CHAPTER VII
OF "DEVIL-GON" AND YOSOGI
The consciousness of a common purpose in mankind, or even the acknowledgment that such a common purpose is possible, would alter the face of world politics at once.—Graham Wallas
There was a bad landlord who was nicknamed "Devil-gon." He was shot. There was another bad landlord who, as he was crossing a narrow bridge over a brook, was "pistolled through the sleeve and tumbled into the water." Although the murderer was well known, his name was never revealed to the police, and the family of the dead man was glad to leave the district. The villagers celebrated their freedom by eating the "red rice" which is prepared on occasions of festivity. In another village, the gunchō who spoke to me of these things said, there were several usurious landlords. "The village headman got angry. He called the landlords to him. He said to them that if they continued to lend at high interest the people would set fire to their houses and he would not proceed against them. So the landlords became affrighted and amended their lives." The rural people of Japan have always three weapons against usury, it was explained to me. First, there may be tried injuring the offending person's house—rural dwellings are mainly bamboo work and mud—by bumping into it with the heavy palanquin which is carried about the roadway at the time of the annual festival. If such a hint should prove ineffective, recourse may be had to arson. Finally, there is the pistol. I remember someone's remark, "A man does not lose a common mind and heart by becoming a landowner."
I could not travel about the rural districts without there being brought under my eyes the conditions which lead country girls to go to the towns as joro (prostitutes). A considerable agricultural authority who had been all over Japan told me that he was in no doubt that most of the girls adopted an immoral life through poverty. I spoke to this man, who had been abroad, of the disgrace to Japan involved in the presence of thousands of Japanese joro at Singapore and so many other ports of the Asiatic mainland. Did these women go there of their free will? My informant was of opinion that "half are deceived." I remember that on the Japanese steamship by which I went out to Japan there were several Japanese girls, degraded in aspect and apparently in ill health, who were returning from Singapore. They were shepherded by an evil-looking fellow. The parting of these unfortunates from their girl friends as the vessel was about to start was a piteous sight. An official who called on me in Aichi—I understood that he was the chief of the prefectural police—told me that there were in the prefecture 2,011 girls in 222 houses, and that there were in a year 725,598 customers, of whom 2,147 were foreigners. Sums of from 200 to 500 yen might be paid to parents for a girl for a three-years term. Food and clothes were also provided, but the girls were almost invariably drawn into debt to the keepers, and not more than 15 per cent. were able to return to their villages. All the girls in the houses had alleged poverty as the reason for their being there.[[47]]
Because I was told that the moral condition of the town of Anjo—population 17,000—where the agricultural school of the prefecture is situated, had improved since its establishment, I asked for some statistics. I found that there were 23 registered geisha, no joro, 50 teahouse girls with dubious characters and 55 sellers of saké. Against these figures were to be counted 19 Buddhist temples of four sects with 19 priests and 20 Shinto shrines with 4 priests.
I met a schoolmaster who had prepared a history of his village in a dozen beautifully written volumes. He had been a vegetarian for fifteen years because, as a Buddhist, he believed that "all living things are in some degree my relatives." I picked up from him a variant on "the early bird catches the worm." It was, "The early riser may find a lost rin" (tenth of a farthing). He gave me another proverb, "The contents of a spitting pot, like riches, become fouler the more they accumulate."
I heard of temples which were promoting rural improvement by means of lanterns. In one village the lanterns were at the service of borrowers at three different places. The inscription on the lanterns says, "Think of the mercy of Buddha who illuminates the darkness of your heart." There is written in smaller characters, "If you live half a ri away you need not return this lantern." Three hundred lanterns are lost or damaged in a year, but paper lanterns are cheap.
One temple has a society composed of those who have family graves in its grounds. These people "study how to get the most abundant crop." There is a prize for the best cultivated tan. Under this temple's auspices there is not only a co-operative credit and purchase association, a poultry society and an annual exhibition of agricultural products, but a school for nurses—they are "taught to be nurses not only physically but morally." The boys and girls of the village are invited to the temple once a month and "told a story." The youngsters are asked to come to a "learning meeting" where they must recite or exhibit something they have written or drawn; "blockheads as well as clever children are encouraged." A fund is being raised so that "a genius who may be suffering from poverty may be able to get proper education." Then there is a Women's Religious Association which aims at "the improvement, necessary from a religious point of view, in the home and of agricultural business." Sermons are given to 500 women monthly. The society sent comfort bags, containing letters, tooth-brushes and sweets, to soldiers at the taking of Tsingtao. A similar organisation for men had for thirteen years listened to a monthly lecture by a well-known priest. It sends occasional subscriptions outside the village. Finally, this praiseworthy temple issues every month 20,000 copies of a 4½-sen magazine.