Page:Japanese plays and playfellows (1901).djvu/332

292 adorned with wooden seven-pronged rakes, which I had seen so often in old prints and knew to be emblems of good luck, purchased in November by pious traders from the priests of the Temple of the Eagle.

We walked down the slope of Emonzaka (the hill of the collar), which perhaps took its name from the habit of the Tōkyō blood to adjust the kimono collar in careful folds at the moment of entry, and traversed Gojikken-machi, the street of fifty tea-houses leading to the ponderous gate, where two dapper policemen, neatly gloved and sworded, kept watch and ward. Now we are between handsome edifices, four storeys high, adorned with balconies and electric light, in the broad central Naka-no-cho, which three narrow turnings intersect on either side, containing shops of less imposing dimensions. The upper storeys tell no tales, though their paper-panelled shutters give twinkling and tinkling signs of revelry. On the ground-floor is an unbroken series of shop-windows, not fronted with plate-glass as in Piccadilly nor open to the street as in the Ginza, but palisaded with wooden bars from three to seven inches wide. And behind the bars, on silk or velvet cushions against a gaudy background of draped mirrors and ornamental woodwork, sit the wares—a row of powdered, painted, exquisitely upholstered victims. Most of them look happy enough, as they chatter or smoke or run laughing to the barrier to greet a passing acquaintance, but I know what heroic endurance is masked by a Japanese smile, and the sight of caged women turns me sick. Then I reflect that Western sentiment, however justified by inherited ethics, is scarcely the best auxiliary of fair judgment, so, striving to convert my conscience to a camera, I follow my companions