[ [113] A well-known member of the Shirakaba group started two years ago an "ideal village" among the mountains. It is an effort towards social freedom in which the police manifest a continuous interest.
ACROSS JAPAN (TOKYO TO NIIGATA AND BACK)
CHAPTER XII
TO THE HILLS
(TOKYO, SAITAMA, TOCHIGI AND FUKUSHIMA)
Nothing which concerns a countryman is a matter of unconcern to me.—Terence
During the month of July I went from one side of Japan to the other, starting from Tokyo, across the sea from which lies America, and coming out at Niigata, across the sea from which lies Siberia.
We first made a four hours' railway run through the great Kwanto plain (6,000 square miles). Travelling is comfortable on such a trip, for travellers take off their coats and waistcoats, and the train-boy—he has the word "Boy" on his collar in English—brings fans and bedroom slippers. The fans, which on one side advertised "Hotels in European style, directly managed by the Imperial Government Railway[[114]]," offered on the other a poem and a drawing. A poem addressed to a snail played with the idea of its giving its life to climbing Fuji. The poem was composed by a poet who wrote many delightful hokku (seventeen-syllable poems), showing a humorous sympathy with the humblest creatures. One poem is:
Come and play with me,
Thou orphan sparrow!