The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., October 29, 1910, Page 741, Image 9

About The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920

Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

                
I
WHAT IS A JAPANESE city like?" Well
let us '•suppose." as the children say. You’
know Bonie Southern city—New Orleans
Richmond. Atlanta, or Memphis.
Well, suppose you should wake up In one of
these towns to-morrow morning and find yourself
In a plight like this: In the first place, forty
nine people out of fifty have put on such unheard
of < lothlng ns to make you rub your eyes in won
der ns to whether you are asleep or awake; next
>our fat friends and your tall friends have dis
appeared everybody has become six inches short
er and all these hundred-thousand five-foot men
and four-foot women have unanimously developed
most violent sunburn—bronzed almost beyond
recognition. Moreover, the high buildings you
once knew have all disappeared, and a wilderness
chiefly of tiny one- and two-story houses has
taken their places—the first story, even in two
story buildings, so low that you must duck your
head In going through the doors, and the second
story usually little more than a garret. Next,
a wild Jargon of unmeaning voices strikes your
ear and you discover that ninety-nine people out
of a hundred have forgotten how to speak Eng
lish; and more than this, the English signs are
no more, and on the billboards and before the
business offices are marks that look as if a thou
sand ostriches fresh from a thousand tar barrels
had been set to scratching new Bigns to take the
places of the old^ You pick up a book or the
morning paper, and the same thing has happened
pig tracks, chicken tracks and double bow-knots
fantastically tied Instead of English type, and
everybody begins at the back of the book and
ri-.ids toward him Instead of rending the way you
have grown used to! And the buggies, carriages,
and automobiles—what on earth has become of
them? There's hardly a horse in sight, but
dozens or scores of men with bare legs and funny
clothes each flying around pulling a light two
wheeled Jinriksha. a man or woman seated in it,
and dozens of other bare-legged men laboriously
pulling heavy loads of vegetables, freight, and
even lumber and giant lelegrnph poles! You
Jump Into one of these 'rikshas nnd forget your
strange little Puck-like steed in the marvel of
your surroundings till a voice from the shafts
make you feel like Halaarn when the ass spoke
to him!
By this time you begin to get a hazy Idea as to
how the people aro dressed, and ns nearly as you
ran make out. It Is something llko this: Evident
ly all the Inhabitants of an ancient Roman city, a
modern American town, a half-dozen Hindoo vil
lages, and several thousand seashore bathers, have
all thrown their clothes -or the lack of them! —
Into ono tremendous pile, and everybody has
rushed In pell-mell and put on the first thing, or
the first two or three things, that came to hand.
There Is every conceivable type of clothing, but
perhaps tho larger number have landed something
like a light bathing suit and a sort of gingham
looking dressing gown belted over It; and If one
has less than this, why then, as the Japanese
say, "Shlkata na gal" ("All right: It can’t be help
ed"). In the shops and stores one passes a few
men clnd only In their own Integrity and a loin
cloth, and both children and grown people dress
with a hundred times more disregard of conven
tion than our negroes In tho South. Of shoes,
there Is an equally great variety as of clothing,
but the majority of men, women and children (In
muddy weather at least) have compromised on
the "getas," a sort of wooden sole strapped on
the foot with wooden pieces put on each side
of the instep, these pieces throwing the foot
und sole about three Inches above ground.
It looks ulmoBt as difficult to walk In them
aH to walk on stilts, but away the people go,
young and old, the clatter of the "getas” be
Ing perhnps the loudest noise on tho streets (for
the Japanese are remarkably quiet: in Toklo to
day I saw a thousand of them waiting to see the
Empress, and an American crowd would literally
have made more noise In a minute than they
made in an hour), and the muddy places marked
•Then* letters are partl» protected by copyright, but we shall be
irlftri to hHvo nlitorn reprint not more than one-third of »nf one
•rtirio ThU it No. 7 of the teriee.
by the strange footwear look as if the corrugated
wheels of a hundred mowing machines had pass
ed along! On entering their houses the people
take off these getas, sandals, shoes, or whatever
outer footwear is used—for the very good reason
tliat the people sit on the floor (on mats or the
floor itself), eat on the floor (very daintily, how
ever), and sleep on the floor, so that to walk over
the floor here with the muddy feet would be the
same as if an American should walk roughshod
over his chairs, table, and bed: for in Japan the
neatly kept and usually covered floor takes the
place of all such furniture. Even in the Japanese
department store I visited this morning cloth cov
ers were put over my shoes, and this afternoon at
the Ni no Go Reiya Shinto temple I had to go in
my stocking feet.
And then the babies—who ever saw as many
babies to the square inch? About 10 per cent
of the male population seems to be hauling other
men, but 50 per cent of the female population
seems hardly enough to carry their wise- and
happy-looklng little Jap babies—not in go-carts
(a go-cart or a hired nurse is almost never seen)
but on the back. And these little women who
when standing are only as tall as you are when
sitting—they seem hardly more than children
themselves, so that you recall Kipling’s saying of
Japan: "A four-foot child walks with a three
foot child, who is holding the hand of a two-foot
child, who carries on her back a one-foot child.”
Roys in their teens are also seen with babies
strapped on their backs in the same loose-fitting,
sack-like baby-holders, and after work time the
father takes a turn at the same business. You
are reminded of the negro who said to another:
“ ’Fo’ Gawd, Bill, you's got the most children
any nigger 1 ever seed. Why, 1 passed yo’ house
