There are of course people who find their account in advocating the rapid adoption of everything European; but their utmost efforts notwithstanding, there is one citadel which will long resist their attacks and remain almost as purely Japanese as in the days of their forefathers. That impregnable citadel is the home; woman is in Japan as elsewhere the greatest conservative element of national life, and within her sphere of influence tradition reigns as supreme as ever. Globe-trotters who advise their friends to visit this country with as little delay as possible for fear that in a few years Old Japan would cease to be, do not reckon with our domestic life. Japanese women are as a class gentle, pliant, and docile; and these qualities stand them in good stead at home. Whether it be that they manage with all their demureness to twist their lords round their little fingers or that the latter are afraid that any change in home life would develop a new revolting woman who would refuse to be as submissive as they are at present, the fact remains that with the mass of the nation there has been little change in the conditions of domestic life. And what these conditions are and how little the influx of new ideas has affected the home of Old Japan, it is the object of the following chapters to relate. CHAPTER II. THE STREETS OF TOKYO. The area and population of Tokyo—Impression of greater populousness—Street improvements—Narrow streets—Shops and sidewalks—Road-making—Dusty roads—Lamps and street repairs—Drainage—Street-names—House-numbers—Incongruities. The area of Tokyo is not so great as is generally supposed. The people of Yedo used to say that their city was ten miles square; but the extreme length, from north-east to south-west, of Tokyo which does not differ materially in its limits from the old city, is no more than eight miles. The actual area is only 18,482 acres, or nearly twenty-nine square miles. The population fell with the decline of the feudal government and was under a million in the early days of the new regime. The registered population returned to one million in 1884. The municipal census which was taken for the first time on the first of October, 1908, gave the settled population as 1,622,856, composed of 872,550 males and 750,306 females, and the number of families as 377,493. This took no account of the floating population which probably exceeds a hundred thousand; there is also a large population, not less than a quarter of a million, which the rise of rents and the facilities of electric-tramway communication have sent outside the administrative limits of the municipality; it forms, properly-speaking, a part of the population of the city.