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126 shoes in which a Japanese lady finds it so hard to walk without looking as if she had taken just a little drop too much. Need it be said that the Court speedily found imitators? Indeed, as a spur to the recalcitrant, a sort of notification was issued, "recommending" the adoption of European costume by the ladies of Japan. In vain the local European press cried out against the barbarism, in vain every foreigner of taste endeavoured privately to persuade his Japanese friends not to let their wives make guys of themselves, in vain Mrs. Cleveland and the ladies of America wrote publicly to point out the dangers with which tight lacing, and European fashions generally, threaten the health of those who adopt them. The die was cast when, on the 1st November, 1886, the Empress and her ladies appeared in their new German dresses at a public entertainment. The Empress herself would doubtless look charming in any garb. Would one could say as much for all those with her and for those that followed after! The very highest society of Tōkyō contained, it is true, from the beginning, a few—a very few—women of whose dress Pierre Loti could say without flattery, "toilette en somme qui serait de mise à Paris et qui est vraiment Men portée" But the majority! No caricature could do justice to the bad figures, the ill-fitting garments, the screeching colours, that ran riot between 1886 and 1889. Since then there has been a wave of reaction, in consequence of which most ladies have happily returned to the national costume. How charming it is to see a bevy of them thus dressed, dressed, mind you, not merely having clothes on, such a symphony of greys and browns and other delicate hues of silk and brocade, the faultless costume being matched by the coy, and at the same time perfectly natural and simple, manners and musical voices of the wearers!

 Duck-hunting with the help of decoys and a sort of large hand-net, in grounds laid out for the purpose with ponds and canals and high embankments and concealed alleys, is a sport which was invented in Tōkyō some thirty years ago for the