Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 6.djvu/116

 on its merits. But no one can ignore that the sentence of absolute ostracism and banishment pronounced against the courtesan in Japan, so long as she pursues her evil trade, ought to have a strongly deterrent effect. She is irrevocably exiled, not merely from the society of virtuous people, but even from the vicinity of their habitations and from the places where they congregate for business or for pleasure. She lives in a species of convict settlement, scarcely ever emerging from the precincts of her prison during her term of service, and never suffered for a moment to forget the degradation into which she has sold herself. Her manner of adopting a career of shame constitutes an additional dissuasion. It is always a matter of sale. In consideration of a certain sum paid to her family, she pledges herself to serve as a yu-jo (fille de joie) for a fixed term of years. Such transactions seem to differ little from slave traffic. They appear to perpetuate the old customs referred to in a previous chapter. The law, however, actively endeavours to avert their worst abuses. It is enacted that a girl must have attained the full age of sixteen before her consent can be accounted legal; that she and her parents or guardians must attend at the office of the police de mœurs and signify their united desire to enter into the proposed agreement; that the circumstances of the career she is choosing must then and there be fully ex-