride up and
down these steps on horseback, and succeeded
in doing so after a daring exhibition of horse
manship and several accidents. 629

The Yankees of the East
He said his name was Ishikawa Seima, that
he was a samurai to the dairayo of Sendai in
the old days of the shogun, and that when his
three sons went to the war he vowed that if
all returned alive he would ride up the steps
to the shrine of Sengen on horseback and
down again, after leaving a thank-offering to the
gods. The return of the Emperor to Tokyo was
comraeraorated by a manifestation that had great
er significance than the demonstration of the peo
ple, and allayed public apprehension more than
anything that occurred after the close of the
war. For the time being political animosity in
Japan was suppressed. There was no longer
any talk or fear of revolution, and the tenure of
the ministry was secure. The policy of the
government was tolerated as well meant, if
not judicious, and the surrender of the conquered
territory was condoned.
The radical party issued a pronunciaraento
which cleared the atmosphere, and offered loyal
submission to the Emperor and his ministers as
an evidence of their joy at his return. It began
with a few paragraphs in the way of moralizing
over the frequency of blunders and errors in the
best-regulated governments which may seriously
affect the well-being and safety of the state.
Then followed a brief history of the war and
the support that had been given the authorities
630

The Political Crisis in Japan
by the radical party in securing money and
military supplies. Then carae an expression of
their motives and an assurance that they have
been governed by unselfish patriotism. They
asked a nuraber of questions as to the raanage-
raent of the war and the national finances, which
they left unanswered, and in brief, suggestive
terras proraised sorae further comments on these
subjects. " On these topics the time has not yet
come," they said, " for our party to deliver its
judgraent," and then they added sententiously :
" Whenever there arises an opportunity to offer
advice the radical party will not fail to do so.
The reason why this country alone, among the
nations of Asia, is able to raaintain its position
on an equal footing with the powers of Europe
is that it stands on a firm basis of raorality.
The recent war has deraonstrated the great dif
ference between China and Japan. The brilliant
success of our arms is due to the illustrious vir
tues of his majesty and his august ancestors, as
well as to the loyalty and bravery of our military
and naval forces. But another reason is the fact
thafyioth the government and the people have
been united in the firm consciousness that the
nation was waging a righteous war."
The coramittee of radicals then discussed
the future policy of the government, and insisted
that a portion of the indemnity should be used
for pensions to the wounded and the families of
631

The Yankees of the East
the dead, next for a sinking fund to redeem the
war loans, and the remainder for national de
fense and the increase of the navy, and sug
gested that a portion might be devoted to the
development of those industries " which are the
root of national wealth and strength." If this
line of policy was followed by the government
the support of the radical party was proraised,
but they announced that they would continue
to accept their share of the responsibility of
deciding questions that affect the dignity and
honor of the nation.
Then, in conclusion, they admonished all
patriotic citizens of the critical situation in the
country and the necessity of harmony and dis
interested cooperation to preserve the peace and
strength in the government at horae, so as to
present a united resistance to foreign enemies.
"The situation in the East," they said, "is
daily growing more and more serious, and it is
imperatively necessary to unite the people and
nourish bur national strength."
By surviving this severe and painful ordeal
without a revolution the Japanese demonstrated to
theworid that they have acquired something more
than a veneer of civilization, as their critics fre
quently suggest, and have learned the faculty of
self-control beyond that possessed by any of the
Latin- American republics or southern nations of
Europe. Neither France nor Spain nor Italy
632

The Political Crisis in Japan
could endure without convulsions so bitter a
national disappointment and humiliation as the
Japanese have recently undergone, and I am not
sure of what raight happen in Great Britain or
the United States under sirailar circumstances.
No political party in either of those nations
could survive such responsibility.
Lafcadio Hearn in one of his descriptions of
human nature in Japan says :
"Centuries of the highest social culture have
wrapped the Japanese character about with many
priceless, soft coverings of courtesy, of delicacy, of
patience, of sweetness, of moral sentiment. But un
derneath these charming multiple coverings there
remains the primitive clay, hard as iron, kneaded,
perhaps, with all the metal of the Mongol, all the
dangerous suppleness of the Malay."
And they are often silent when they are raost
deeply stirred. The raanifesto of the radical
party reraoved the danger frora the corabustible
material and explosives, and the time gained was
valuable in giving the patriotic statesmen of the
country a chance to teach the people with pru
dence and patience that their humiliations were
not due to the misdeeds of their ministers, but
to circurastances and conditions which they
could not control, and the government was wise
in using its best efforts to stimulate industrial
and mercantile activity, and to strengthen the
army and navy. 633

