lage inn, one is forced to reconsider a judgment formed only upon
one peculiarity of the national life, and to conclude that there is
certainly a high type of civilization in Japan, though differing in many
important particulars from our own. A careful study of the Japanese
ideas of decency, and frequent conversation with refined and intelligent
Japanese ladies upon this subject, has led me to the following
conclusion. According to the Japanese standard, any exposure of the
person that is merely incidental to health, cleanliness, or convenience
in doing necessary work, is perfectly modest and allowable; but an
exposure, no matter how slight, that is simply for show, is in the
highest degree indelicate. In illustration of the first part of this
conclusion, I would refer to the open bath-houses, the naked laborers,
the exposure of the lower limbs in wet weather by the turning up of the
_kimono_, the entirely nude condition of the country children in summer,
and the very slight clothing that even adults regard as necessary about
the house or in the country during the hot season. In illustration of
the last part, I would mention the horror with which many Japanese
ladies regard that style of foreign dress which, while covering the
figure completely, reveals every detail of the form above the waist,
and, as we say, shows off to advantage a pretty figure. To the Japanese
mind it is immodest to want to show off a pretty figure. As for the
ball-room costumes, where neck and arms are freely exposed to the gaze
of multitudes, the Japanese woman, who would with entire composure take
her bath in the presence of others, would be in an agony of shame at the
thought of appearing in public in a costume so indecent as that worn by
many respectable American and European women. Our judgment would indeed
be a hasty one, should we conclude that the sense of decency is wanting
in the Japanese as a race, or that the women are at all lacking in the
womanly instinct of modesty. When the point of view from which they
regard these matters is once obtained, the apparent inconsistencies and
incongruities are fully explained, and we can do justice to our
Japanese sister in a matter in regard to which she is too often cruelly
misjudged.

There seems no doubt at all that among the peasantry of Japan one finds
the women who have the most freedom and independence. Among this class,
all through the country, the women, though hard-worked and possessing
fe