owns 62 chō 4 tan and receives in rent 623 koku 7 to. Members of family, 11; servants, 8.
Expenditure of Past Year
| yen | |
| House | 519 |
| Food and drink (18 sen each per day for members of family; 13 sen each for servants) | 1,102 |
| Fuel | 156 |
| Light | 36 |
| Clothing | 770 |
| Education (3 middle-school boys at 20 yen per month; 3 primary-school boys and girls at 2 yen) | 312 |
| Social intercourse | 120 |
| Amusements (journey, 100 yen; summer trip, 231; others, 50) | 381 |
| Miscellaneous (servants, 480 yen; medicine, 150; other things, 150) | 780 |
| Donations | 300 |
| Taxes | 3,976 |
| ______ | |
| 8,451 |
[ THE "BENJO" [IV].] I never noticed a case in which earth was thrown into the domestic closet tub according to Dr. Poore's system. I have come across attempts to use deodorisers, but the application of a germicide is inhibited because of the injury which would be caused to the crops. Farmers are chary about removing night soil which has been treated even with a deodoriser. I ventured to suggest more than once that Japanese science should be equal to evolving a deodoriser to which the farmer, who in Japan seems to be so easily directed, could have no objection. The drawback to using Dr. Poore's system is that the added earth would greatly increase the weight of the substance to be removed. There would be the same objection to the use of hibachi ash (charcoal ash), but there is not enough produced to have any sensible effect. The truth is that there is no lively interest in the question of getting rid of the stink for everyone has become accustomed to it. The odour from the benjo—the politer word is habakari—which is always indoors, though at the end of the engawa (verandah), often penetrates the house. (Engawa [edge or border] is the passage which faces to the open; roka is a passage inside a house between two rooms or sometimes a bridgelike passage in the open, connecting two separate buildings or parts of a house.) Emptying day is particularly trying. This much must be said, however, that the farmers' tubs are washed, scrubbed and sunned after every journey and have close-fitting lids. And primitive though the benjo is, it is scrupulously clean. Also, if it is always more or less smelly, it is contrived on sound hygienic principles. There is no seat requiring an unnatural position. The user squats over an opening in the floor about 2 ft. long by 6 ins. wide. This opening is encased by a simple porcelain fitting with a hood at the end facing the user. The top of the tub is some distance below the floor. In peasants' houses there is no porcelain fitting. Manure is so valuable in Japan that farmers whose land adjoins the road often build a benjo for the use of passers-by. Although the traveller in Japan has much to endure from the unpleasant odour due to the thrifty utilisation of excreta, the Japanese deserve credit for the fact that their countryside is never fouled in the disgusting fashion which proves many of our rural folk to be behind the primitive standard of civilisation set up in Deuteronomy (chap, xxiii. 13). The Western rural sociologist is not inclined to criticise the sanitary methods of Japan. He is too conscious of the neglect in the West to study thoroughly the grave question of sewage disposal in relation to the needs of our crops and the cost of nitrogenous fertilisers. See also [Appendix XX].
[ AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS [V].] In Mr. Yamasaki's school there was dormitory accommodation for 200 youths, some 40 lived in teachers' houses, another 15 were in lodgings, and 45 came daily from their parents' homes. Lads were admitted from 14 to 16 and the course was for 3 years. The students worked 30 hours weekly indoors and the rest of their time outside. Upper and lower grade agricultural schools number 280 with 23,000 students. In addition there are 7,908 agricultural continuation schools with more than 430,000 pupils. The ratio of illiteracy in Japan for men of conscription age (that is, excluding old people and young people), which had been over 5 per cent. up to 1911, was reported to be only 2 per cent. in 1917.
[ CRIME [VI].] In 1916 the chief offences in Japan were:
| Dealt with at police station | 445,502 |
| Gambling and lotteries | 81,649 |
| Larceny | 81,063 |
| Fraud and usurpation | 49,772 |
| Assaults | 19,022 |
| Robbery | 10,383 |
| Arson | 9,533 |
| Accidental assaults | 3,277 |
| Obscenity | 2,796 |
| Wilful injury | 2,032 |
| Murder | 1,886 |
| Abortion | 1,252 |
| Abduction | 907 |
| Rioting | 813 |
| Official disgrace | 481 |
| Military and naval | 387 |
| Desertion | 315 |
| Forgery | 307 |
| Coining | 206 |
[ PROSTITUTES [VII].] The chief of police was good enough to let me have a copy of the form to be filled up by girls desiring to enter the houses in the prefecture. It is under nine heads: 1. The reason for adopting the profession. 2. Age. 3. Permission of head of household. If permission is not forthcoming, reason why. 4. If a minor, proof of permission. 5. House at which the girl is going to "work." 6. Home address. 7. Former means of getting a living. 8. Whether prostitute before. If so, particulars. 9. Other details.
When I was in Japan there were reputed to be about 50,000 joro (prostitutes), about half that number of geisha and about 35,000 "waitresses."
[ PHILANTHROPIC AGENCIES [VIII].] In 1917 the number of paupers, tramps and foundlings relieved by the State did not exceed 10,000. The number of institutions was 730 (of which 40 were run by foreigners), with the expenditure of about 5½ million yen.