Index

Actors, 639.
Actresses, 541.
Adams, Will, 185.
Advertisements, queer, 586.
Advertising, 276, 584.
Agriculture, S49.
Akira, Prince, 76.
Ambitton, 414.
American Board Foreign Mis'
Eions, 413, 448, 530.
American educated Japanese,
899.
American Tract Society, 435.
Americans, popularity of, 22,
83,624.
Ancestral worship, 98.
Ancient Japanese art, 565.
Anecdotes, 25, 405, 407, 426, 450,
496, 629.
Annapolis graduates, 601.
Anthem, National, 613.
Aoki, Viscount, 437.
Architecture, 59, U8.
Area of Japan, 16.
Arisugawa, Prince, 74.
Athens, Duke of, 51.
Army, 6i4.
Arnold, Sir Edwin, 24.
Art, Japanese 847, 561.
Artists, Japanese, 561.
Artists, pay of, 128.
Artists, women, 523.
Art school, 564.
Assassinations, 49.

Atheism, 422, 447.
Athletics, 547.
Audiences, Japanese, 543.
Babies, 253.
Bacon, Miss Alice, Books on
Japan, 24, 264,
Baltimore, flagsliip, 156.
Banking, 303.
Bankruptcy, 306.
Bantos, 600.
Baptists, 432.
Baths, 583.
Banzai, The National cheer, 92.
Beauty, Japanese, 245, 250.
Beer, 296.
Beggars, 231, 295.
BibUography of Japan, 23.
Bicycles, 601.
Bijitsu, Gakko, (art school,)
564.
BUls of fare, 592.
Bingham, John A., Anecdote of,
25.
Birth days, 595.
Biwa, Lake, 16.
Black, John, 280.
Board of Trade, 159.
Books, 592.
Bow, The Japanese, 366.
Box of curios, 274.
Boycotts, 318.
"Bride, The Japanese," 243.
Brides, Japanese, 237.

635

Index

Brinkley, Captain, 275.
British Trade in Japan, 141,
276.
Brokers, Japanese, 159.
Bronze, Noblest work of, 572.
Brooks Island, 12.
Buddha, 579.
Images of, 2.
The colossal at Kamakura,
573.
Buddhism, 260, 282, 361, 381, 892,
422, 441, 457, 514, 575, 580.
Buddhists, 455, 509, 539, 604.
The cross, 133.
Statistics, 495.
Budgets, 606.
Buildings, 453.
Bureau of the Imperial House
hold, 98, 101.
Burial ceremonies, 604.
Cabinet, The Emperor's 27, 55
64.
Cablegrams, 277.
Campaigns, political, 35.
Canadian Pacific route, 3, 6.
Canals, 115, 168.
Capital, Railway, 177.
Capitals, The three, 27.
Carpenter, Admiral, 156.
Carpenters, 591.
Carriage, Imperial, 66, 87.
Casualties in War, 222.
Catholic Church, 432.
Catholics, Expulsion of, 116.
Censorsliip, 542, 620, 624.
Ceremonials, 395.
Ceremonies. Bureau of, 100.
Religious Court, 99.
Chamberlain's "Things Japa
nese," 23.
Chamber of Commerce, Tokyo,
154.
Champion wrestler, 548.
Chaplains, Christian, 435.

