e number of inquiries in regard to the increase or
decrease of concubinage during the present era. Statistics on this
subject are not to be had, for concubines are not registered as such
nor yet as wives. If a concubine lives in the home of the man, she is
registered as a domestic, and her children should be registered as
hers, although I am told that they are very often illegally registered
as his. If she lives in her own home, the concubine still retains the
name and registry of her own parents. The government takes no notice
of concubinage, and publishes no statistics in regard to it. The
children of concubines who live with their own parents are, I am told,
usually registered as the children of the mother's father; otherwise
they are registered as illegitimate; statistics, therefore, furnish no
clew as to the increase or decrease or amount of concubinage and
illegitimacy, most important questions in Japanese sociology. But my
informants are unanimous in the assertion that there has been a marked
increase of concubinage during recent years. The simple and uniform
explanation given is that multitudes of merchants and officials, and
even of farmers, can afford to maintain them to-day who formerly were
unable to do so. The older ideals on this subject were such as to
allow of concubinage to the extent of one's financial ability.

During the year 1898 the newspapers and leading writers of Japan
carried on a vigorous discussion concerning concubinage. The _Yorozu
Choho_ published an inventory of 493 men maintaining separate
establishments for their concubines, giving not only the names and
the business of the men, but also the character of the women chosen to
be concubines. Of these 493 men, 9 are ministers of state and
ex-ministers; 15 are peers or members of House of Peers; 7 are
barristers; 3 are learned doctors; the rest are nearly all business
men. The women were, previous to concubinage, Dancing girls, 183;
Servants, 69; Prostitutes, 17; "Ordinary young girls," 91; Adopted
daughters, 15; Widows, 7; Performers, 7; Miscellaneous, 104. In this
discussion it has been generally admitted that concubinage has
increased in modern times, and the cause attributed is "general
looseness of morals." Some of the leading writers maintain that the
concubinage of former times was largely confined to those who took
concubines to insure the maintenance of the family line; and also that
the taking of dancing girls was unknown in olden