There seems no doubt at all that among the peasantry of Japan one finds the women who have the most freedom and independence. Among this class, all through the country, the women, though hard-worked and possessing few comforts, lead lives of intelligent, independent labor, and have in the family positions as respected and honored as those held by women in America. Their lives are fuller and happier than those of the women of the higher classes, for they are themselves bread-winners, contributing an important part of the family revenue, and they are obeyed and respected accordingly. The Japanese lady, at her marriage, lays aside her independent existence to become the subordinate and servant of her husband and parents-in-law, and her face, as the years go by, shows how much she has given up, how completely she has sacrificed herself to those about her. The Japanese peasant woman, when she marries, works side by side with her husband, finds life full of interest outside of the simple household work, and, as the years go by, her face shows more individuality, more pleasure in life, less suffering and disappointment, than that of her wealthier and less hard-working sister. CHAPTER X. LIFE IN THE CITIES. The great cities of Japan afford remarkable opportunities for seeing the life of the common people, for the little houses and shops, with their open fronts, reveal the _penetralia_ in a way not known in our more secluded homes. The employment of the merchant being formerly the lowest of respectable callings, one does not find even yet in Japan many great stores or a very high standard of business morality, for the business of the country was left in the hands of those who were too stupid or too unambitious to raise themselves above that social class. Hence English and American merchants, who only see Japan from the business side, continually speak of the Japanese as dishonest, tricky, and altogether unreliable, and greatly prefer to deal with the Chinese, who have much of the business virtue that is characteristic of the English as a nation. Only within a few years have the samurai, or indeed any one who was capable of figuring in any higher occupation in life, been willing to adopt the calling of the merchant; but many of the abler Japanese of to-day have begun to see that trade is one of the most important factors of a nation's well-being, and that the business of buying and selling, if wisely and honestly done, is an employment that nobody need be ashamed to enter. There are in Japan a few great merchants whose word may be trusted, and whose obligations will be fulfilled with absolute honesty; but a large part of the buying and selling is still in the hands of mercantile freebooters, who will take an advantage wherever it is possible to get one, in whose morality honesty has no place, and who have not yet discovered the efficacy of that virtue simply as a matter of policy. Their trade, conducted in a small way upon small means, is