as much a trade as is the making of screws in Birmingham. I am
quite prepared to admit that some of the articles included in the
generic term "curios," which can now be purchased in every large town
in Great Britain, are pretty and effective, but as regards many of
them there is certainly nothing artistic or indeed particularly or
peculiarly Japanese. This making of curios for the foreign market has,
as I have said, assumed considerable dimensions in Japan of recent
years, and in connection therewith the Japanese has certainly
assimilated many Western ideas in reference to pushing his wares. As
an example in point of this I will quote here an anecdote told me by a
friend who had a considerable knowledge of Japan in the 'seventies.
During one of his journeyings inland, when staying at a Japanese
tea-house, he was initiated into the use of Japanese tooth-powder,
which is in pretty general use among the lower classes. On leaving
Japan he purchased and brought to England a considerable quantity of
this tooth-powder, and on settling down in London he discovered a
Japanese shop where it was on sale. For some seventeen or eighteen
years he purchased the tooth-powder at the shop, sold in the little
boxes in which it was vended in Japan, not only using it himself but
introducing it to a large number of his acquaintances. One day last
year, on going into the shop referred to to make a further purchase,
he was informed that they were run out of tooth-powder and did not
quite know if they would have any more. My friend returned a month or
two later to the same shop on the same errand bent, and asked if they
had received a fresh supply. He was told that a further supply had
come to hand of very much the same description, but at double the
price. He purchased a box, the outside of which bore the following
inscription in English: "Japanese Sanitary Dentifrice; Superior
Quality. Apply the powder to the teeth by means of a brush, using
moderate friction over the whole surface." On opening the box my
friend found the powder was perfumed--perfumed for the European
market! Now tooth-powder is, of course, not a curio, nor is the
expression "moderate friction over the whole surface," I may remark,
characteristically Japanese. The little anecdote is, I think, typical
of the change that has come over and is still actively in progress in
Japan--a change which, however inevitable, and beneficial though in
many respects I believe it to be, is mos