Characteristics of people, 86,
89, 134, 197, 200, 210, 218, 228,
633.
Child Labor, 441.
ChUdren, 234, 253, 357.
Charity scholars, 530.
ChUdren, the Emperor's, 69.
China, 618.
China, Emperor of, 221, 618.
Missionary conditions, 425.
War with, 605, 613.
Chinese dead, shipped home, 9.
Funeral customs, 10.
Honesty, 599.
Influence, 259, 291, 329.
Servants, 11.
Students. 400.
Chiropodists, 596.
Chop sticks, 367.
Chits, 601.
Christian Church of Japan,
432.
Christianity, 391, 413, 457.
Influence of, 517.
Relics of early, 66.
Suppression of, 108, 116.
Chrysanthemum. 134.
Church of England, 432.
Chuzenji, Lake, 17.
Cities, Japanese, 16.
Citizens, rights of, 29, 51.
Civilization, Progress of, 1, 42,
618.
Civil Service, 51.
Clothing, European, 526.
Japanese, 124.
Crests, 588.
Crime, 46.
Detection of, 204, 229.
Statistics of, 204, 224, 228.
Comic papers, 623.
Commerce, foreign, 138.
Commercial conditions, 140.
Exchanges, 159.
Law, 304,

636

Index

Compradores, 600.
Compulsory education, 392.
Concessions, 296.
Concubines, The Emperor's, 70,
93, 101.
Confucianism, 514.
Confucius, 381.
Congregationalists, 432.
Constitutional limitations, 605.
Constitution, The, 28.
Construction, raUway, 172, 179.
Consuls, United States, 158, 298,
332.
Coolies, Disposition of, 195.
Copmann, Julius W., 303.
Cornell Graduates. 601,
Corporations, 304.
Regulation of, 181.
Costumes, actors, 544.
Wrestlers, 552.
Cotton, 308.
Factories, 127.
Goods, manufactures of, 146.
Courtships, 233.
Courts, The, 46, 203, 211, 219, 298.
Customs, peculiar, 120, 122, 132,
344, 405, 409, 453, 496, 498,
516, 533, 604, 615.
Czarwitch, The, 50.
Dalgoro Goh, Author, 256.
DaUies, English, 274.
Daimios, The, 2, 56, 169.
Dancing, 78.
Danjuro, The actor, 543.
Death rate, 16.
Decoration, Household, 122, 590.
Arts, 80, 84.
Deputies, Chamber of, 437.
Deshima, Island of, 340.
Detectives, The police, 204, 208,
229.
Dictionary, Japanese, 404.
Diet, National, 197, 361, 368, 378.
Dinners, Japanese, 360, 365.

Diplomatic serrice, 51, 55.
Divorce, 233, 242, 246, 264.
Doshisha University, 384.
Dowager, Tho Empress, 100.
Dress, The national, 97, 251.
Diplomas, World's Fair, 562.
Dragon, The Sacred, 132.
Drama, 538.
Dun, Edwin, 293, 624.
Dutch in Japan, 107, 340.
Earthquakes, 577.
Economies, 593.
Editors, 268, 283.
Educated Japanese, 601.
Education, 381.
of women, 511, 518.
Compulsory, 441.
Electric railways, 180,
Embroideries, 128, 131, 336.
Eel houses, 362.
Emperor, The, 1, 27, 29, 61, 68,
80, 113, 449, 630.
Religious belief of, 438, 458.
Respect for, 374.
Empress, The, 90, 94. 100, 511.
Empress steamers, 3, 6.
English "as she is Japanned,"
586.
Engineering, 172.
Entertainments, 376.
Etiquette, 235, 242.
Examinations, civil service, 51.
Express Service, 179, 589.
Exposition, Chicago, 561.
Exports from Japan, 138.
Extra, Territoriality, 298.
Exposition, Kyoto, 571.
Factories, 330.
Family relations, 249, 257, 264,
532.
Fans, Japanese, 147.
Farms, 81, 849.
Fashions, Japanese, 526.

637

Index

Fatalism, Tendency toward,
135, 580.
Field, Marshall, 346.
Fire flies, 588.
Fires in Tokyo, 118.
Firemen, 337.
Fish, 361.
Flour, Shipments of, 8.
Food, Japanese, 197, 361, 368,
378.
Footmen, 588.
Foreign commerce, 138,
Foreigners, Rights of, 34, 39, 298,
301, 390.
Fortune teUers, 451.
Foster, John W.. 208, 370.
Fourth of July in Japan, 156.
Francis, Rev. Joseph M., 418.
Free Speech, limited, 38, 40.
Freight rates, 6, 8, 15, 178.
Fukuzawa, Mr., 270, 399, 520.
Funeral ceremonies, 10, 604.
Fushima, Prince, 76.
Gambling Prohibited, 195.
Gardening, 407.
Gardens, 362, 372.
Geishas (dancmg girls), 130,
363, 377, 378.
Girls, Condition o^ 396, 512, 519,
528.
Gobel, Jonathan. 190.
Goddesses, Buddhist, 244.
Go Do-wns, The, 136.
Gods. 458.
Buddhists, 576.
Shinto, 576.
Gojo, Viscount, patron of wrest
lers, 549.
Good nature of wrestlers, 557.
Govemment, Attitude towards
Christianity, 423, 435.
Printing Oflace, 284.
Railways, 172.
System of, 27, 51, 64, 606.

