Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 7.djvu/399

 —These zushi have been carried away in great numbers to form articles of decorative furniture in foreign houses, for which purpose they are now expressly manufactured. It is a fancy which to Japanese eyes appears as incongruous as the use of a reredos for an over-mantle or of a monstrance for an epergne would seem to Occidentals.  —Gowland, in the "," Vol. XIII.  —A vase, a censer, and a pricket-candlestick formed a set, and were collectively called mitsu-gusoku, or "the three articles of furniture."  —The credit of this success belongs to Signor Ragusa.  —The method of applying the gold was to "lay it thickly over varnish composed of hone-powder and lacquer upon hempen cloth." (Satow.)  —Shitan is a favourite wood in China and Japan. It is the material used by the Chinese for making reading-desks, book-cases, vase-stands, and many other objects of furniture or decoration. In its natural state its colour is red, but before it emerges from the workman's hands it is stained black, and under the friction of use it develops a beautiful glossy surface. It is hard, close-grained, and almost knotless, being thus specially adapted for carving.  —This device has been utilised in recent years for making metal (silver or shibuichi) cases to contain match-boxes.  —From about the year 1830 the use of huge tobacco-pouches obtained much vogue among the artisan classes. Generally these pouches had silver chains for attaching the netsuke, which was of the button (manju) variety and proportionately large. Sometimes the silver chains numbered as many as fifty, and to such an extent was this extravagance carried that a man wearing clothes worth ten yen would have a tobacco-pouch worth one hundred yen. <section end="Note 23" /> <section begin="Note 24" />—In families whose ancestors had the honour of serving the Tokugawa Court, there are preserved and treasured long rolls of brocade consisting entirely of tobacco-pouch covers sewed together. These serve primarily to illustrate the extraordinary variety and beauty of the stuffs used for covering pouches, and incidentally to record the long service of the families possessing them, for each pouch was a New Year's gift from the Shōgun. <section end="Note 24" /> <section begin="Note 25" />—The shima-dai itself is generally of pure white-pine, and the trees, crane, and tortoise which it supports are of silver and gold; but the figures of the old man and the old woman are invariably wood-carvings. <section end="Note 25" />