--'It is perhaps because we Japanese do not parade ourselves. We prefer to speak of ourselves as small in deference to the modern civilisation of the Western nations. Besides, we are not so wealthy as the occidental nations. We always feel it. It often prevents us from doing better things.' --'But your country is not poor.' --'We are not poor. I am only speaking comparatively with the great powers of the West. The volume of our commerce has risen from a few millions to six or seven hundred million yens in less than forty years. In a way we ought to be satisfied.' --'I suppose the people are happy.' --'Well, I may say so. We have no very rich classes, but at the same time we have no extreme poverty as yet. Only the other evening a compatriot of mine who had travelled in the country near Tours told me that the common people there lived in small caves in the cliffs, or on the slopes of the hills, and they were all barefooted when they were at home, or were at work in the vintage. I hear there are many such in Britain also. It sounds rather odd for France. And more! Paris is a wonderful town. It is a place of the agglomeration of everything extreme. A little time ago, accompanied by a few Frenchmen, I made a round of visits to all sorts of places through the whole night in order to see Paris by night. I saw many night shows to begin with: I saw many gay places: I saw several dens of the poor. Among the shows, that of Niente struck me most. It seemed so strange to entertain visitors with beer at tables which are coffins, and in a room lighted by a chandelier constructed of human bones. A small cave tavern made right in the ground, where the poor were enjoying bocks of beer, and listening to some indifferent musical performance, was also interesting. I asked from where they got the air into the place. The answer was "nowhere." But what impressed me most was a den of the destitute, where the poor get permission to sleep for one night, and to receive a basin of soup, at a total cost of twopence. When I visited the dens, it was far on in the night. I saw some four or five hundred men, clad in rags most of them, leaning on tables, asleep, in different cellars connected by narrow passages, right deep in the ground. Naturally also many were lying on the ground, and several on the stone staircases. These cellars could not have been made for such a purpose, and I was unable to divine for what they had been originally used. Perhaps they had been the cellars of some great wine merchant. I don't think you yourself can have seen such a place, but you can imagine the awfulness of the sight. Indeed, the French gentleman who was with me said he began to feel upset. I am happy to say that we have not such extreme cases of poverty in our country up to the present generation.'