apan does not play the important part it does in this
country. When a man in England, whatever his station in life may be,
contemplates taking a wife and settling down, as the phrase goes, the
home and the contents thereof become an all-important matter and one
needing much thought and discussion. In Japan there is no such
necessity. A Japanese house is easily run up--and taken down. The
"walls" are constructed of paper and slide in grooves between the
beams of the floor which is raised slightly above the ground. The
partitions between the rooms can easily be taken down and an
additional room as easily run up. The house is, as a rule, only one
storey high. The carpets consist of matting only, and practically no
furniture is necessary. A witty writer on Japan has aptly and wittily
remarked that "an Englishman's house may be his castle, a Japanese's
house is his bedroom and his bedroom is a passage." The occupant of
this house sits on the floor, sleeps on the floor, and has his meals
on the floor. The floor is kept clean by the simple process of the
inhabitants removing their boots, or what do duty for boots, and
leaving them at the entrance, so as to avoid soiling the matting with
which the floor of each room is covered. This is a habit which has
much to commend it, and is, I suggest, worthy of imitation by other
countries. After all, the Japanese mode of life has a great deal to be
said in its favour. It seems strange at first, but after the visitor
to the country has got over his initial fit of surprise at the
difference between the Japanese domestic economy and his own, he will,
if he be a man of unprejudiced mind, admit that it certainly has its
"points."

The bulk of the population is poor, very poor, but that poverty is not
emphasised in their homes to the same extent as in European countries.
The house--a doll's house some irreverent people term it--with paper
partitions doing duty for walls, white matting, a few cooking
utensils costs only a few shillings. It can, as I have said, be taken
down and run up easily, and enlarged almost indefinitely. The
inhabitants sleep on the floor, and the bedding consists not as with
us of mattresses, palliasses, and other more or less insanitary
articles, but of a number, great or small, and elaborate or otherwise,
in accordance with the means of the owner, of what I will term quilts.
The Japanese pillow is a fearful and wonderful article. I can never
imagine how it was evolved