t to start
was a piteous sight. An official who called on me in Aichi--I
understood that he was the chief of the prefectural police--told me
that there were in the prefecture 2,011 girls in 222 houses, and that
there were in a year 725,598 customers, of whom 2,147 were foreigners.
Sums of from 200 to 500 yen might be paid to parents for a girl for a
three-years term. Food and clothes were also provided, but the girls
were almost invariably drawn into debt to the keepers, and not more
than 15 per cent. were able to return to their villages. All the girls
in the houses had alleged poverty as the reason for their being
there.[47]

Because I was told that the moral condition of the town of
Anjo--population 17,000--where the agricultural school of the
prefecture is situated, had improved since its establishment, I asked
for some statistics. I found that there were 23 registered geisha, no
_joro_, 50 teahouse girls with dubious characters and 55 sellers of
_sake_. Against these figures were to be counted 19 Buddhist temples
of four sects with 19 priests and 20 Shinto shrines with 4 priests.

I met a schoolmaster who had prepared a history of his village in a
dozen beautifully written volumes. He had been a vegetarian for
fifteen years because, as a Buddhist, he believed that "all living
things are in some degree my relatives." I picked up from him a
variant on "the early bird catches the worm." It was, "The early riser
may find a lost _rin_" (tenth of a farthing). He gave me another
proverb, "The contents of a spitting pot, like riches, become fouler
the more they accumulate."

I heard of temples which were promoting rural improvement by means of
lanterns. In one village the lanterns were at the service of borrowers
at three different places. The inscription on the lanterns says,
"Think of the mercy of Buddha who illuminates the darkness of your
heart." There is written in smaller characters, "If you live half a
_ri_ away you need not return this lantern." Three hundred lanterns
are lost or damaged in a year, but paper lanterns are cheap.

One temple has a society composed of those who have family graves in
its grounds. These people "study how to get the most abundant crop."
There is a prize for the best cultivated _tan_. Under this temple's
auspices there is not only a co-operative credit and purchase
association, a poultry society and an annual exhibition of
agricultural products, but a school for nurses--they are "tau