Since the time of O-Kuni, however, until the present, it has continued to adorn the outside of the theatre, and although it is seen no more in Tokyo, in the shibai of Kyoto and Osaka it is still preserved. The drummer no longer beats his signal from the big-drum tower, but he now performs this duty within the theatre just previous to the drawing of the curtain, making a stirring sound that causes playgoers to hurry to their seats with pleasurable anticipations. By the middle of Meiji a flood of Western stage ideas had begun to inundate Japan. Imported styles of theatre architecture, together with externals, now threaten to supersede those that are so thoroughly characteristic of shibai and have been in existence for so long. Old shibai is passing. It seems but a matter of time before the picturesque externals developed in the three towns in the brave days of old shall have vanished from the land. [Illustration: Crest of Jitsukawa Enjaku (Double well-head).] [Illustration: Crest of Nakamura Fukusuke of Tokyo (Back of plum blossom).] [Illustration: Crest of Onoe Baiko (Chrysanthemum and leaves).] SAKUSHA CHAPTER XXIII CUSTOMS OF THE SAKUSHA The Kabuki playwright, or sakusha (lit., to-make-man), was part and parcel of the theatre. He served the theatre because it was in him to do so, but the smallness of his remuneration and the inferior position assigned to him greatly restricted the scope of his activities and retarded his development. He degenerated finally into a mere drudge of the actors, a menial to carry out their commands. The actors enjoyed the right of way, and while the ideas of the playwright were eagerly seized upon, the sakusha continued to be crushed to the wall. There were no literary men aloof from the theatre to form a higher court of appeal and dictate in the matter of plays. A glimpse of the dignity of the old sakusha and the theatre gatherings in which he figured, as well as some of his customs, is afforded in _Engeki Taizen_, or Complete-Account-of-Drama, by Sekine Mokuan, one of the leading modern writers upon the theatre.