Japan and the Japanese illustrated . attired,seems to have set herself the task of tfuidino: benighted travellers, who have not vetmade choice of a place of abode, to a neighbouring hotel, by the seductive play of herrich fan. Two hundred thousand travellers on the average are lodged ever) night in thisCity of Vice and its suburbs. They are of all orders, and of all conditions ; but no class 298 LIFE IN JAPAN. escapes the vigilance of the female hotel-keepers. Those who are posted in the proximityof the theatres belong to establishments of a very inferior rank ; thus their toilet displaysneith
Japan and the Japanese illustrated . attired,seems to have set herself the task of tfuidino: benighted travellers, who have not vetmade choice of a place of abode, to a neighbouring hotel, by the seductive play of herrich fan. Two hundred thousand travellers on the average are lodged ever) night in thisCity of Vice and its suburbs. They are of all orders, and of all conditions ; but no class 298 LIFE IN JAPAN. escapes the vigilance of the female hotel-keepers. Those who are posted in the proximityof the theatres belong to establishments of a very inferior rank ; thus their toilet displaysneither silk nor velvet—the only thing they can allow themselves is a little prodigalityin the stuff of their girdle and in the sleeves of their kirimon. They add a few mock. TAVERN tortoiseshcll pins to their head-dress, and they carry a little paper lantern painted inthe most brilliant colours. All who succeed to this third category hide themselves fromthe light. Sometimes undir the spacious roof of a tea-house we may see the servantswatching from an angle of the gallery, and clapping their hands to attract the attentionof the passers-by. THE CITY OF VICE. 299 Other servants, of a still lower condition, the poor little slaves of the pot-housekeepers, wander in the darkness of the foetid alleys. But where must we look for thelowest degree of abject misery ? Are we to find its type in the poor girl who lingersabout the bridges shuddering with cold, and hardly decently covered by her single garmentof thin cotton ? Or must we look for her in the depths of the abyss of Sin-Yosiwara ?The police of Yeddo can tell us this with hideous precision ; for there it levies its infamoustribute, and enforces the code of female slavery, not only for that portio
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookidjapanjapanes, bookyear1874
