After entering by the gate, we come to the porch; the distance between them varies with the size and exposure of the house. It is not true, as has been said by some writers on Japan, that in our houses the parlour and the garden invariably occupy the rear while the kitchen is in front. Their position depends upon the exposure of the house. No people short of savages probably lead a more open-air life than we do in our wooden houses. Our paper sliding-doors, which are our only protection against wind and cold in winter, admit both light and air; and we provide personally against the cold by wearing wadded clothing and huddling over braziers, while in summer all the sliding-doors are often removed to let the cool breeze blow through the house. It becomes, then, an important matter in building or selecting a house to see that its principal rooms are so arranged as to get the warm rays of the sun in winter and the cool breezes in summer. As both these are to be obtained from the south, the principal rooms are made to expose their open side to that direction. In winter the exposure of these rooms makes a vast difference in the consumption of charcoal as the sun shining through the open side warms the rooms more thoroughly than the braziers can do. Next to the south, the east is the favourite direction, as the east wind coming over the Pacific Ocean is milder than the north or west. The west wind, crossing as it does the snowy ridges of Central Japan, is cold in winter while the piercing rays of the westering sun make the rooms intolerably hot in summer; and the north wind is cold in winter and in summer breezes seldom come from that direction. In short, then, the principal rooms face the south, if possible, or south-east, or sometimes the east. As the garden is naturally in front of the principal rooms, its position depends upon theirs, and it is made to lie, if possible, on the south side of the house. If the gate is on the north side of the premises, it is close to the house; but if it is on the south side, the garden intervenes. It should, however, be stated that some people purposely make their principal room face north; their reason is that if the garden lay south of the house, the trees and plants in it would display their north or rear side to those within, and they are therefore willing to put up with the cold blasts from the north for the pleasure of looking at the front and sunny side of their plants.
A ROOFED AND A PAIR GATE.
Most houses in Japan are made of wood. In Tokyo only a little over one-eighth of the houses are made of other materials, that is, of brick, stone, or plaster, so that the capital may be said to be a city of wooden houses. It is therefore, needless to add, often ravaged by fire. In old Yedo fires were known as the “Flowers of Yedo,” being as much among the great sights of the city as the cherry-blossoms on the south-east bank of the River Sumida, the morning-glories of Iriya, or the chrysanthemums of Dangozaka, for which Tokyo is still noted. Under the feudal government occurred several fires which burnt down tens of thousands of houses, and even under the new regime disastrous fires are not unknown. On two occasions, in 1879 and 1881, over ten thousand houses were destroyed; but the last great conflagration took place in 1892 when four thousand buildings were devoured by the flames. Since then, though fires have been frequent enough, their ravages have been more limited, thanks to a more efficient system of fire-brigades and plentiful supply of water. During the last few years the average number of houses annually destroyed has been about seven hundred, which cover an area of seven and a half acres; and as the total area of buildings in Tokyo is three thousand seven hundred acres, the fires destroy every year one five-hundredth part of the city. The actual loss of property is not so great as might at first sight be supposed; for it is a notorious fact that houses in Tokyo are not so carefully constructed as in Kyoto and other cities, and the greater risks from fire incurred in the capital discourage the building of costly houses unless they are to stand on extensive grounds. Formerly it was calculated that the average life of a house was about thirty years; but now the lesser frequency of fires would give them a much longer lease. This is comforting to house-owners; but it must be confessed that wooden houses more than thirty years old are not pleasant to live in. The timber, unless extremely well-seasoned, becomes warped and the pillars of the house get out of the perpendicular, with the result that the sliding-doors refuse to close flat upon them but leave a space at the top or bottom through which the cold wind whistles at will in winter. This is the case even with carefully-built houses, while in others the defects are still more glaring. The jerry-builder’s hand is conspicuous in most