. Old and new Japan . nteresting gardens. The roads even havebeen tamed, as an American girl traveller somewhathappily phrased it; and the air of conventionalism, as under-stood with us and in the United States, is surely, if slowly,dominating the wider areas. Along country roads, whose picturesqueness was but afew years ago unspoiled, are nowadays disfiguring signsand telegraph posts ; and at certain points outside the moreEuropeanised cities, one gets the familiar vista of factorychimneys and church spires, looking not a whit the lesshideous because often also incongruous, towering amid apic
. Old and new Japan . nteresting gardens. The roads even havebeen tamed, as an American girl traveller somewhathappily phrased it; and the air of conventionalism, as under-stood with us and in the United States, is surely, if slowly,dominating the wider areas. Along country roads, whose picturesqueness was but afew years ago unspoiled, are nowadays disfiguring signsand telegraph posts ; and at certain points outside the moreEuropeanised cities, one gets the familiar vista of factorychimneys and church spires, looking not a whit the lesshideous because often also incongruous, towering amid apicturesque red-brown sea of low roofs. The ancientwooden go-downs by the waterside have given way tobrick cubes, with corrugated iron roofs and iron sliding-doors. And the social delights of the West, bars andbilliard lounges ; and schools and mission halls crowd eachother. In company with these things naturally cameforeign police, doctors, chemists, grocers, dairymen,lawyers, dressmakers and tailors. The two last-named. CO H > HW W i—< HQ O W — c w o 3 piou COMMERCE & MODERN TENDENCIES 267 make a fetish of and advertise largely the fact that theygive English-Paris style ; and incidently that they aretherefore willing to convert the hitherto invariably pictur-esque into the generally ugly. In the area of the old-time foreign concession is thetown-hall, in which are held public meetings of all kinds,and where at times lectures, concerts, and other socialfunctions take place. Sometimes (but very rarely) atheatrical company on a world tour will give a per-formance, if such a port as Nagasaki or Yokohamahappens to lie in their way; and what with Englishand other clubs, racecourses, cricket grounds, lawn-tennis,croquet, and bowling-greens, there is very little, except theenvironing native element and climate, to remind one thatit is really the East. The population of these particular districts nowadaysis cosmopolitan to a degree. Russians are a bit out offashion, but one fin
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidoldnewja, booksubjectjapan
