In travelling through the country the absence of a middle class, as indicated by the dwellings, is painfully apparent. It is true that you pass, now and then, large comfortable houses with their broad thatched roofs, showing evidences of wealth and abundance in the numerous kura and outbuildings surrounding them; but where you find one of these you pass hundreds [pg 50] which are barely more than shelters for their inmates; and within, the few necessary articles render the evidences of poverty all the more apparent.
Though the people that inhabit such shelters are very poor, they appear contented and cheerful notwithstanding their poverty. Other classes, who though not poverty-stricken are yet poor in every sense of the word, occupy dwellings of the simplest character. Many of the dwellings are often diminutive in size; and as one looks in at a tiny cottage containing two or three rooms at the most, the entire house hardly bigger than a good-sized room at home, and observes a family of three or four persons living quietly and in a cleanly manner in this limited space, he learns that in Japan, at least, poverty and constricted quarters are not always correlated with coarse manners, filth, and crime.
Country and city houses of the better class vary as greatly as with us,—the one with its ponderous thatched roof and smoke-blackened interior, the other with low roof neatly tiled, or shingled, and the perfection of cleanliness within.
In Tokio, the houses that abut directly on the street have a close and prison-like aspect. The walls are composed of boards or plaster, and perforated with one or two small windows lightly barred with bamboo, or heavily barred with square wood-gratings. The entrance to one of these houses is generally at one corner, or at the side. The back of the house and one side, at least, have a verandah. I speak now of the better class of houses in the city, but not of the best houses, which almost invariably stand back from the street and are surrounded by gardens.
The accompanying sketch ([fig. 33]) represents a group of houses bordering a street in Kanda Ku, Tokio. The windows are in some cases projecting or hanging bays, and are barred with bamboo or square bars of wood. A sliding-screen covered with stout white paper takes the place of our glass-windows. Through [pg 51] these gratings the inmates of the house do their bargaining with the street venders. The entrance to these houses is usually by means of a gate common to a number. This entrance consists of a large gate used for vehicles and heavy loads, and by the side of this is a smaller gate used by the people. Sometimes the big gate has a large square opening in it, closed by a sliding-door or grating,—and through this the inmates have ingress and egress.
Fig. 33.—Street in Kanda Ku, Tokio.
The houses, if of wood, are painted black; or else, as is more usually the case, the wood is left in its natural state, and this gradually turns to a darker shade by exposure. When painted, a dead black is used; and this color is certainly agreeable to the eyes, though the heat-rays caused by this black surface become almost unendurable on hot days, and must add greatly to the heat and discomfort within the house. With a plastered outside wall the surface is often left white, while the frame-work of the building is painted black,—and this treatment gives it a decidedly funereal aspect.