houses to let, and the rent is high compared with the cost of construction. The landlords protest that they have to charge a high rent as whole blocks may be swept away in one night through malice or stupidity. And there is something to be said for their argument, especially as fire insurance is still far from universal, for it is strange when one comes to think of it that there are not more destructive fires. It is so easy to burn down a wooden house. A rag soaked with kerosene is enough to destroy any number of houses and is the favourite means with incendiaries who hope to steal household goods which are brought out in confusion into the street whenever there is a fire in the neighbourhood. Besides, a slight act of carelessness or neglect may lead to a terrible conflagration; a candle left too near a paper sliding-door was the origin of the great fire of 1892 already mentioned. Similarly, a kerosene lamp or a brazier overturned, a pinch of lighted tobacco or an unextinguished cigar-end, an over-heated stove or a piece of red-hot charcoal dropped on the floor, these are among the commonest causes of fires; and even the cheap Japanese matches, of which as the splints are not dipped in paraffin, at least half a dozen are needed to light a cigarette in the open air, are responsible for as many fires every year. Since such slight accidents may at any time lead to great disasters, the inhabitants, as they go to bed, are never sure, especially in crowded quarters, of still having a roof over their heads next morning. They may be aroused from their slumbers by the dreaded triple peal of the alarm-bell and find the neighbouring street or next door wrapped in flames, and just manage to run out of their houses with nothing but the clothes on their backs. We are, however, so used to the fire-alarm that if the peals are double to indicate that the fire is in the next district, we only get out of bed to look at it from idle curiosity and turn in again unless our house is leeward of the burning district or we have to run to the assistance of a friend there; and if the bell gives only single peals, which signify that at least one district intervenes between the burning street and the fire-lookout, we turn in our beds and perhaps picture to ourselves the lively time they must be having in that street. A fire is, on account of its uncertainty and suddenness, only less feared than an earthquake, and the general feeling among the citizens is that of insecurity.
There is, however, still another element of insecurity in wooden houses. House-breaking is by no means difficult in Tokyo. In the daytime the front entrance is generally closed with sliding-doors which can, however, be gently opened and entered without attracting notice unless some one happens to be in an adjoining room. The kitchen door is usually kept open, and it is quite easy to sneak into the kitchen and make away with food or utensils. Tradesmen, rag-merchants, and hawkers come into the kitchen to ask for orders, to buy waste-paper or broken crockery, or to sell their wares, so that there is nothing unusual in finding strange men on the premises. Sometimes these hawkers are really burglars in disguise come to reconnoitre the house with a view to paying it a nocturnal visit. At night, of course, the house is shut and the doors are bolted or fastened with a ring and staple, but very seldom locked or chained. As the doors are nothing more than wooden frames with horizontal cross-bars, on which boards less than a quarter of an inch thick are nailed, it would not be difficult to cut a hole with a chisel large enough for the hand to reach the bolt or the staple or to clear the whole space between the cross-bars for the body to pass through. But quieter methods are generally preferred. Single burglars usually come in by the skylight, closed at night by a small sliding-door, which does duty as chimney in the kitchen, or crawl under the floor which is some two feet from the ground, by tearing away the boarding under the verandah and come up by carefully removing the loose plank of the floor, under which fuel is kept in the kitchen. If the burglars are in a gang, they naturally come in more boldly than these kitchen sneaks. Once inside, the thief has the run of the house as all the rooms communicate by sliding-doors and are never locked, and the whole household is at his mercy. Since, then, houses are so easy of entry, it might be supposed that burglaries are very frequent in Tokyo; that such is not the case is probably due to the somewhat primitive methods pursued by these gentry and to the effective detective system of the police authorities. The strict police registration of every inhabitant and the easy access of all the rooms in a house make concealment very difficult, and the criminal is readily shadowed as he wanders from place to place throughout the Empire.
DOOR-FASTENINGS.