Great Britain, Commerce of, 141,
276.
Greek Church, 432, 624.
Gresham, Secretary, 296.
Grif&s, Dr. 534.
Guards, the Imperial, 105.
Guide books, 23.
Guides and Interpreters, 22.
GuUds, 228, 231, 339, 551, 599.
HacMman, the God of War, 576.
Hardy, Alpheus, 383.
Harvard Graduates, 58, 601.
Haru Ko, the Empress, 90.
Hatoyama, Dr. & Mrs., 37.
Hats, Japanese, 86.
Haturi, The Guide, 575.
Hay, 351.
Beam, Lafcadio, 24.
Hepburn, Dr., 404.
Higuchi, 563.
Hiroshima, 79.
Hitosu, BashI, The Shogun,
no.
Home Affairs, Minister of, 440.
Life, 260, 371, 592.
Honorifics. 405.
Honolula Steamers, 3.
Honesty. 599.
Hong Kong. 9.
Horses, 351.
Hospitality, 2L
Hosiery, 127.
Hospitals, 603.
Hotels, 3, 18, 20.
Household, Minister of Imper
ial, 98.
Hotel Grand, -Yokahama, S.
House building, 590.
Howard, B. C, 303.
Howe, Miss Annie L., 254.
Humor, Japanese, 624.
Husbands, Japanese, 249, 261.

638

layaki. Madam, 523.

Index

Iba, 836.
leyasu. The Shogun. 107, 116,
211.
lemitsu. The Shogun, 108.
lUuminations, 89.
Image of Buddha, 2, 573.
Implements, farm, 355.
Imports of Japan, 138, 320.
Imperial Prince, 68-71.
Family, 61, 74, 90.
Indemnity, Chinese, 626.
Industries, 293-313.
Industrial school, 513.
Ingenuity, 329.
Inland Sea, 175.
Inouye, Count, 384.
Insect life, 21.
Insetsnkioku, The, 284.
Insurance, U9, 345, 453.
Life. 120.
Investments, 180, 293, 303, 813.
Iron, 308.
Irrigation, 353, 593.
Itinerary for Japan, 6.
Ito, Marquis, 41, 43, 47, 60, 88,
384, 437, 608.
Ito Miyoji, 622.
Iwakura Tomomi, 49.
Jinrikisha, The, 86, 189, 336, 446.
Journalism, 268.
Judiciary, The, 2U.
Jugglers, 582.
July Fourth, 597.
Justice, Japanese, 298.
Justice, The Chief, 216, 220.
Kagos, 170.
Kakemonos, 122, 373.
Kamakura, 573.
Kami, The, 134.
Kataoka, Mr., 437.
Kansai Trading Co., 307.
Keio, Gijiku School, 271.
Kindergardens, 253, 392, 588.
Kirin, The, 13L

Kita, Shirakawa, Princess, 78.
Komatsu, Prince, 75, 78, 88, 616.
Korea, 436, 609.
Korean Y^oung Men, 399.
Koto Hito, Prince, 76.
Kozaki, Dr., 386.
Kuras (vaults), 121, 545.
Kurino, Minister, 296.
Kwei, The, 132.
Kyoto, 6, 17, 27, 80, 108 115, 130.
Labor, 330.
Labor, child, 441.
Ladies of the Imperial Court,
77.
Laio-Tung Peninsula, 613.
Land Ownership, 854.
Language, The, 287, 400, 403, 444.
Lanterns, 593.
Laundries, 583.
Laureate, Poets, 412.
Laws, 25, 46, 205, 213, 266, 298.
Lawyers, 212, 219.
Learning, Desire for, 442.
Legends, 576.
Legislation, 46.
Li Hung Chang, 47.
Literature on Japan, 23.
Locks, 592.
Lotteries, 596.
Love, No word for, 533.
Lovers, 233.
Lutherans, 433.
Macao, Cliina, 9.
Machinery, Shipments of, 8.
Mail, The Japanese, 275.
Makino, Mr., 437.
Manjl, The, 133.
Manners, 252.
Manufacturing, 276, 293, 313, 330.
Marriage, 233, 258.
Masonry. 39.
Massage, 341.
Matsuris, 538.
Matting, fioor, 601.

