d by a
personage who combined the dignities of an admiral and a peer. There
is nothing of the bruiser in the looks of the smooth-faced wrestlers.
Many, however, are the bruises to their bodies and to their
self-esteem which they receive in their disciplinary progress from the
contests of their native villages through all the grades of their
profession to the highest rank. Their sexual morality is commonly of
the lowest.

In my own hamlet at home in England I have seen the shoemaker, tailor
and carpenter successively pass away; the only craftsman left is the
smith. In Japan the hereditary craftsman survives for a while. I
watched in my house one day the labours of such a worker. He was not
arrayed in a Sunday suit fallen to the greasy bagginess of everyday
wear, topped by a soiled collar. He appeared in a blue cotton
jacket-length kimono and tight-fitting trousers of the same stuff, and
both garments, which were washed at least once a week, were admirably
fitted to their wearer's work. Almost the same rig was worn by our own
medieval and pre-medieval workmen. The carpenter had on the back of
his coat the name of his master or guild in decorative Chinese
characters in white. There are nowadays in the cities many inferior
workers, but all the men who came to my house worked with rapidity and
concentration, hardly ever lifting their eyes from their jobs. The
dexterity of the Japanese workman is seldom exaggerated. To his
dexterity he adds the considerable advantage of having more than two
hands, for he uses his feet together or singly. His supple big toes
are a great possession. We have lost the use of ours, but the Japanese
artisan, accustomed from his youth to _tabi_ with a special division
for the big toe, and to _geta_, which can be well managed only when
the big toe is lissom, uses his toes as naturally as a monkey, with
his paws and mouth full of nuts, gives a few to his feet to hold. The
first sight of a foot holding a tool is uncanny.

The pitiful thing is that a modest, polite, cheerful, industrious,
skilful, and in the best sense of the word artistic hereditary
craftsmanship is proving only too easy a prey to the new industrial
system. It is a sad reflection that the country which, owing to her
long period of seclusion, had the opportunity of applying to all the
things of common life so remarkable a skill and artistry, should be so
little conscious of the pace at which her industrial rake's progress
is proceedi