Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/115

 system that the ban which drives into obscurity every manifestation of the sensual passions is specially potent to diminish their indulgence. The Japanese licensing system certainly achieves that end so far as the vast bulk of the population is concerned. On the other hand, within the prescribed quarters no attempt is made to limit the resources of temptation. The unfortunate women, tricked out in rich costumes and splendid coiffures, sit ranged on a kind of proscenium, separated from the street by a widely latticed partition through which passers-by can gaze without obstruction. It is this feature of the system that chiefly shocks the foreign observer. Exceptional moral obtuseness is suggested by its crude practicality, and it seems to inflict harsh degradation on the woman for the sake of catering to the convenience and, perhaps, appealing to the imagination, of the libertine. Arraigned upon that charge, the Japanese reply, first, that when a man's depraved impulses have led him as far as these remote haunts of vice, little deference need be paid to his small remnants of virtue; secondly, that, by granting licenses, the law constructively recognises the holders' right to ply their trade in whatever manner appears most convenient within the prescribed limits; and thirdly, that to soften the hardships of the courtesan's lot may be a suggestion of mercy, but certainly is not an obligation of morality. Such is the Japanese case, whatever judgment be passed