Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/137

Rh a gradual decline in price, we come to the coolie's poor trappings, which may represent as little as 5 yen, or even 2 yen, as he stands.

Children's dress is more or less a repetition in miniature of that of their elders. Long swaddling-clothes are not in use. Young children, have, however, a bib. They wear a little cap on their heads, and at their side hangs a charm-bag (kinchaku), made out of a bit of some bright-coloured damask, containing a charm (mamori-fuda) which is supposed to protect them from being run over, washed away, etc. There is also generally fastened some where about their little person a metal ticket (maigo-fuda), having on one side a picture of the sign of the zodiac proper to the year of their birth, and on the other their name and address, as a precaution against their getting lost. Japanese girls do not, like ours, remain in a sort of chrysalis state till seventeen or eighteen years of age, and then "come out" in gorgeous attire. The tiniest tots are the most brilliantly dressed. Thenceforward there is a gradual decline the whole way down to old age, which final stage is marked by the severest simplicity. Many old ladies even cut their hair short. In any case, they never exhibit the slightest coquetterie de vieillesse.

Those having any acquaintance with Japan, either personal or by hearsay, will understand that, when, we say that the Japanese wear such and such things (in the present tense), we speak of the native costume, which is still in fairly common use, though unfortunately no longer in universal use. The undignified billy cocks and pantaloons of the West are slowly but surely supplanting the picturesque, aristocratic-looking native garb,—a change for which the Government is mainly responsible, as it obliges almost all officials to wear European dress when on duty, and of course the inferior classes ape their betters. Nor have the women, though naturally more conservative, been altogether able to resist the radicalism of their time and country. In the year 1886, some evil counsellor induced the Court to order gowns from Paris—we beg pardon, from Berlin—likewise corsets, and those European