639

Index

Mclvor, M. W,. 158, 298, 332.
Medical Corps, Japanese, 221.
Memories, remarkable, 289, 445.
Mercantile classes, 425.
Merciiants, foreign, 600.
Messagaries Maritimes Steam
ers, 13.
Messenger boys, 583.
Methodists, 432.
Middlemen, 345.
Middleton, George, 303.
Middleton & Co., 335, 588.
Midway Island, 12.
Mikado, the (see Emperor).
Mileage, EaUway, 177.
MUler, Mr. E. S., 206.
Ministry, Japanese, 605.
Missionaries, 190, 223, 254, 291,
384, 390, 425, 514.
Mission Schools, 443, 514.
Mitsubishi Steamship Co., 187.
Mifsu Tomoye, The, 132.
Miyanoshita, 6, 17.
Miyoshi Taizo, 222, 437.
Morality of priesthood, 440.
Morals, 249, 257, 571.
Mori, Viscount, 50,
Morse, James R., 207, 303, 326.
Murray's Guide Book, 23.
Museum, Imperial, 65.
Music, 364, 395, 540.
school. Imperial, 395, 513.
Mutsu, Count, 47, 88,
Countess, 77.
Hito, Emperor, 62.
Mythology, 131.
Nagasaki, 6, 107, U6, 340.
Nagoya, 130.
Nakodos, 233.
Nara, 6.
National anthem, 613.
Church, Japan, 417.
Native Merchants, 138, 153.
Navy, The, 184.

640

Needle Women, 591.
Neeshima, Joseph, 382, 421.
News boys, 582.
Newspapers, 41, 44, 268.
News, Telegraphic, 277.
Nikko, 6, 16, 109.
Nippon Yusen Kaisha, 187, 294.
Nirva, Mr., 437.
Nishi -Ni- Oh -Me, champion
¦wrestler, 559.
Nokayama, Marquis, 73.
Normal school, 513, 588.
Northern Pacific Steamers, 3, 6.
North German Lloyd Steamers,
13.
Nude in Art, 571.
Nudity, 568.
Nurses, educated, 522.
Obis (sashes), 129.
Odd things, 582.
Offices, Public, 56, 60.
Officials, Railway, 182.
Okaba, Viscount, 437.
Okakura, Mr. artist, 348, 564.
Olcubo, Count, 49.
Okuma, Count, 38, 50.
Okura, Mr., 371.
Opium smoking, 597.
Opium, Traffic in, 8,
Orchestra, Japanese, 540.
Oriental and Occidental steam
ers, 3, 6.
Osaka, 6, 16, 27, 127, 330.
Ovens, PubUc, 598.
Oyama, Marquis, 437, 524.
Pacific Mail Steamers, 3, 6.
Palace of the Shogun, 111.
Palaces, The Imperial, 68, 73,
100, 103, 117.
Palanquins, 170.
Palmer, Mrs. Potter, 562.
Pantomime, 377.
Papenberg Island, 116.
Parkes, Sir Harry, 319.

