CHAPTER III.
HOUSES: EXTERIOR.
Name-plates—Block-buildings—Gates—The exposure of houses—Fires—House-breaking—Japanese houses in summer and winter—Storms and earthquakes—House-building—The carpenter—The garden.
WE have already said that the complicated way of numbering streets and the inclusion of a large group of buildings in one number make it hard to find any particular house. They necessitate a dreary going to and fro through a series of thoroughfares, which is very trying to one’s temper and would in most cases oblige one after a long search to give it up altogether, were it not for the circumstance that not only shops and private offices, but also nearly every private house, has a name-plate nailed over the front door or on the gate-post. If, therefore, we can, in the course of our wanderings through a street, alight upon the right number, we can generally find the house, provided there are not too many with the same number. The name-plate has usually inscribed on it the number of the house and the name of its occupant, and his title if he is a peer. Besides the name-plate, there is on the gate-post the brass-badge of the insurance company if the house has been insured, to enable the company’s private firemen to identify the house and give necessary assistance in case of a fire in the neighbourhood. The gate-post has also the telephone-number placarded in large figures for the telephone-rate collector’s convenience.
Shops and most mercantile offices open directly upon the street; but with respect to private houses there is no definite rule. Cheap houses are built in long blocks; of these the worst description is to be found in back courts; they are of one story, or if of two stories, the second has a very low ceiling. They are usually in a dilapidated condition and propped up on all sides; they are in fact our slums. The smallest of these houses is only twelve feet by nine. A block may be made up of a dozen such houses, six on either side with a wall running through the middle from end to end. It is a peculiarity of our tenement houses which have to be low on account of the frequency of earthquakes that they are thus divided vertically into narrow compartments and differ in this respect from the many-storied houses in the West, which are divided horizontally and occupied in flats. While the ground-rent is still comparatively low, this habitation in transverse sections, so to speak, is feasible for the poor; but even now, as the rent is steadily rising in all quarters, the tendency is to drive these humble dwellers outside the city limits. As it is, only in the poorer districts are these miserable houses to be seen; for in the busier quarters the ground-rent is already too high for them. But buildings in blocks are not all of the poorest kind, though it must be admitted that dwelling in a “long building,” as a block of this description is called, implies on the face of it life on a humble scale. In the old times well-to-do retainers, who had large houses of their own in the country, lived when in Yedo in the “long buildings” surrounding their lord’s mansion. Small shops are also built in blocks.
IN THE SLUMS.
Though many private houses in the business quarters have no gates, those of any pretensions in the residential districts where land is naturally cheaper, are mostly provided with them. It is not usual for professionals in humbler walks of life and for artisans to live within a gate; but officials and others of some social standing prefer to have one to their houses. Sometimes there is a single gate to a large compound with a number of small houses in it; in such a case the gate-post is studded with name-plates. Gates, too, vary in size and form. The most modest are no more than low wicker-gates which can be jumped over and offer no bar to intrusion. Others are of the same make, but stand higher so that the interior can be seen only through cracks. But the most common consist of two square posts with hinged doors which meet in the middle and are kept shut by a cross-bar passing through clamps on them. These gates may be of the cheapest kind of wood, such as cryptomeria, or may be massive and of hard wood. Another common kind has a roof over it with a single door which is hinged on one post and fastened on to the other and provided with a small sliding-door for daily use. The larger pair gates have also small side-doors for use at night when they are themselves shut.
A HOUSE AND A GATE.