ylstiddy mornin’ at nine erclock and throwed a
brick on top and hollered 'Fiah!* an’ at five er
clock nigger children was still runnin’ out!” It
seems sometimes as if such an incident (with Jap
children substituted for negroes: 1 doubt if there
is a negro here) might actually happen in Japan.
Jl
A n/1 t Vv aoa tn’A m An h a nr 1 n f a ao aK a+V» aw a a
they meet—are they rehearsing as Alphonso and
Gaston for the comedy show to-night, or are they
serious? No, they are serious, for yonder is an
other pair meeting in the same way, and yonder
another couple separating with even more violent
"convulsions of politeness"—and nobody laugh
ing but yourself. No wonder the Japanese are
strong: they only need to meet a few friends a
day to get exercise enough to keep them in trim!
Look again—those women meeting at the depot,
tor example (for there are familiar-looking street
cars and less familiar-looking passenger cars amid
all these strange surroundings). There is the
woman with her hair combed straight back which
means that she is a widow, one with a funny
Japanese topknot which means she is married,
and a younger one whose hair is arranged in the
style of unmarried girls; and though they are evi
dently bosom friends, they do not embrace and
kiss at meeting—nobody does in Japan—and you
only guess the depth of their affection by the
greater warmth and emphasis of their bows to
one another.
They are trained in politeness from their youth
up, are these Japanese; and it is perhaps the
greatest charm of both young and old. I must
have seen a full hundred thousand Japanese by
this time, and I do not recall one In the attitude
of scolding or abuse, while authorities tell me
that the Japanese language simply has no words
to enable one to swear or curse. I was also in
terested to have the American Ambassador tell
me to-day that in all his three years’ stay In
Japan, and with all the freedom with which a
million children run about the streets and stores,
he has never seen a man impatient with a child.
At the Imperial University yesterday morning I
noticed two college boys part with the same deep
courtesy used by the older men, and the little
ilve-year-old girl near Chuzenji the other day
thanked me for my gift with the most graceful
of Eastern salams. I shall not say that the exces
sive ceremoniousness of the men does not at times
(Continued on page 744.)
THEY HAVE been having a strike of railway
employees over in France, where the rail
roads are owned by the government. When
the strikers were ordered to go back to work,
they refused, and some of them began rioting.
This was, of course, practically insurrection, and
the troops were called out. Then the strike end
ed, the government taking into consideration the
grievances of the employees, and adjusting mat
ters with them. It is difficult to conceive of
such a state of things in this country; but the
whole affair shows again the stability and the wis
dom and moderation of the Frencn Republic.
* • •
The sudden death last Saturday of Senator
Jonathan P. Dolliver. of Iowa, removes one of the
ablest and most influential members of the Sen
ate. Promoted from the House after a distin
guished service there, he was regarded as one of
the Republican “wheel-horses” until the question
of tariff revision came up. He at once sided with
such Insurgents as La Follette and Cummins and,
by reason of his oratorical ability and his wide
range of learning, soon became the real leader of
the Senate insurgents. A speech last spring in
which he attacked President Taft was almost of
classic strength and style. His place will be hard
to fill.
• * •
Julia Ward Howe, author and philanthropist,
died last week at the age of 91. Her life waa
one of service to humanity; and her “Battle Hymn
of the Republic” took rank with “Maryland, My
Maryland,” as a war song of real literary worth—
a distinction these two share with few, if any oth
ers, of the period. William Vaughn Moody, poet
and playwright, is also dead. He was born in
1869, and wrote some of the finest American verse
of recent years.
• • •
The New York Investigation into the Adiron
dock land purchase scandal goes on, and many
prominent men are being involved. The Empire
State did not get Governor Hughes before it need
ed him. What he discovered had been going on
under the administrations of all his predecessors
fnr a rinpario nr mnre
• * *
Louisiana will vote on November 8th on fifteen
amendments to the Constitution. Some of them
seem specially worthy of adoption, notably those
providing for increased taxes for roads and _
schools, and the one permitting school boards to
issue bonds to build schoolhouses.
* * •
Edgar Allan Poe, the most original, and pos
sibly the greatest, of American writers, has at
length been admitted to the New York “Hall of
Fame.” Andrew Jackson also goes in after sev
eral rejections by the committee.
• * •
Last week a severe storm swept across Cuba
and over Florida and part of Georgia. Much
damage was done to the orange crop and to farm
ing interests generally, but the early reportB of
' the storm’s severity were much exaggerated.
* * t
D. B. Hill, once the leader of the New York
Democracy, Governor, U. S. Senator, and a can
didate for President, is dead. He was a politi
cian of the now discredited machine type.
* * •
The forty-third general conference of the Epis
copal Church has just closed in Cincinnati. The
church refused to drop the word “Protestant” JB
from its name or to sanction “divine healing.”
• • • m
Walter Wellman, who started to cross the AtHj
lantic in an airship, was "rescued” by a steam
ship about 400 miles from Cape Hatteras.
A Thought for the Week.
AS RESPECTS children, for the first five
years they utter neither truth nor false
hood—they only speak. Their talk is
thinking aloud; and as one-half of their thought
is often an affirmative, and the other a negative,
and, unlike us, both escape from them, they
seem to lie, while they are only talking with
themselves. Often they do not understand your
question, and give an erroneous rather than a
false reply. We may ask, besides, whether, when
children seem to imagine and falsify, they are not
often relating their remembered dreams which
necessarily blend in them with actual experience.
—Jean Paul Richter.