t
until she is 25.

The dress of the Japanese people is so well known that it is not
necessary for me to describe it. The kimono is, I think, a graceful
costume, and I am very sorry that so many women in the upper classes
have discarded the national dress for European garments. Japanese
women who wear the national costume do not don gloves. If their hands
are cold they place them in their sleeves, which are long and have
receptacles containing many and various things, including a
pocket-handkerchief, which is usually made of paper, and sometimes a
pot of lip-salve to colour the lips to the orthodox tint. The poorer
classes, of course, do not go in for such frivolities. Talking of
paper handkerchiefs reminds me of the innumerable uses to which paper
is put in Japan; it serves for umbrellas and even for coats, and is
altogether a necessity of existence almost for the great mass of the
people.

I have referred to the lack of what may be deemed material comforts in
Japan, as also to the fact that the Japanese are a joyous race but
that their enjoyment is not of a material nature. They are, in fact,
easily amused, and their enjoyment takes forms which would hardly
appeal to a less emotional people. In the large towns the theatre is a
perennial source of amusement. I have referred to the theatre in the
chapter dealing with the drama, and remarked therein that the excess
of by-play, irrelevant by-play, in a Japanese drama was rather
wearisome to the European spectator. Not so to the Japanese. He
positively revels in it. The theatre is for him something real and
moving. He has, whatever his age, all the zest of a youth for plays
and spectacles. How far the Europeanising of the country, which is
having, and is bound still further to have, an effect on dramatic art,
will affect the amusements of the people and their proneness for the
theatre remains to be seen. There is so far nothing approaching the
English music-hall in Japan. Let me express a hope that there never
will be. It is a long cry from the graceful Geisha to the inanities
and banalities which appear to be the stock-in-trade of music-hall
performances in this country. These appear to meet a home want, but I
sincerely trust they will be reserved for home delectation and not be
inflicted in any guise upon Japan. The matter of music-halls suggests
some reference to the ideas of the Japanese in respect of music. The
educated classes appear to have an appreciation of Eur