ling that it is unseemly to uncover the breast.[1490]
Mantegazza met women on the Nilgherri hills who covered the
breast on meeting him, but did not do so before men of their own
race.[1491] It is the current idea on the Malabar coast that no
respectable woman should cover the breast. Lately, those who have
traveled and have learned that other people hold the contrary to
be the proper rule feel some shame at the old custom.[1492] The
Ainos are rated as displaced and outcast aborigines amongst the
Japanese. An Aino woman refused to wash in order to be treated
for a skin disease, because to wash was against Aino usage.[1493]
An Aino girl in a mission school who had a curved spine and was
lame refused to allow a European physician to examine her with a
view to diagnosis and treatment.

+466. Contrasted standards of decency.+ The Japanese do not
consider nudity indecent. A Japanese woman pays no heed to the
absence of clothing on workmen. European women in Japan are
shocked at it, but themselves wear dinner and evening dress which
greatly shock Orientals.[1494] Schallmeyer[1495] saw Japanese
policemen note for punishment watermen who approached nearer to
the wharf than the law allowed before covering the upper part of
the body. The authorities are, therefore, trying to modify the
usage. The Japanese regard daily hot baths as a necessity for
everybody. Therefore bathing is unavoidable, and is put under the
same conventionalization as that which surrounded latrines in the
cities of Europe fifty years ago. Every one is expected to ignore
what no one can help. Formerly, at least, the sexes were not
separated and bathers might walk to and from the bath in a state
of complete preparation for it.[1496] Before the "reformation"
people of the better classes in Japan went to the theater not at
all, or secretly. The plays were coarse and outspoken. Japanese
education permitted "both sexes indifferently to speak of
everything without the slightest periphrasis, or any respect for
persons, even children." Hence situations were described and
presented on the stage which we should consider too licentious
for toleration, although there were no actresses on the stage.
This was not due to laxity of morals, but to the fact that they
had no taboos on reality. Yet "nothing appears more immoral to
the Japanese than our drama." "They per