To this general insecurity from fire and burglary all wooden houses are subject; but if we take into consideration the actual number of homes which fall victims to them, we are compelled to conclude that though the feeling of insecurity may always be present, the chances of its being realised are somewhat remote, so that it is not so bad as it looks in these respects to live in the wooden houses of Tokyo. Fires are most frequent in winter from braziers being then in use and kerosene lamps being in requisition for longer hours every evening, and burglaries, too, increase in the same season from the sufferings of the poor being intensified. But in the summer heat the Japanese house is extremely pleasant. The whole house is open and lets the cool breeze blow from end to end; bamboo screens are hung in front of the verandah where it is exposed to the burning rays of the sun. On the second story we sit in thin cotton garments and feel the breeze all over the body, and look down upon the landscape garden before us or beyond at the peerless Mount Fuji on the south-west or at Mount Tsukuba on the northern edge of the Musashino plain. It is especially enjoyable when fresh from a hot bath, we squat or loll on the mats, fan in hand, and engage in desultory talk or in a quiet game until the sun sinks and wine and fish are brought before us. The Japanese house is an ideal summer villa when we can rest ourselves from the heat and dust of the busy city. But in the city itself it is far otherwise. The dust blows in with every gust, and the house, to be properly kept, must be swept several times a day. The narrowness of the streets and lowness of the ceilings give the shops in crowded quarters insufficient light, though more than enough of dusty air. But in winter we feel the inadequacy of wooden houses; it is next to impossible to keep out the cold effectually; a room never gets thoroughly warmed. The wind blows in through the crevices of the sliding-doors, for the edges on which these doors meet are flat and never dovetailed. The paper of the doors is porous, and through its pores the air gets in; there is certainly this to be said for it that in a Japanese room one need never fear asphyxiation, however much charcoal may be burning in the braziers. These braziers are for warming the hands and the face if one crouches over them; but for the body, we get the warmth from the abundance of wadded clothing. We can therefore keep fairly warm if we merely sit on the mats; but directly we move or stand up, the cold attacks us. Most Japanese are, however, used from childhood to these cold rooms and do not feel the chill. Many of them think nothing of sitting for hours in a cold draught.
A Japanese wooden house looks pretty when new; but after some years when the outside is weather-beaten, the pillars begin to warp and the walls to crumble, its charms, too, are on the wane. A well-built house may be comfortable for twenty or at most thirty years, after which it is uninhabitable without considerable repairs. The few private houses which still remain that were built before the Restoration are at best rain-proof, and afford little protection against wind. There are certainly public buildings, such as shrines and temples, which have survived many centuries and are not unfrequently picturesque as they peer through their groves; but a close inspection would soon reveal the repairs they have undergone, pillars repainted, roofs retiled, gable-ends regilt, and the interior generally renovated. There is wanting in Japanese dwelling-houses that poetical charm which age lends to brick and stone buildings in the West with their dark-stained casements and ivy-mantled walls; and time which mellows and imparts a deeper hue to stone dry-rots wood and saps it of its strength, and long before storms make any impression upon brick, the frame-house falls to the ground. But in Japan it is not merely wind and rain that houses have to contend against; the earthquake is the foe that makes them to totter. Every earthquake, by shaking them up, tends to loosen the joints and disturb the equilibrium of the building; and as a good many such shocks, about a hundred and fifty, occur in the course of a year, their combined effect is by no means negligible. Houses have therefore to be built with the possible effects of earthquakes in view.
The most obvious of the provisions against earthquake effects is the small height of the houses. Most dwelling-houses in Tokyo have only one or two stories; there are far more of the former than of the latter; and even of the latter kind, the upper story is usually much smaller than the lower. The floor stands about two feet from the ground; the ceiling is eight or nine feet in height on the lower floor and often less than eight feet on the upper. The outer walls sometimes rest on a low stone course; but the verandah is supported by short wooden pillars resting on stone slabs. The house, in fact, merely stands on a few stone slabs and courses and can, as is indeed sometimes done, be lifted bodily and removed to another site. Over the verandah, if there is a story above, a small roof projects to prevent the rain from blowing into, the rooms behind it. The housetop is never flat, but has a great rough-hewn beam for roof-tree with rafters on either side, which are covered with lath. Semicircular tiles are laid over the roof-tree with a thick substratum of mortar, while the slanting sides are covered with pantiles. The gutter is sometimes made of copper, but more commonly of bamboo or tinplate. The roof is built before the walls or the floor. First, the ground is levelled and the stone foundation made for the pillars. Meanwhile the pillars, joists, beams, and ties have been made, and are now set up and fitted. As soon as the frame is built, the roof is put on and covered for the while with matting so as to enable the workmen to work inside irrespectively of the weather. The verandahs, floors, ceilings, and grooves for sliding-doors are made. The carpenter’s work is then done; and the tiler is called in for the roof-tiles, the plasterer for the walls, and the joiner for the sliding-doors. The tiles are of a uniform size and generally of the same shape. The walls are made with a lathing or frame of slender bamboo, which is covered with clay and over it one or more coatings of plaster. In some buildings the coatings of the outer walls are replaced by clapboards, which are painted black if the wood is of an inferior quality or too weather-beaten. The paper-hanger is called in to paper the sliding-doors and the mat-maker comes to cover the floor with mats. The house is then complete.