"abnormal distension of the
stomach and poor nutrition." Again, wheat was a world crop,[263]
whereas rice, owing to the Japanese objection to foreign rice, was a
local crop. If the Japanese were users of wheat as well as of rice
they would not have to pay so much for food, when, on the failure of
the rice crop in considerable parts of Japan, the price of rice was
high. "The consumption is about 10 million bushels more than the
production." Further, rice was more costly in cultivation than wheat,
and its production could not be increased so as to keep pace with the
increase in population. The yield, which was 46 million _koku_ in
1904, was only 50 millions in 1912; and 65 millions in 1927 seemed an
excessive estimate. In 1912 the importation of rice was 2 million
_koku_. But on all these points the reader should take note of the
data on page 84 and in Appendices XXIV and XXV.

The Professor's concluding point against rice was that it was
expensive to prepare. The washing of the rice in a succession of
waters and the cleaning of the sticky pot in which it was cooked and
of the equally sticky tub in which it was served took a great deal of
time. Then in order to cook rice properly--and the Japanese have
become connoisseurs--the exact proportion of water must be gauged. The
supplies of rice to be cooked were so considerable that the name of
the servant lass was "girl to boil the rice." But when bread was used
instead of rice, said the Professor jubilantly, a baking twice a week
would do. Why, an hour a day might be saved, which in twenty years
would be 73,000 hours, or a whole year, and, reckoning women's labour
as worth 5 sen an hour, that would be a saving of 565 yen!

FOOTNOTES:

[247] For statistics of cultivated area and live stock, see Appendix
LXVI.

[248] One thinks of Takeuchi Seiho who lives in Kyoto, of
Toba Sojo (11th century) for monkeys, frogs and bullocks, and in the
Tokugawa period of Okio for dogs and carp, of Jakchu for fowls and
birds, of Hasegawa Tohaku and Sosen for monkeys, of Kawanabe Kyosai
for crows, and of Kesai and Hokusai for birds, fish and insects.

[249] Nevertheless it is well not to be hasty in judgment. On the day
on which this footnote was written, April 7, 1921, I find the
following items in the _Daily Mail_. On page 4 the Attorney-General
regrets that the law tolerates the "cruel practice" by which 30
pigeons were killed or injured at a certain pigeon-shooting
competition and expr