andlord. Eventually this man
realised his responsibility, and, inspired by Mr. Yamasaki, took the
situation in hand. He talked in a straightforward way with his
villagers, reduced a number of rents and spent money freely in
ameliorative work. To-day the village is "remarkable for its good
conduct" and the relation between landlord and tenant seems to be
everything that can be desired. The landlord is not only the moving
spirit of the co-operative store but has started a school for girls of
from fifteen to twenty. They bring their own food but the schooling is
free.

On the gables of one or two houses near the roof I noticed ventilators
which were cut in the form of the Chinese ideograph which means water,
a kind of charm against fire. At the door of one rather well-to-do
peasant house I saw several paper charms against toothache. There was
also an inscription intimating that the householder was a director of
the co-operative society and another announcing that he was an expert
in the application of the moxa.[39] Every house I went into had a
collection of charms. One charm, a verse of poetry hung upside-down,
as is the custom, was against ants. Another was understood to ensure
the safe return of a straying cat.

In one house in the village my attention was drawn to the fact that
the rice pot contained a large percentage of barley.

In two or three places I passed pits for the excavation of lignite,
which does not look unlike the wood taken out of bogs. A pit I stopped
at was twenty-two fathoms deep. There were twenty miners at work and
air was being pumped down.

One of the things we in the West might imitate with advantage is the
village crematorium. In Japan it is of the simplest construction. The
rate for villagers was 50 sen, that for outsiders 2 yen. No doubt
there would be an additional yen for the priest. In a little building
which was thirty years old 200 bodies had been cremated.

I looked into a small co-operative rice storehouse. The building was
provided by a number of members "swearing" to save at the rate of a
yen and a half a month each until the funds needed had accumulated.
The money was obtained by extra labour in the evening. Just before I
left Japan the Department of Agriculture was arranging to spend 2
million yen within a ten-years' period to encourage the building of
4,000 rice storehouses.

As I watched the water pouring from one rice field to another and
wondered how the rights of landow