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Rh to be removed to their present site on the northern limit of Yedo, whence the name of Shin (i.e. New) Yoshiwara, by which the place is currently known. Foreigners often speak of "a Yoshiwara," as if the word were a generic term. It is not so. The quarters of similar character in other parts of Japan are never so called by the Japanese themselves. Such words as yūjoba and kuruwa are used to designate them.

Japanese literature is full of romantic stories in which the Yoshiwara plays a part. Generally the heroine has found her way there in obedience to the dictates of filial piety in order to support her aged parents, or else she is kidnapped by some ruffian who basely sells her for his own profit. The story often ends by the girl emerging from a life of shame with at least her heart untainted, and by all the good people living happily ever after. It is to be feared that real life witnesses few such fortunate cases, though it is probably true that the fallen women of Japan are, as a class, much less vicious than their representatives in Western lands, being neither drunken nor foul-mouthed. On the other hand, a Japanese proverb says that a truthful courtesan is as great a miracle as a square egg.

In former times, girls could be and were regularly and legally sold into debauchery at the Yoshiwara in Yedo and at its counterparts throughout the land,—a state of things which the present enlightened government hastened to reform. Towards the close of the nineteenth century, an agitation against the whole system was begun by the missionaries, notably by the Japan branch of the Salvation Army, supported by a section of the Tōkyō press. It bore fruit in 1900, in the passing of a new law enabling any girl to free herself at once from the fetters of shame by a mere declaration of that intention to the police. Over 400 in Tōkyō alone immediately had recourse to the means of liberation thus unexpectedly provided, and before the end of the year over 1,100 had left with or without the consent of the keepers of the brothels. In fact, the rush became so great that many houses had to close their doors. When we add that a weekly medical inspection of