Index

Parliament, 28, 30, 35, 214, 605.
Passenger rates, 179.
Passports, 26.
Patents, 297.
Patriotism, 61, 89, 413, 449, 607,
632
Patriotism, American, 168.
Peace, Treaty of, 621.
Peculiar customs, 361, 405, 409,
496, 498, 516, 533, 568, 583,
688, 594, 604.
Peddlers, 682.
Peers, House of, 28, 30.
Peking, 622.
Peking Gazette, 282.
Peninsula and Oriental Steam
ships, 13.
Penitentiary, 46.
Perry, Commodore, 107, 189, 340,
382,398.
Phoenix, The, 132.
Pidgin, Japanese, 406.
Plays, Ancient, 539.
Plougliing, 352
Poem, Japanese, 409.
Poetry, Japanese, 245, 409.
Poets, Women, 523.
Political associations, 36.
Campaigns, 34.
Crisis, 605, 632.
Divisions of Japan. 27.
Parties, 32, 43, 623.
PoUce, The, 25, 200, 202, 2U, 229,
837.
Politeness, 137, 366, 895, 401.
Population, 16.
Portraits, 567.
Position, Women of, 522.
Postal Savings BanJis, 306.
Prayer wheel, 496.
Preachers, 416.
Presbyterians, 243, 432.
Press, The Japanese, 41, 268, 620,
624.
Prices iu Japan, 124, 130, 137. 641

Priesthood, Character of, 440.
Prime Minister, 56.
Prince Imperial, 69, 71.
Printing, 269, 282, 288.
Prisoners Reform Association,
221.
Prison System, 222.
Privy oounoU, The, 27, 60.
Proclamations, Imperial, 621.
Progress of Japan, 221.
Prostitution, 498.
Protestant Chaplains, Count,
Inouye, 436.
Churches In Japan, 432
PubUc schools, 392, 444.
Radical party, 630.
Railway eating arrangements,
593.
Mileage, 177.
Regulations, 181.
Electric, 180.
System, 168, 172, 294.
Eed Cross Society, 76, 79, 221.
Reception of Emperor, 80.
Rein's book on Japan, 23.
ReUgion, 413, 459.
Congress of, 441.
The official, 98, 439, 449, 457.
ReUgious customs, 438.
Reports, Govemment, 138.
Representatives, House of,28,30.
Residences, Japanese, lis.
Ofttcial, 56.
Restaurants, 362.
Revenues of Govemment, 32.
Revolutions, 521, 614.
Rice culture, 353.
Ritual, Bureau of, 98.
Roads of Japan, The, 168.
Robes, The Emperor's Cerem
onial, 102.
Roofs of houses, 597.
Russia, Interference of, 609,
619, 624.

Index

Russian Church, 624.
Minister, 88.
Saint, The only woman, 244.
Saionji, Marquis, 397.
Sak6f4,69.Salaries of officials, 55, 57, 60.
Salvation army, 434.
Samurla, The, 2, 169, 615.
Sano Renzo, The Guide, 23.
Savings Banks, 306.
School, The Empress's, 512.
Schools, 2, 253, 381, 530.
Scidmore's "Jinrikisha Days,"
23.
Screens, 590.
Seal, The Imperial, 102.
Sexes, Relation between the,
234.
Seamanship, Natiye, 185.
Searle, Miss, 530.
Secret Societies, 36, 38, 39, 48.
Sedan chairs, 170.
Servants, 11, 123.
Shampooing, 34L
Shanghai, Steamers to, 6.
Shiba Park, 62.
Shibusawa, Mr., 371.
Shinto, 98, 438, 449, 457, 604.
Shipping, 184, 297, 302, 310.
Shizuoka, 110.
Shoes, 373.
Shogun, The (Tycoon), 107, 118,
183,211.
Shopping, SuggestionB about,
17, 124, 129.
Shops, 124, 135.
Shrines at Nikko, 109.
ofthe Emperor, 62.
Shroffe, 599.
Siberian Railway, 609.
Signs, Curious, 361, 584.
Silk. 129.
Clothing, 126.
Exports of, 148.

642

Silver prices, 137.
SimpUcity of the people, 569.
Singing, 364, 398, 401, 541.
Six Companies, Chinese, 11.
Social laws, 235, 24L
Life, 4.
Rank, 167.
Soldiers, 614.
Sorobans, 599.
Soshi, The, 45, 47, 51, 315, 581.
Sousa's music in Japan, 4.
Soy, Japanese, 379.
Spain, Queen of, 80.
Speculation, 159.
Spelling, pecuUar, 584.
Squeeze, The, 336, 600.
Stables, 591.
Imperial, 102.
Statistics, 138, 248, 833, 354, 392,
432, 495, 513.
Buddhist, 495,
Educational, 513.
Of Marriage and Divorce, 248.
Of wages, 333.
Steamers, Cost of running, 7.
To Japan, 8, 6, 13.
Steamship, the first, 183.
Stock Exchange, 159.
Story tellers, 342.
Straw, how utilized, 351.
Strikes, 338.
Street cars, 601.
Subsidies, Government, 187,
275.
Suflitage, Regulations of, 35.
Suicide, 615, 617.
Sukune, The first -wrestler, 549.
Sunday Observance, 456.
Superstitions, 451, 496, 579, 594.
Suri, The, 228.
S-windling, 313.
Swords, -Value of, 121.
Tablets, Ancestral, 98.
TaUors, Japanese, 125.

