According to the census of 1913 there were 52,985,423 subjects of the Emperor of Japan (excluding Korea), and their number is increasing steadily and rapidly. The number of males exceeds that of females by well-nigh a million. The population is very dense in the fertile regions, and increases so rapidly that emigration is absolutely necessary. The masses are healthy and strong, capable of great endurance—a fact brought into striking prominence by the achievements of the Japanese forces in the Arctic winter of Manchuria, and in its torrid summer. The Japanese can, as a rule, bear cold much better than heat. Living thinly clad in unwarmed houses that offer but little protection and are by day draughty as bird-cages, they early become inured to cold. The average physique of the upper classes is by no means so good as that of the manual workers, and is considerably below the Occidental standards.
A Race of Little People
The Japanese are a black-haired race, with smooth skins, varying in colour through various yellowish shades, from a hue of brown, in the case of those working in the sun, to a light tint no darker than that of the Southern European, with comparatively large skulls, prominent cheek-bones, and a tendency to projecting jaws. They are of small stature, the average height of the male being only slightly over five feet (5·02 ft.), that of the female slightly over four feet six inches (4·66 ft.). In other words, the men are of about the same average stature as European females, the women proportionately shorter.
The Two Types of Japanese
There are, of course, exceptions, some Japanese being of a height that would cause them to be considered tall amongst Occidentals; but they appear as giants amongst their diminutive compatriots. Both men and women have small hands and feet, those of the upper classes being beautifully shaped. Even amongst manual workers it is not rare to find, especially amongst females, hands of an aristocratic type. The shapely appearance of the feet is often spoiled by thick ankles, probably the result of wearing sandals. The black hair is abundant on the head, straight and coarse; there is hardly any on the arms, legs and chest. The eyelashes are scanty, and grow immediately out of the eyelids, without the “hem” that borders the eyelids of Occidental races. The eyes are dark, full in the broad-faced, plebeian type, narrow in the aristocratic cast of countenance. In the latter they are generally set more or less obliquely, their slanting appearance being enhanced by the fact that the aperture for the eye seems to have been cut, as it were, directly in the smooth skin, tightly stretched over the upper part of the face, not, as in the white races, in a very marked depression under the brow.
THE CHILDREN’S FESTIVAL: FEAST OF DOLLS IN A JAPANESE HOME
Japan is the land of love for children, and many quaint customs are observed for their sake. On the third day of the third month in each year the Feast of Dolls is held in thousands of Japanese homes, and the day is one of great delight.
THE VARIOUS GRADES OF SOCIETY IN OLD JAPAN