Index

Takahaski, Miss, 397.
Takomona, 590.
Tamura, Rev. Mr., 243, 415.
Tariff, 297, 627.
Tattooing 197.
Taxation, 82.
Teachers' Convention, 586, 611.
School, 447.
Tea, Exports of, 148.
Tea Houses, 362, 508.
Pouring, 236.
Shipping, 335.
Tejima, Mr. 393.
Teclmological Institute, 393,
588.
Telegraph service, 689.
Temperance of people, 210, 295.
Temple of Nikko, 109.
of Hachlman, 578.
of Wrestlers, 548.
Thatcher, John Boyd, 562.
Theatre, The, 343, 538.
Threshing grain, 350.
Throne of Japan, 65, 96.
Tokaida, The, 168.
Tokaboko, Island, 116.
Tokonoma, 373.
Tokudaiji, Count, 88.
Tokugawa famUy, 107, Ul, 114.
Prince, U4, 183.
Tokyo, 6, 15, 27, 80, 85, 95, 114,
U7, 268, 321, 338, 446.
Tonnage of native shipping,
184.
Topography, 171.
Tourist's habits, 4.
Trade, 293, 307, 320.
Customs of, 345.
Foreign, 138.
Marks, 297.
Unions, 23, 231, 330.
Associations, Foreign, 155.
Transportation rates, 178.
Treaties, 210, 296.
Trials, PoUce, 204.

Tung Wah Hospital, Hong
Kong, 9.
Tycoon, The (Shogun), 1, 107,
118.
Type, Japanese, 288.
Umpires, WrestUng, 550.
Underwear, 124.
United states Consul General,
156.
FriendUness for, 155.
Trade in Japan, 139.
University, Doshisha, 448.
Imperial, 215, 384, 438.
Unitarians, 432.
Universalists, 432.
Uyehara, Mr. 397.
-yanity, 414.
Japanese, 619.
Vassar Graduates, 524.
-Vatican, Presents from, 67.
-Vaults, Treasury, 121.
Vehicles, 595.
-Vocabulary, 403.
Wadagaki, Dr., 438.
Wages, 123, 127, 286, 314, 329,333,
346.
War, Casualties in, 222.
Decorations of, 606.
Expenses of, 627.
Song, 401,
Wardrobes, Actors, 545.
Washington, George, 584.
Water works, 32L
Wealth, 294.
Wedding ceremonies, 237, 259.
¦Wheelbarrows, 594.
"Whiskey boy," 583.
Widows, 516.
Williams, George B., 376.
Wives, Condition of, 249, 262,
357, 365, 516, 626.
Women, 233, 245, 249, 260, 363,
5U, 514, 516.

643

Index

Education of, 386, 526.
In poUtics, 37.
Literary, 516, 534.
¦Who have been Empresses,
515.
Working, 350, 354, 356.
Wooyeno, Yesabio, 307.
World's Fair, 336.
Worship, Native, 449.
Wrestling, 197, 547.
Xavier, St. Francis, 67.
Yale College, Graduates of, 68,
448,601.
Yamaliawa, General and Mad
am, 524.
Yamaji, Baron, 628.

Yedo, 115.
Yerkes, Mr., Art treasures, 564.
Yezo, 223.
RaUway system of, 176.
Yokahama, 3, 16, 80, 130, 156,
274, 280, 333.
Yokayama, Mr., 371.
Yose, The, 342.
Yoshi Hito, Prince, 7L
Yoslilwara, 499.
Yoshihlsha, Prince, 76.
Young Men's Christian Associ
ation, 222, 437, 456.
YaM Hito, Prince, 71.
Yumoto. 17.
Ynsen Kaisha, Nippon, IOT.

644

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